THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 Moonshine. PAGE 133.
 
 STORIES AND BALLADS 
 
 FOB YOUJ^G FOLKS. 
 
 By ELLEN TRACY ALDEN. 
 
 (Copyright, 1879.) 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 BOOK EXCH-AJSTG-E, 
 
 TRIBUNE BUILDING. 
 
 1880.
 
 7 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Neighbor Edith 4 
 
 Castle Marvel 13 
 
 A May Morning 18 
 
 Patches and Perseverance 26 
 
 Kate's Great-great-Grandmother 34 
 
 In the Woods 47 
 
 The Old Monsieur's Story 61 
 
 Butternut and Blue 73 
 
 A Secret 77 
 
 Consolation 87 
 
 Julie, Julien and Oncle le Capitaine 94 
 
 The Voices 129 
 
 Moonshine 132 
 
 Sunshine 136 
 
 Czar and Carpenter 144 
 
 Queen Mabel -. 1G6 
 
 Princess Gerda 174 
 
 Jungenthor, the Giant 188 
 
 Little Florence . 208
 
 ii CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK. 
 
 A Centennial Tea-pot 214 
 
 In Lilac Time 218 
 
 Blue Ey%s 221 
 
 The Apple-Gathering 222 
 
 Good-by, Little Bird 223 
 
 He Will Come Back 224 
 
 Katy 226 
 
 Marie 228 
 
 The Banjo 231 
 
 Winsome Maggie 233 
 
 A Happy Pair 235 
 
 Siga Veegs Ofer 238 
 
 The Child on the Battle-Field 239 
 
 Pinkety-Wiukety-Wee 242 
 
 Puss in a Quandary 243 
 
 Lena Laughed 244 
 
 'Tis the Apples 245 
 
 Fooled 2*6 
 
 A New Toy 247 
 
 Charley on Horseback 248 
 
 Cruel ! 249 
 
 Cluck, Cluck ! 250 
 
 Bobbie and the Bee. . . . 250
 
 NEIGHBOR EDITH. 
 
 The north-west wind, driving feathery flakes of snow 
 before it, heaps up gray masses of cloud over the sunny 
 afternoon, and then, as if bent on subduing what cheeri- 
 ness remains among the shadows it has brought, howls 
 dismally down the chimneys, moans at the casements 
 dismally. The Lieutenant throws himself down on the 
 lounge, and draws a long sigh. Kate slips quietly out 
 of the room, catches up her shawl and hat from the 
 rack in the hall, and her brother, hearing her go down 
 the steps into the street, wonders where she is bound 
 for, and why she didn't say something about it, and 
 then falls back into his gloomy reverie. 
 
 "It may be ' sweet for one's country to die ' ; but to 
 live on, a shattered, helpless wreck" and, at the 
 thought, he gripes the curving frame of the lounge with 
 his one hand, and his firm-set lips quiver ; when, sud- 
 denly, without tho faintest footfall to indicate the ap- 
 proach of any one, two little arnife creep about his 
 neck, and between silvry peals of laughter a shower 
 of kisses falls over forehead arid sightless eyes, ori
 
 4 STOEIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 either cheek, on nose, mouth and chin. " There ! " cries 
 a childish, laughing voice, "I surpized you, didn't I? 
 Ha, ha, ha ! " 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " echoes the Lieutenant, coming directly 
 from a horizontal to a sitting posture, his arm around 
 the wee mite, " so you did ' surpize ' me, midget. And 
 where did you come from ? Did you drop out of the 
 sky?/' 
 
 " Out of the sky ! " repeats the little maiden, with a 
 great deal of scorn and emphasis. "Why, I corned right 
 from our house ! Katy corned after me, and we went 
 round to the back door, so you wouldn't hear, and then 
 Katy took off my shoes, and I corned up on tiptoe in 
 my stocking-feet. Ha, ha ! I surpized you, didn't I ? 
 I'm go'n to 'gin ! " and away she rushes across the room 
 and back against him, pell-mell, arms about his neck, 
 and kisses raining all over his face. " There ! how do 
 you like it?" and the room rings with her musical 
 laughter in which the Lieutenant once more joins, 
 with 
 
 " My dear young lady, I must confess that I haven't 
 the least objection to the proceeding." 
 
 " Young fa-day ! " is the slow and scornful rejoin- 
 der ; " young Za-dy ! Why, I'm. a little girl ! " 
 
 " Why, so she is, just a mere baby." 
 
 "A 6a-by ! (the italics are to mark the emphasis) I'm
 
 NEIGHBOR EDITH. 5 
 
 four-years-old big ! /'m no 6a-by ! "Willie's tlie baby. 
 He's got a new tooth ! That makes three six five ! 
 He's got five teeth!" 
 
 " You don't say ! And what is this Edith has in her 
 hands a doll ? " 
 
 "Yes, it's my dolly." 
 
 " What curly hair she has. And this ruffled affair 
 is it an apron?" 
 
 " An a-pron ! It's an over-skirt ! " 
 
 " Oh, I beg pardon ! an 'over-skirt,' is it ? So she's 
 a fashionable doll. What might be her name ? " 
 
 " Guess." 
 
 "Keturah?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Jerusha?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Mary Ann, Sacharissa, Sophia, Clarissa, Joan, Me- 
 lissa, Eloise, Elizabeth, Jane 
 
 "No-o-o-o-o! " 
 
 " Victoria, Eugenia, Augusta, Paulina, Virginia, Au- 
 relia, Geraldine, Mollie 
 
 "Yes! Mollie! that's what it is; but none of your 
 other old elephants. There, you're laughing! You 
 knowed what it was all the time ; you was only per- 
 tendin'. You've seen my dolly before," 
 
 " Where' sKaty?"
 
 6 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 "She stayed down-stairs to pop some corn for me 
 and you." 
 
 " Shall we go down and see her do it? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Yery well." And the Lieutenant, rising, manages to 
 shift little dot up to his shoulder. " There, now, you're 
 a feather on top of a barn-door." 
 
 " You're not a barn-door ! " 
 
 "What am I, then?" 
 
 "You're my brave captain boy." (That was in a 
 whisper.) 
 
 "Shall I tell you what you, are? You're my little 
 angel." And, holding her carefully, he goes down the 
 stairs, feeling his way, now and then, with the remnant 
 of an arm in his dangling right sleeve. 
 
 "I'm almost through," cries Kate, from the kitchen, 
 her face all aglow with the heat. And Edith, from her 
 lofty perch, watches the few yellow kernels that are 
 nearly lost sight of in the bottom of the wire corn- 
 popper, after a shake or two over the hot coals, sud- 
 denly " Snap, snap, snap ! " and look ! it is full to the 
 brim with something white and savory, which, seasoned 
 with salt and the least bit of butter, she deals out (with 
 great fairness and impartiality) to herself and her " cap- 
 tain boy," after they have gone up-stairs again. By 
 and by a thought strikes her, .
 
 JSfEIGHBOK -EDrTH. V 
 
 "Katy, my doll hasn't got any apron." 
 
 "Why, so she hasn't. We'll have to make her one, 
 won't we ?" And a box of ribbons and laces and pieces 
 of silk is produced from somewhere, and the two sit 
 down on the floor near the Lieutenant's chair, talking 
 all the time and planning out this wonderful apron. 
 
 "Now which of all these colors does Edie like best?" 
 asks Kate. 
 
 "Well, I think the red's the nicest." 
 
 So an apron (with pockets, observe !) is soon manu- 
 factured out of a bit of a broad scarlet sash, and braid- 
 ed, too, with white silk braid ; and straightway on it 
 goes, in feverish haste (one is anxious to study the 
 effect, you know), over the stylish (but serene) Madem- 
 oiselle's black satin gown. (The effect isn't bad.) 
 
 After due admiration from Edith, some other diver- 
 sion is in order, and a book of engravings is brought 
 for inspection. As the leaves are turned for her she 
 glances for an instant at one picture after another, giv- 
 ing the word to proceed ; but they finally come to some- 
 thing over which she pores a long while so long that 
 Kate is passing to the next without waiting for the 
 "Go on" from little Miss, when the latter immediately 
 takes the book into her own hands, returns to this pic- 
 ture, and continues to gaze at it. "What does it 
 mean?" at length she asks.
 
 8 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 "Had I better tell her?" Kate, in an under-tone, 
 questions of her brother. "It's Gustave Dore's 'The 
 Deluge' people and wild beasts huddled together 
 upon a rock rising out of the waste of water, and the 
 great, lashing waves reaching up for them greedily, 
 like wide-mouthed monsters. Odd, isn't it, that she 
 should notice it so, among so many more attractive 
 prints? She wouldn't be likely to comprehend if I 
 were to explain, would she? Good, there goes the 
 tea-bell !" And Kate closes the book, glad of an excuse 
 to escape telling the story of the flood to this blithesome 
 little being, whom, she has a dim notion, it might give 
 bad dreams. 
 
 Seated at the supper-table, and elevated to the com- 
 mon level by aid of three sofa-cushions, Edith for a few 
 moments bestows particular attentions upon a sauce- 
 plate of canned peaches, to the utter disregard of more 
 substantial food. After which she sits back in her 
 chair, and, inclining her head toward her hostess, whis- 
 pers 
 
 " Some of the cake, if you please." 
 
 " But you haven't eaten your bread and butter yet ; 
 eat that first, and then you shall have some cake." 
 
 "I want it now," responds the small person, with 
 much firmness, and is directly supplied with the de- 
 sired article a measure which might meet with pro-
 
 NEIGHBOR EDITH. 9 
 
 test if Edith's mamma were present. No, it wouldn't, 
 either, come to thin.k of it, for Edith's mamma knows 
 what are Kate's ideas concerning sweetmeats. Has she 
 not, on a similar occasion, heard her express herself 
 after this manner ? 
 
 " If unfeeling people will persist in denying dainties 
 to the wee folks, they may just keep the stuff out of 
 sight. Set it right where the poor little things can 
 watch it with wistful eyes, and then pass it around to 
 the favored few, but for them ' No, you can't have any. 
 It isn't healthy for you !' If grown-up people can't 
 deny themselves such things, they haven't any right to 
 expect the children to. To require children to show 
 more strength of character than they have themselves ! 
 oh, it's a downright shame ! And then, leaving open 
 the places where the forbidden fruit is kept, and when 
 the midgets climb up the closet-shelves and take a bite, 
 on the sly, finding fault with them ! Leading them in- 
 to temptation (and isn't that what responsible people 
 even pray to be delivered from ?) and then, when the 
 poor little things fall into the very trap they have set, 
 finding fault with them, and lecturing them, and all 
 that nonsense ! Oh, it's a cruel shame ! " 
 
 The speaker, you see, is the children's zealous advo- 
 cate ; and, little people, if ever there is anything you 
 especially covet, or if ever you get into trouble, just go
 
 10 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 to her. She will plead your cause with burning cheeks, 
 and flashing eyes, and such withering eloquence that 
 the stern household judges will not fail to relent. 
 
 But it is after dark, and the snow is falling heavily, 
 and mamma will want her little Edith home. So Kate 
 sets forth with her small charge, well wrapped and pro- 
 tected from the cold although they have but a few 
 steps to go, as Edith lives in the next house. 
 
 When Kate returns, her brother's voice greets her 
 from the parlor with 
 
 " Sukie, heard of the last new poem ? " 
 
 "No. What is it?" 
 
 "Oh, it's an epic! a grand affair second only to 
 the Iliad!" 
 
 " Strange I haven't heard of it, isn't it?" 
 
 ''No, not so very; it hasn't come out yet." 
 
 " How did you hear of it ? Some one been in while 
 I was gone ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Do tell me, what is it about, and who is it by? " 
 
 " It's about a child, I believe but modesty forbids 
 my mentioning the name of the author." 
 
 " Ah, you old rogue, I see what you're driving at ! 
 you've been having a call from the Muse." 
 
 "Bather from some poor vagabond tricked out in 
 her cast-off mantle, you mean."
 
 NEIGHBOE EDITH. 11 
 
 Kate goes and stands behind the high-backed arm- 
 chair, and toys with her brother's jetty locks. (Are 
 they not her pride and consolation those clustering 
 curls ? Not all the flying bullets, and slashing sabres, 
 and ruthless cannon-balls could rob him of those no, 
 nor the weary, wasting sickness that followed the pri- 
 vations and exposure, and left him blind.) " Come, 
 now, "Wallie, stop joking, and let me have the verses, 
 won't you?" 
 
 And so this is what " Wallie " says about 
 
 "NEIGHBOR EDITH." 
 
 Alas ! I cannot see what hue her eyes are, 
 
 Nor yet the color of her silken hair ; 
 Tho' thought consoling ! if I could, I fear me 
 
 She'd be less lavish with her kisses rare. 
 
 I know her lips are dewy as the rose-bud 
 
 "When first it wakes, the flush of dawn to greet ; 
 
 Her breath it fans my face like early zephyr 
 Up from the Southland roving, warm and sweet. 
 
 Her bird-like voice in simple, childish chatter, 
 No better music need you care to hear - 
 
 Unless it be the music of her laughter, 
 
 Like rillet, gurgling now, now tinkling clear. 
 
 And when, in short-lived moods of thoughtful silence, 
 You feel her tiny form against you lean, 
 
 Or when anon her dainty, dimpled fingers 
 Come creeping trustfully your own between,
 
 12 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 Somehow there's soothing in the touch, you fancy, 
 A secret charm for sending grief astray: 
 
 I half believe she is a born magician 
 
 This wee, wee elf the wind could blow away. 
 
 And that is Edith, that is neighbor Edith, 
 Our winsome friend the other side the stile. 
 
 When we're sad-hearted and the days are dreary, 
 We go and borrow her a little while.
 
 CASTLE MABVEL. 
 
 " Heigho-ho ! " yawned Harry, who liad dropped in 
 one evening, and curled himself up in his favorite nook, 
 the chimney-corner. " I wish books had never been 
 invented, or schools either, for that matter. I've been 
 digging away at one of ^Esop's fables for the last two 
 hours, and I can't make any sense out of it at all. It's 
 a lot of stuff about some doves and hawks that got to 
 fighting ; but whether the doves eat up the hawks or 
 not, how's a fellow going to find out? And I got stuck * 
 
 in my algebra, too, and I shaVt have a single decent 
 
 ( 
 
 lesson to-morrow, and then old Williams '11 give me a 
 lecture and a zero, and well, a fellow gets disgusted 
 with that sort of thing for a steady diet. Oh, I tell you 
 I'll be glad when once I'm out of school, and the pesky 
 business is done with ! What's the use of it, anyhow? 
 I wish I didn't have to go another day." 
 
 " But the time would be apt to hang pretty heavily 
 on your hands, wouldn't it ? " 
 
 " Oh, I'd find plenty to do to fill up the time, never 
 you fear ! Now all these splendid days, along back, 
 
 (13)
 
 11 &TOPJE8 AND BALLADS. 
 
 wlien I ought to Lave been clown at the rink, skating, 
 and there I had to sit in that stupid old schoolroom, 
 moping over a desk ! It makes me mad to think of it. 
 But I came over I got so tired studying. I thought 
 maybe you'd have some story or other to tell, Lieuten- 
 ant." 
 
 " A story ; what is there you haven't heard, I wonder ? 
 I'm afraid my stock of stories has about run out. Let 
 me see, though, have you ever heard about Castle 
 Marvel?" 
 
 " A castle ! that's the kind I like about castles ! no, 
 I never heard it." 
 
 " Well, this was a famous castle that stood upon a 
 high mountain, and that people sometimes went to see. 
 Among the rest, there went from a certain city a com- 
 pany of youths. Now, their route lay across a sunny 
 plain that was like a very fairy-land ; flowers covered 
 it with every hue of the rainbow, and over these hovered 
 clouds of golden-winged butterflies ; and in the shady 
 groves zephyrs sang and birds caroled as never sang 
 zephyrs or caroled birds anywhere else. 
 
 " And, so, many of the youths tarried, saying, ' It is 
 pdeasant here ; let us gather roses ;' or, ' Let us chase 
 butterflies ;' or, ' Let us lie down under the wide- 
 spreading branches, and listen to the music overhead.' 
 The others, hastening onward, reached, at length, the
 
 CASTLE MAIIVEL. I* 
 
 foot of the mountain, and began to ascend. But to 
 climb this mountain was by no means an easy task ; for, 
 while in somo places it was very steep, in others a per- 
 pendicular'' and seemingly impassable wall wquld con- 
 front the weary traveler ; and there were chasms, too, 
 which must be crossed ; but over most of these bridges 
 had been built ; and where the way was steep and slip- 
 pery steps had been hewn among the rocks ; and up 
 the granite walls places had been cut for hands and 
 feet ; and all this had been done by travelers who had 
 previously ascended aye, with untold hardships, and 
 often at the risk of their lives. But now, in climbing, 
 so had the way been opened before them, these youths 
 met with no peril, only with labor and weariness, here 
 and there. And yet, ever, a 3 they toiled upward, would 
 one and another turn back, discouraged, to rejoin the 
 comrades below, declaring that the sight of the castle 
 was not worth so much pains. 
 
 "Now to these pleasure-seekers in the flowery 
 meadows after a time returned the venturesome few 
 who had succeeded in gaining the summit, and they 
 were greeted with loud cries of astonishment for be- 
 hold, their faces shone wondrously, flooded as if with 
 light, and they seemed Tike beings from another world. 
 
 "'Tell us, what have you seen, or what have you 
 heard, that your countenances should be thus altered ? ' 
 demanded the curious throng.
 
 1G ST02IES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " ' All, friends,' replied the others, ' would that we 
 might tell you the half of what we have seen, the half 
 of what we have heard. Truly marvelous is this castle 
 which we have visited, and beyond the power of words 
 to describe. We may, indeed, relate to you how, from 
 its windows, we beheld the fair earth, from pole to pole, 
 spread out before us in new and undreamed-of beauty ; 
 how we found secret stairways which led us to the 
 burning heart of this same earth ; how, through mys- 
 terious passage-ways, we were guided to the silent and 
 strangely-peopled valleys of the sea ; how, by tower and 
 turret, we mounted to dizzy heights, from whence we 
 could peer in among the stars, and catch a glimpse of 
 the glory lying beyond ; how all the way, from lowest 
 foundation-stone to loftiest pinnacle, they who went up 
 before us had carved inscriptions, revealing in what 
 manner the world has fared even from its creation ; 
 how, passing to and fro, our questions were answered, 
 our doubts were quieted, and we were filled with such 
 delight as is only known to them who go up thither 
 this much, and more we may relate, and yet but a faint 
 idea will you have of that mighty structure. Oh, friends, 
 so vast it is, so wide, so high, so deep down extend its 
 massive walls, that, though one should wander a life- 
 time within its gates, still many portions would be un- 
 known to him ; so free and open to all it is, that whoever
 
 CASTLE MARVEL. 17 
 
 will may abide there, continually feasted and royally 
 entertained ; so magnificent it is, that whether you go 
 up or down, whether you follow corridors that lead 
 on, and ever on, or loiter in spacious treasure-halls, 
 golden is the ceiling, crystal is the pavement, riches 
 and splendor meet you at every turn, and you tread 
 upon diamonds which are yours but for the picking up ; 
 and what is most marvelous about* the castle is this 
 the more of these rare jewels that are gathered and car- 
 ried away, the more remain.' 
 
 " Then the idlers, seeing their companions laden with 
 precious gems, sparkling in the sunlight, could not 
 doubt the trathfulness of this report ; and they said : 
 ' Let us go up also, to be enriched, and to see those 
 wonderful sights.' But when they began to climb they 
 discovered that their strength had departed, and that 
 their eyes were dimmed so that they could not find the 
 path ; and they now first became aware of how the 
 years had flown while they had been lingering among 
 the pleasant fields, and that in the feebleness of age 
 they were no longer able to mount upward. And they 
 sat down and wept with regret, and nevermore ceased 
 sighing, because of the years they had wasted below." 
 
 "There's a Hcec fabula docct to that story, I suspect," 
 said Harry, good-naturedly, aft'er staring awhile at the 
 fire. " But I'll forgive you, as it's the only one of that 
 sort I ever heard you tell."
 
 A MAY MORNING. 
 
 It is one of those first bright, pleasant days, so wel- 
 come after the rains and clouds that follow the long 
 siege of winter. With the sunbeams so warm, and 
 the air so soft and balmy, who can choose to stay in- 
 doors? The Lieutenant draws his chair out to the 
 porch, and is presently joined by Harry, who mounts 
 the railing and proceeds to relate an adventure he had 
 the other night. . 
 
 " You see we were out on the lake, fishing -a lot of 
 us, and we'd caught about a dozen trout, when up come 
 a storm a regular gale. Boat capsized ; out we went 
 into the water. Rain pouring down in torrents, and so 
 dark you couldn't see your hand before you. Tell you 
 we had to swim for it. But we got ashore at last, and 
 they took us in at a house close by, and dried our 
 clothes for us, and gave us some supper, and wo had a 
 regular jolly time of it, after all." 
 
 "Yes, I hoard about that excursion of yours from 
 another source, and about a boy by the name of Harry 
 who saved another boy from drowning.''
 
 A MAY MORNING. 19 
 
 "No! did you, though? Well, you see he didn't 
 know much about swimming, and it was my doings, his 
 going with us, and if anything had happened to him 
 I'd have bsen to blame. But, I tell you, I thought one 
 time there we were both goners, sure. Hallo, Edith!" 
 
 " See my new hat ! " she cries, climbing up the steps. 
 " I and mamma bought it down street this very morn- 
 ing. See, it's all trimmed with blue ribbons ! " 
 
 "Yes, it's really pooty. There comes Marie Maross 
 with her instruction book ; she's been taking a music 
 lesson. Say, Marie, come in and sit down, won't you? 
 You look tired. Professor cross this morning? " 
 
 "Yes," responds ^Marie, readily accepting the invita- 
 tion. " He says I don't half practice my lessons, and 
 it's no such thing ! I practiced a whole half an hour 
 yesterday, and on those wretched scales, too ! they're 
 enough to drive one distracted." 
 
 Harry glares at the gate-post as if it were the pro- 
 fessor himself, and he is about to express, in strong 
 terms, his poor opinion of professors of music gener- 
 ally, when 
 
 "Che! cheree! cheree! te-hee, hee, ha, ha, ha!" 
 laughs Robin Redbreast among the budding branches 
 overhead. What is he cocking his shrewd black eye at 
 the two on the steps below for ? looking for all the 
 world as though he had seen them before now passing
 
 20 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 notes to each other in that " horrid old school-room," 
 when " Old "Williams " wasn't watching. 
 
 But hush, you, Sir Robin, and hush, every one. 
 Marie lifts her hand to impose silence ; for, see, there 
 is a wee gray sparrow prospecting about a moss basket 
 hanging in the porch, evidently in search of a good 
 building site. 
 
 But here comes the mail-carrier, who cannot stop for 
 such trifles. As he rapidly approaches Mrs. Sparrow 
 flies away. 
 
 Kate, who has been setting out tulip-bulbs in her 
 flower-beds in the back-yard, comes to look over the 
 letters. This one, from a small boy, she reads aloud: 
 
 DEEB COZEN KATE 
 
 an Walter i can't find ennything but this led pen- 
 cil to rite with fur they're housecleening an the inks all spillt on 
 the carpit an the pens lost an the paper lockt up in the riting 
 desk an nobody can find the kee and Briget shes cross she sez ive 
 got to stop running all over the flore whare she scrubd it and so i 
 tore this page out of my gografy whare it isnt printid i most 
 made a bote to sale on our pond fur its chuckfull ov water an some- 
 body swept it up an thru it into the fire when I get to be a Man 
 an have a house ov my own I wont have enny housecleening going 
 on never. BOB. 
 
 " Them's my sentiments exactly," says Harry. " It's 
 been just so at our house now for a week. Every- 
 thing's topsy-turvy, and you can't find a place to rest 
 the sole of your foot. And cross ? my ! I thought Ann
 
 A MAY MORNING. 21 
 
 would take my head off, this morning, when I tumbled 
 against her mop-pail and tipped it over." 
 
 " Will you please give these to Mr. Walter? " 
 It is bashful little Bessie, on her way home from a 
 ramble in the distant wood, who whispers in Kate's ear, 
 as she offers a bunch of spring beauties gathered there, 
 and blossoms plucked from a wayside apple-tree. Mr. 
 Walter receives them with a smile of recognition, for 
 who does not love the odor of apple-blossoms ? 
 
 The blushing Bessie is straightway reassured and 
 gratified by the following fable improvised for the occa- 
 sion : 
 
 Once on a time, in early dawn of summer, 
 
 Among the trees the question chanced to rise 
 "Which of us is the fairest, the most comely ? " 
 A towering pine tree boasted in this wise: 
 
 "Behold me, all ye puny ones, behold me ! 
 
 Look at my shoulders reaching to the sky! 
 Look at my tasseled mantle green forever ! 
 How can ye doubt or question ? here am I! 
 
 A stately elm tree upward gazed a moment, 
 
 In acquiescence bent her regal head: 
 "Aye, thou art tall and gayly decked, my brother, 
 But I have more of symmetry," she said. 
 
 A languid willow, musing, softly murmured: 
 " Yes, shapely is the elm, and tall the pine; 
 But see, oh, friends (she made a sweeping courtesy), 
 You must admit that gracefulness is mine." 
 
 "All, well, that's not the point," replied a maple; 
 " 'Tis not of grace we're talking, not at all;
 
 22 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 And as for form, why, I am%ell proportioned: 
 And as for height, why, one may be loo tall." 
 
 "Hold ! " cried a tulip tree; " am I not shapely ? 
 
 And illy would the pine tree's tassels green 
 Compare with these broad leaves, so smooth and shining, 
 Or with l^he bells of bloom that swing between ! " 
 
 "Conceited fools ! " a gnarly old oak grumbled; 
 "Bragging of your fine clothes and shape and length ! 
 Bah, with your silly prate and idle prattle ! 
 
 There is most beauty where there is most strength ! " 
 
 At that a plain, ill-favored tree took courage, 
 " And I, too I am rugged ! I am stout ! " 
 The little saplings sidelong glanced and giggled, 
 The grown-up trees did toss their heads and shout; 
 
 And, one and all, they laughed and laughed together, 
 
 And, one and all, together did they say : 
 
 " Oh, listen ! ugly scrub lays claim to beauty ! 
 
 Who ever heard the like before to-day !" 
 
 But Mother Nature frowned at their derision, 
 Seeing the humble tree with grief downcast; 
 
 Her wand she lifted lo ! the slighted claimant 
 In comeliness all other trees surpassed ! 
 
 A downy robe the knotted limbs enveloped, 
 
 In folds whose fragrance thrilled the wond'ring air 
 
 A robe of pale, rose-tinted blossoms woven ! 
 Arcazed and breathless did the scoffers stare. 
 
 And, one and all, they turned from jest and laughter, 
 
 And, one and all, together whispered they: 
 " Behold, behold the garment of our brother ! 
 Who ever saw the like before to-day 1 "
 
 A MAY MOKNING. 23 
 
 
 Since then, alway, in early dawn of summer, 
 
 Dame Nature lifts lier wand the trees to shame 
 Who envy him that wears the apple blossoms 
 And wish they had not mocked his modest claim. 
 
 But listen will you '? to this score of lads and lasses, 
 Bessie's companions (freed from school, for it is Satur- 
 day), who, laden with wild flowers and mosses and ferns, 
 have meanwhile established themselves on the steps, 
 and are chattering like a flock of blackbirds : 
 
 " Oh, we've had lots of fun, and I'm awfully tired. 
 Will you believe it ? I ran over a snake ! Dear me, 
 how scared I was ! " (A girl, of course.) 
 
 " Sho ! you needn't have been afraid of such a harm- 
 less little snake as that ; I'd just as soon take it up in 
 my hand as not !" (A boy, of course.) 
 
 "Why didn't you, then? Ha, ha! I'd like to have seen 
 you." 
 
 " See, Marie, what a pretty toad-stool I found, all 
 scarlet inside ; and Fred, he's got a lot of snail-shells 
 in his pocket." 
 
 " If I'd only had a gun along I could have popped 
 over two or three red squirrels." 
 
 " Oh h h ! it would be cruel to kill the dear, sweet, 
 cunning little creatures." 
 
 " Don't be alarmed, puss ; he couldn't fire off a gun 
 to save his life,"
 
 24 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " Oh, the quantities of Bobolinks we saw in the mea- 
 dows ! If you could only have heard them sing " 
 
 Ting-a-ling, 
 Ting-a-ling, ling. 
 
 Everybody stares at the apparition. He has stolen 
 a march upon them that little tawny Italian, down 
 there in the street, gazing up at the merry group, with 
 a weary sort of smile, as his slender fingers toy with 
 the strings of his instrument, bringing forth many a 
 plaintive air. Soon the music ceases, and the tattered 
 hat is passed around. But he may not go yet ; his audi- 
 ence is clamoring for a song. " An Italian song," cries 
 Marie. And so, to the accompaniment of his guitar, he 
 sings in his native tongue a little ballad which runs 
 something after this fashion : 
 
 Wandering, wandering all the world over, 
 
 Hither and thither, and to and fro, 
 Free as the wind the rollicking rover, 
 
 Lightly humming and thrumming I go. 
 
 Free as the wind to linger and tarry, 
 
 Free as the wind to hasten afar, 
 All my wealth in my hands I carry 
 
 Look, behold it my gay guitar ! 
 
 Gold and houses and lands encumber, 
 
 Never king, in his palace high, 
 Slumber'd as sweetly as I slumber, 
 
 Under the clear, unclouded sky.
 
 A MAY MOKNING. 25 
 
 Free as the wind, the rollicking rover, 
 
 Little of trouble or care I know, 
 Wandering, wandering all the world over, 
 
 Hither and thither, and to and fro. 
 
 And off he goes with his merry song, and his weary 
 smile, and his pockets jingling with pennies ; and is 
 succeeded by a fair-haired Norwegian, with a basket on 
 his head, crying, " Oranges, oranges ! " 
 
 Harry rushes down, and buys him out of the stock in 
 hand, and before any one has time to protest, begins to 
 treat the assembled company. So it was for this feast 
 "vhat the round, golden fruit has been, all these months, 
 masking and ripening and gathering fragrance and 
 sweetness from the rays that gladden a land of perpet- 
 ual summer. 
 
 " What's this a picnic ? " asks a gentleman in uni- 
 form, who has come to call upon the Lieutenant. The 
 youngsters follow with their eyes the blue coat and 
 bright buttons disappearing through the open door- 
 way, then they slowly disperse ; and Ponto, the great 
 shaggy Newfoundlander, is left alone, dozing upon the 
 mat. And the wee, gray sparrow returns with a wisp 
 of horse-hair, and commences to build her nest.
 
 PATCHES AND PEESEVEEANCE. 
 
 " There goes Patches ! " 
 
 " Hallo, Patches ! " 
 
 Sitting in the porch, in the twilight of a June after- 
 noon, Kate overhears those cruel taunts. " Oh-h-h ! " 
 she exclaims in smothered indignation, the hot flush 
 mounting up her forehead. 
 
 " What is it, sister ? " asks the Lieutenant. 
 
 " Oh, Walter, there are some boys down there in the 
 street, calling names at a little newsboy, and making 
 sport of his poor, patched clothes. And he looks so 
 downhearted and discouraged poor little fellow ! Oh, 
 it's too bad ! I wish you could say something to him 
 to comfort him. Mrs. McAllister was telling me about 
 them the other day. His mother is a widow and does 
 washings, and there are other children he the eldest ; 
 and he is so kind and thoughtful, and does everything 
 he can to help her ; goes around town, out of school- 
 hours, running on errands and carrying newspapers. I 
 know what I'll do " but her plan for a new suit of 
 clothes is suddenly broken in upon by the boy ap- 
 
 (2G)
 
 PATCHES AND PERSEVERANCE. 27 
 
 preaching, and handing her the evening paper, damp, 
 jusfc from the press. 
 
 "How many more of those have you to deliver?" 
 Walter inquires. 
 
 " Only about a dozen." 
 
 " Well, when you get through, and if you are not 
 otherwise engaged, I'd like to have your company for a 
 walk. You see," he adds, with a smile, " I haven't any 
 eyes, myself, to find the way with ; and it's such a fine 
 evening I believe I'd like to go yes, as far as the 
 Park." 
 
 The boy looks up into the blind man's face, Kate 
 thinks, as if he would be willing to go to the ends of 
 the earth with him. 
 
 " Yes, sir, I'll be back in a few minutes," he says, 
 hurrying away. 
 
 In one corner of the Park there is a shady, secluded 
 nook a clump of trees all overgrown with vines, with 
 rustic seats underneath. As Walter and his companion 
 rest there after their long walk, the moonbeams shining 
 softly down between the leaves, all at once a sob breaks 
 the stillness, followed by another and another, and then 
 they come thick and fast. Now the Lieutenant does 
 not ask, "What's the matter, little boy?" as a great 
 many thoughtless people would ; for he remembers 
 very well that one doesn't like to be asked such ques-
 
 28 .STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 tions when one is crying. Besides, doesn't lie know 
 what the matter is ? He can picture to himself the 
 wearisome life the poor child leads ill-fed, ill-shel- 
 tered, ill-clad, half the year pinched with hunger and 
 cold, half the year breathing the close, pent-up air of 
 some wretched tenement in his brave struggle to help 
 his widowed mother, not always able to find work ; 
 knocked about by ruffian newsboys, sneered at by 
 thoughtless schoolmates, little heeded or noticed by 
 anybody ; till he looks downhearted, as Kate says, and 
 the very tones of his voice are grown dreary and sor- 
 rowful. Thinking of all this, the Lieutenant cannot sit 
 there like a block of stone, and listen to those stifled 
 sobs. So, as there is nothing to be said, he leans over, 
 and with that one arm of his about the slight figure, 
 draws it close to his side. 
 
 " Oh, you're so good ! " murmurs the tearful voice, 
 as the lad rests his head against the friendly shoulder. 
 " It's that that makes such a baby of me. I can't help 
 it. Other folks ain't like that. Other folks don't talk 
 to me pleasant about this and that as you did all the 
 way. Other folks oh!" and with that the slender 
 form is shaken again with sobs. 
 
 " Ah, but those other folks who treat you so, you are 
 going to make them sorry for it, some day." 
 
 " How ? " The dreary young voice is full of wonder.
 
 PATCHES AND PEKSEVERAJSfCE. 29 
 
 " How ? Let me tell you a little story. Years ago 
 a young printer went to New York City to find work. 
 He hadn't any fine clothes, and scarcely any money, 
 and I doubt if in all that great city there was a single 
 person that he knew. After much searching he found 
 something to do ; and in the office where he was em- 
 ployed the other printers delighted in annoying him, 
 playing jokes upon him, and daubing his light- colored 
 hair with ink. I wouldn't wonder if this sort of treat- 
 ment made him feel sad and homesick, sometimes, and 
 wish he was back again among the mountains where 
 he came from. However, he paid little attention to it ; 
 he worked all day, faithfully, and at night he read and 
 studied a good deal ; and when he couldn't afford to 
 pay for a light to study by, he would take his book out 
 by the street-lamp and study there sometimes when 
 it was cold, too. Wasn't he persevering ? "Well, he 
 worked, and read, and studied, and persevered, till he 
 got to be an editor ; yes, in time he became the most 
 famous editor or journalist, some would call it the 
 most famous one that ever lived. Last fall he died 
 this man who was once a penniless, friendless boy 
 and at the news of his death there was sadness all over 
 the country ; and, at his burial, thousands and thous- 
 ands of people crowded those same streets where he 
 used to read, shivering, by the lamp-light ; thousands
 
 30 STOEJDES AND BALLADS. 
 
 an 1 thousands went to get a glimpse of his dead face, 
 and wept over it, because he had helped them and they 
 loved him a,nd were sorry he was gone. 
 
 " Oh, was it Horace Greeley ? " the lad whispers, 
 (lie has stopped crying now.) 
 
 " You have guessed." 
 
 "I've thought, sometimes," says the boy, presently, 
 in a hesitating way " I never told it to anybody 
 before but I've thought I'd like to be great, too, some 
 time, to be a lawyer and and go to Congress and 
 oh, I never told it to anybody before, because it's fool- 
 ish, I know, and they'd laugh at me. I can't help 
 thinking about it, though. But of course there's no 
 hope for me." 
 
 " Ah, but there is, though ! I doubt if our Vice- 
 President thought there was much hope of his ever go- 
 ing to Congress when, in his youth, he was earning his 
 livelihood in a shoemaker's shop. But, you see, ho kept 
 pegging away ; when it wasn't at boots and shoes it was 
 at books, at gaining knowledge, and making the most of 
 the talents that were given him, working his way up, inch 
 by inch, till he became congressman, surely, till now he 
 presides over the Senate. And our President, at your 
 age, little dreamed that he would ever be called upon 
 to control a great army, to plan campaigns and sieges, 
 to ' fight it out all summer on thi-3 line,' as you have
 
 PATCHES AND PERSEVERANCE. 31 
 
 heard about persevering, you see and so to put an 
 end to the bloody war, and be chosen once and again 
 to the highest office in the land like Washington, long 
 ago. Yes, it's perseverance that does it. Did you ever 
 hear of Cyrus Field, the man who brought the Old 
 World and the New nearer together by his Atlantic 
 cable ? When he first proposed to do it, to send dis- 
 patches through two thousand miles of water, that 
 seemed to every one a very absurd idea. But when his 
 cable was finished and ready to be laid, then people 
 began to be interested ; indeed, they were really ex- 
 cited over it, and it was quite the fashion to wear 
 attached to one's watch-chain a bit of that gutta-per- 
 cha cable, set in gold. But the cable, or telegraph, 
 was a failure, after all ; it didn't ' work.' So people 
 disbelieved once more, and lost interest in the enter- 
 prise, and took the bits of gutta-percha from their 
 watch-chains, and put them away out of sight and of 
 mind. And it fared with the experimenter just as it 
 fared with those trinkets. But years passed by, and 
 lo ! one day, to everybody's surprise, the President re- 
 ceived from Queen Victoria a polite message that had 
 taken but a few moments to cross the wide Atlantic. And 
 now, you know, Europe and America can talk with each 
 other almost as easily as you and I here, sitting side by 
 side. For what had Cvrus Field been doing all that
 
 32 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 time that nobody took any notice of him ? He had 
 been making trial after trial, and failure after failure, 
 and losing fortune, and, very likely, friends, but never 
 losing hope. So he persevered and succeeded, at last. 
 And who does your history say discovered America? " 
 
 "Christopher Columbus." 
 
 " Well, this Christopher Columbus of whom all the 
 histories tell and everybody knows, he was only a 
 sailor boy, once, roving about in the Mediterranean, 
 with small chance of ever becoming noted. As little 
 chance would it seem there was when, years later, he 
 went from court to court, vainly asking aid to carry out 
 his project. People had hardly begun, yet, to credit 
 the notion that the world was round ; and this tall, sad- 
 eyed, white-haired, shabbily dressed stranger, with his 
 maps and his charts, and his plans for sailing straight 
 West to India, wiio was going to listen to him ? Kings 
 and queens were unwilling to see him o,r give him an 
 opportunity to explain, courtiers ridiculed him, chil- 
 dren in the street would point to their foreheads, as he 
 passed by, and call out to each other, 'Look at the 
 crazy Italian! ' But often disappointed, always hoping 
 and persevering, he stuck to his project, and finally, 
 after eighteen long years of waiting and fruitless effort, 
 he got the help he wanted and started on his voyage, 
 and so found not India, but America."
 
 PATCHES AND PEKSEVERANCE. 33 
 
 And as the Lieutenant and his young guide walk 
 slowly homeward through the silent, moonlit avenues, 
 he speaks of Lincoln, of Herder, of Ferguson, of Bee- 
 thoven, of Sir William Herschel, and of others who 
 have risen from poverty and obscurity to honor and 
 renown; many of them "self-made," as it is called, 
 toiling patiently and unaided up that steep hill where 
 the laurels grow. 
 
 Kate hears the hopeful ring in the lad's voice as he 
 says " Good night " to his friend, and through the open 
 window she sees the hopeful expression upon his face 
 as he turns away, glancing down rather proudly at the 
 jacket that is mended with pieces of many shades, and 
 the boots that have been patched and patched again. 
 " What can you have been saying to him, Walter ? " she 
 wonders. " Oh, if you could only have seen his face 
 just now ! He doesn't look like the same boy." And 
 Walter musingly repeats those lines with which every 
 " wide-awake " American boy and girl is familiar. For 
 was it not Longfellow who wrote them ? 
 
 "Lives of great men all remind us 
 
 We may make our lives sublime, 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 Footprints on the sands of time ; 
 
 " Footprints that perchance another, 
 
 Sailing o'er life's solemn main, 
 Some forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 
 Seeing, shall take heart again."
 
 34 STORIES AKD BALLADS. 
 
 When, just before breakfast, Kate opens the door to 
 look for the morning paper, what does she find lying 
 there on the threshold beside it? Fresh water-lilies 
 the like of which are not to be found nearer than the 
 lake miles away. "He has been all that way and 
 back, this morning ! bless his little heart ! " she ex- 
 claims, in astonishment, as she carries them to her 
 brother, breathing a thousand sweetest " Thank-you's," 
 from among their snowy petals. And you may be sure 
 that those patched garments will soon be replaced by 
 others nice and new.
 
 KATE'S GREAT-GEEAT-GEANDMOTHER. 
 
 " I'd like to know," exclaims Marie, " if there weren't 
 any heroines as well as heroes in the time of the Revo- 
 lution. Now down there in the Park to-day, while they 
 were having their orations, and Mr. Higby got to talking 
 about the Revolution " 
 
 " Come now," breaks in Harry, " you don't mean to 
 pretend you heard a word he said ! " 
 
 " Indeed I do ! I listened first-rate along at first. 
 Katy, mustn't he stop interrupting ? Well, all I was 
 going to say was, that when he got to talking about the 
 Revolution it was all about the forefathers that he got 
 so eloquent, and never a word about the mothers ! As 
 if they weren't patriotic, too, and of some account ! Don't 
 you suppose they were? " 
 
 "Kate," slyly observes her brother, " here's another 
 fine opportunity for you to hold forth on the subject of 
 your great-great-grandmother." 
 
 " Ah ! just as though you weren \ every whit as proud 
 of her as I am ! " 
 
 " Oh, my ! did you have a great-great-grandmother ? " 
 
 (35}
 
 36 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 cries the enthusiastic Marie. "Do tell us about 
 her." 
 
 "Yes, do, Miss Katy," says Harry, seconding the 
 motion as he watches a sky-rocket shooting upward, 
 leaving a gleaming train as it curves "through the air. 
 For this is the evening of the " Glorious Fourth," and 
 the speakers are all out in the porch, where a good view 
 can be had of the display of fireworks down at the cor- 
 ner of the street. 
 
 " Well, then, Harry, you know about the battle of 
 Cowpens, in South Carolina? " 
 
 " Yes, where the British thought they had won the 
 day, sure, and Morgan brought up his dragoons, and 
 they cut and slashed right and left, and put the Red- 
 coats to flight, and took a lot of prisoners." 
 
 " What are dragoons ?" inquires Marie. 
 
 "Mounted troops cavalry. Oh, but didn't they 
 pitch into 'em good with their swords ! Wish Td 
 been there." 
 
 " And then you know, Harry, how Cornwallis pur- 
 sued Morgan, in hopes of recovering the prisoners ; 
 and how General Greene had .to come to Morgan's 
 rescue. By the way, Walter, I don't know exactly why, 
 but somehow all I hear of Sherman in the last war re- 
 minds me of that General Greene." 
 
 " And did your great-great-grand mother live around 
 there anywheres ? "
 
 KATE'S GREAT-GREAT-GRANDMOTHER. 37 
 
 " Yes, Marie. But yon mustn't think of her as a grand- 
 mother at all, with gray hair and cap and spectacles ; for 
 she was only a young girl then. There's a portrait of 
 her painted a few years after. They have it at Uncle 
 Robert's little Rob's father, you know. There she 
 sits, with her arms folded ; and she wears a brocade 
 silk, with much lace about the low neck and flowing 
 sleeves ; and her hair is combed straight up from the 
 forehead over a roll, and coiled high at the back of 
 the head, very much as the style is now only I sup- 
 pose it was all her own, for switches hadn't yet been 
 thought of." 
 ^ And did she do something brave ? " 
 
 " So the story goes. She was an orphan, you see, 
 and lived with her uncle, who was a hot-tempered old 
 Tory, and all his sons and daughters the same. But, 
 perhaps because they weren't as good to her as they 
 might have been, she took it into her head to be- 
 lieve some other way sympathized with the rebels, 
 you know. But she took care not to let any one find 
 that out, which no one was likely to, for she was so 
 young, only sixteen just two years older than you, 
 Marie people wouldn't be questioning her about pol- 
 itics. Well, it was just at this time, when Cornwallis was 
 chasing up Morgan, that there came one rainy evening 
 to her uncle's a small detachment of British troops',
 
 38 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 with some Americans belonging to Morgan's force 
 whom they had captured the day previous, and asked 
 for lodgings for the night. Her uncle welcomed them 
 heartily, and gave them a room where they could lock 
 up their prisoners, and ordered Chloe, the black cook, 
 to get up a grand supper for them. Grand ? I don't 
 suppose it was what would be called a grand supper 
 nowadays. I presume it consisted largely of game 
 from the forest, venison, and the like not much in the 
 way of dessert and nick-nacks, you know. While the 
 British were feasting in the dining-room, Kate we 
 may as well call her Kate, for I forgot to tell you that 
 I was named after her slipped into the kitchen, and 
 managed, unseen, to fill a basket with some of that 
 plentiful supper, and creep with it up a back stairway 
 to the store-room or garret at the top of the house. 
 Now the room where the prisoners were locked in was 
 in the second story, and had no window ; but in the 
 ceiling there was a trap-door that opened into the gar- 
 ret. Kate raised this door or rather, it was a mere 
 piece of plank and let down the basket by a rope. 
 And the prisoners, looking up and catching sight of her 
 friendly face by the light of the candle she held, were 
 gladdened, you may be sure. Ah, poor fellows, and 
 they were hungry, too ; hadn't had a mouthful for two 
 days. (Indeed, they had been oni in search of game,
 
 But in the ceiling there was a trap-door that opened into the garret. 
 PAGE 38.
 
 KATE'S GKEAT-GREAT-GKANDMOTHEE. 39 
 
 That was the way they happened to be caught.) ' Was 
 there any way under the sun for them to get out of 
 there ? ' they asked her. Yes ; she told them of a way 
 she had thought of, but they would have to be very still 
 about it, and wait till everybody in the house had gone 
 to sleep. Then she closed the door again, but she was 
 careful to take the basket with her, lest the Red-coats 
 might look in before retiring, and find it there and 
 suspect something was wrong. They did look in, too. 
 There were the prisoners, all secure. Then they locked 
 and bolted the door again, and for further security sta- 
 tioned a guard outside. ^.When Kate found out about 
 the guard she trembled for her plans. But toward 
 midnight she peeped into the hall and saw him nod- 
 ding sleepily, for he and his comrades, as well as their 
 officers, had been making free with her uncle's wine. 
 In those days it was the custom to keep quantities of 
 wine even in private houses, and to use it freely at the 
 table." 
 
 "Nothing of that sort going on nowadays ! " 
 " I am sorry to say so, Harry, but I suppose there is ; 
 though not so generally the practice, I am sure at 
 least, not in this country. Well, Kate crept up to the 
 garret again, by the same way as before, and she low- 
 ered a ladder oh, so still ! to those six prisoners, and 
 one by one thoy climbed up softly through the little
 
 40 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 trap-door in the ceiling oh, it was just the least mite 
 of an opening, hardly large enough for a person to crawl 
 through ; but then I suppose that one could manage to 
 squeeze through a pretty small space for the sake of 
 regaining one's liberty 
 
 " That's so ! " says Harry, speaking, doubtless, from 
 experience. 
 
 "Now, you mustn't interrupt again!" says Marie; 
 " just when they're all climbing up, too ; and I'm so 
 afraid that sentinel there in the hall outside will hear ! 
 But, oh, Katy, when they're all up in the garret how 
 ever is she going to get them away from there ? Won't 
 somebody wake up and hear while she's getting them 
 all clown that back stairway ? " 
 
 "No, they didn't go down that way. You see this 
 garret was used for a store-room for flour and grocer- 
 ies, and the like ; for the place was so far from any mill 
 or market, that when they sent to the nearest town they 
 used to purchase all those things in large quantities. 
 So, for convenience in storing away articles, a stairway 
 had been built up against the outside of the house." 
 
 " Oh, and there was an outside door to the garret ! 
 What a dear, delicious old house, with stairways and 
 trap-doors, and everything all fixed just right to help 
 those poor prisoners off ! " 
 
 " Now, you mustn't interrupt again ! " says a mock- 
 ing voice.
 
 KATE'S GEEAT-GBEAT-GEANDMOTHER. 41 
 
 " Down they went, under the dripping eaves ; but 
 when they reached the ground and held a whispered 
 consultation, it came out that they hadn't the slightest 
 idea in which direction to go to join their commander ; 
 for they were all from the north, and perfectly unac- 
 quainted with the country. ' Could the kind young lady 
 give them some directions ? ' 'I will go as guide,' she 
 said. So they helped themselves to the six chargers 
 of the six British officers sleeping snugly under her 
 uncle's roof, and she mounted her little sorrel pony, 
 and away they went, through the rain and the darkness 
 slowly at first, lest the trampling of the horses' feet 
 should be heard, which likely would have been the case 
 but for the ground being softened by the rain ; after 
 that they dashed along swiftly over hills and through 
 forests, for it was a wild, uncultivated region through 
 which their route lay. After riding a few miles they 
 reached a rapid stream, so swollen by the freshets 
 which prevailed just then it was in January so deep 
 and rapid that it was almost impossible for the soldiers, 
 even on their stout war-horses, to ford it, for there was 
 no bridge. Kate and her little pony would surely have 
 been swept awa} r . So, as she could go no farther, she 
 told them as clearly as she could how they were to turn 
 to the right at such a cross-road, and to the left at an- 
 other, and to the right again when they came to a cer-
 
 42 STORIES AND BALLADS. . . 
 
 tain old church ; and if they kept straight ahead when 
 they came to a certain tall pine tree, standing all alone 
 by itself, they would reach the place where they ex- 
 pected to find Morgan. (As he was on the move all the 
 time they couldn't be so sure about that.) So, with a 
 ' God bless you ! ' from the leader, which all his com- 
 panions echoed, they plunged into the roaring torrent, 
 and she turned back through the forest where there 
 were fierce bears and panthers, mind you ; but fortu- 
 nately the rain kept them in their dens that night. 
 
 "When she reached home, all was as dark and silent 
 as when she left ; and when she peeped out again from 
 her room, there was the guard nodding as before ; but 
 not really asleep. He hadn't heard a sound. Poor 
 fellow, the British Colonel and the rest were going to 
 have him shot for sleeping at his post, when, next morn- 
 ing, they found the prisoners had gone and the horses 
 too. How furiously angry they were ! But, oh, the 
 uncle ! his eyes flashed lightnings, and his voice was 
 like the thunder. Kate was wakened by his raging and 
 storming, with all the black people up before him to be 
 cross-questioned, and they declaring that ' O rnassa, 
 dey wouldn' a-helped dem rebel trash away fur nuffin 
 in de hull worl' ! ' If the}- had, their lives wouldn't 
 have been worth much. Kate knew that, or she might 
 have asked some of them to assist her. She meant to 
 bear all the blame herself."
 
 KATE'S GEEAT-GEEAT-GEANDMOTHEE. 43 
 
 " Wasn't she a trump, though ! " 
 
 " Yes, Harry ; but she trembled like a leaf all the 
 time, dressing herself in a hurry, and rushing out to 
 confess before them all, and plead for the sentinel's 
 life. 'Oh, he wasn't a bit to blame! he didn't go to 
 sleep at all, for she looked to see ! "We were so still 
 about it that, oh, he couldn't hear ! and oh, don't kill 
 him, don't ! ' And then she almost fainted away. But 
 the angry old uncle was angrier than ever. He ordered 
 her to her room, and never to show her face again. But 
 just at this point, when all is clamor and confusion, and 
 the poor, pale, frightened girl is being dragged off in 
 disgrace to her chamber, the house is suddenly sur- 
 rounded by the combined forces of Greene and Mor- 
 gan (for they met yesterday, and have been nearer by 
 all the time than was'supposed), and led by the Amer- 
 ican Captain whom she released last night, in walks 
 General Greene himself, to thank her for her brave 
 deed ; and when she is led to the window, all those sol- 
 diers ragged, weak with hunger, as they are, footsore 
 and weary with continual marching at the sight of 
 her, just toss up their hats (those of them who have 
 any) and cheer, and cheer, and cheer. And the British 
 Colonel and his men are prisoners themselves in about 
 two seconds 
 
 "Oh, jolly!"
 
 44 STOKIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 "And the mad old Tory uncle's wine-casks have to be 
 tapped again, while the rebel army there before his eyes 
 drinks to his niece's health." 
 
 " Jolly, jollier, jolliest ! " 
 
 "You might suppose there wasn't enough to go 
 around ; but you must remember that it was not such a 
 very big army. How large should you say, Walter ? " 
 
 " Probably not a larger number than would be includ- 
 ed in two what in our last war were considered good- 
 sized regiments. Hardly that, for I believe Greene left 
 quite a force behind at his post on the Pedee river, 
 when he pushed across country to join Morgan ; and 
 his whole command united couldn't have amounted to 
 more than two thousand." 
 
 " Just think of it ! And that wee little army, half- 
 starved and poorly clothed, held in'check the thousands 
 of Cornwallis ! No wonder the orators grow eloquent 
 over our forefathers, is it, Marie? " 
 
 " But about Kate ? Did that horrid old Tory of an. 
 uncle shut her up in her room after that ? " 
 
 "Take care, Miss Marie, that ' horrid old Tory of an 
 uncle ' was a distant relative of ours." 
 
 " Oh, I didn't mean to say anything against your re- 
 lations, Mr. Walter ; but then everybody knows you 
 aren't a bit like him, if you are a tease ! " 
 
 " No," Kate goes on, " they didn't shut her up in her
 
 KATE'S GREAT-GREAT-GRANDMOTHER 45 
 
 room, but she was treated very coolly all around the 
 board, and as for her uncle, I believe he never spoke to 
 her again. "What made him particularly indignant was, 
 that the British prisoners would insist that he was at 
 the bottom of it all, and had set the trap for them himself. 
 They had reason to be suspicious, for in that section 
 one never conld be certain who were Tories and who 
 were not, so many of the people wavered in their opin- 
 ions, favoring the royal cause one day and the rebels 
 the next. Well, to wind up my story, Kate was so un- 
 happy there, that she went to live with an aunt in 
 Charleston till some two or three years after, when the 
 war was all over, and she married " 
 
 " Oh, wait, let me guess who ! the American Captain, 
 now, didn't she ? How romantic ! Then he was your 
 great-great-grandfather ! " 
 
 " Yes, and they came North, and lived and died right 
 where Uncle Eobert lives now in the same house, 
 only it has been altered several times since." 
 
 The mention of "Uncle Robert" reminds Harry to 
 ask if Kate has had any more letters lately from her 
 little correspondent. "Whereupon she produces this 
 one, which she received to-day ! 
 
 "DEAR COZEN KATE AND WALTER: to-moros the forth but 
 my Firecrackers are all used up alreddy but I don't care I don't 
 feal much like sellibrating enny way you see Dick Deen and Jimmy
 
 45 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 Jeffers an me we thot wed have sum fun so we toock a hunting 
 horn with sum powder in it an emptyd it onto a stone an set a 
 match to it but it didnt go off so i run up to see what was the 
 matter and pop off it went rite into my face tel yoo it made me 
 hop an everryboddy screemd an run for the Docter an he cum an 
 sed it wood get well after a while and then he an papa both giggld 
 but i coodnt see vrhare the fun was nor mama eether she sed i must 
 rite an tel you about it it wood divurt my mind but to be careful 
 about my Speling an the rest so I was. 
 
 Affexshuntly BOB." 
 
 "Plucky little chap, ain't he!" and Harry giggles 
 too. " Divert his- mind ! ha, ha ! But you don't know 
 anything about how it burns. I got my hand peppered 
 that way once, and went into the cellar -where it was 
 cool, and walked the floor for three hours. I didn't want 
 any one to find out about it, for fear of a scolding, for I 
 expect I was old enough to know better." 
 
 But Marie, who has been quietly meditating mean- 
 while, suddenly breaks forth with, " I wish / had lived 
 in the time of the [Revolution ! Then I would have 
 had a chance to do something brave." 
 
 " You ! " laughs Harry. " I'll warrant it would scare 
 you half to death to hear a mouse nibble in the wall at 
 night." Which Marie, blushing guiltily, cannot deny. 
 
 "Well, anyhow, I'm going over home to find out if 1 
 haven't got a great-great-grandmother, or something."
 
 IN THE WOODS. 
 
 " Do you think there are any places in heaven like 
 this?" 
 
 It is little Bessie who whispers the question, as she 
 lies in the grass at Kate's feet, looking up at the 
 glimpses of sky among the branches glimpses as blue 
 as her eyes. 
 
 Kate looks up, too. Feathery-fine are those branches, 
 swaying lazily in the sunlight ; lower clown they grow 
 darker and heavy with green, till, here where she sits 
 beneath, everything is in shadow. She glances around. 
 Long, leafy avenues lead down the glens into blackness, 
 and up the slopes into blackness, and away, away into 
 blackness the blackness of massed foliage that shuts 
 out the world beyond. Can the grand old cathedrals 
 they tell of compare with this nature's temple? Here 
 are the lofty columns not hewn by hands, indeed ; here 
 are the airy arches, rich with leaf-work tracery not 
 carved by hands, 'tis true. This velvety turf can any 
 mosaic pavement surpass it in beauty? Hardly can 
 
 windows of stained glass let in a light more mellow 
 
 (47)
 
 48 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 than this which enters from above. She listens. Here 
 and there a tiny rill tinkles along the ledges ; thousands 
 of little birds are flitting to and fro, caroling and call- 
 ing one another ; and, like the sound, when heard far 
 off, of billows surging on the beach, she hears the 
 never-ceasing sough of the wind among the trees. Ah, 
 this wind, how cool it is, how fragrant! stooping to 
 finger her hair. And there is the sultry, breathless 
 August down in the city below. 
 
 Are there 'any places like this in heaven ? " Yes," 
 she answers at last, " I like to think so. Indeed," she 
 adds, " it seems to me sometimes as though this world 
 might almost be heaven itself, if it weren't for some of 
 the people in it." 
 
 Just now, as if to give force to the remark, one of 
 those 'jarring voices that make discord in the music of 
 life, is overheard, saying : 
 
 " Look at Bessie Barton, off there with Kate. I do 
 wish that child would learn to hold her head up ! If 
 / had the management of her I'd cure her of her bash- 
 fulness in short order ! " 
 
 Kate glances down. Has Bessie heard ? No ; her 
 thoughts are ever so far away. 
 
 " Oh, Bessie," says the other, quickly, lest there is 
 more to come, " I see some cardinal-flowers down there 
 by the brook. Won't you go bring me some, please ? "
 
 IN THE WOODS. 49 
 
 And as the child flies away on the errand, Kate joins 
 the companions from whom they have strayed, and con- 
 fronts the owner of the voice with 
 
 "Now you shall not say anything against Bessie. 
 She's a little angel." 
 
 " Oh, I wouldn't have dared to say a word, Kate, if 
 [ had thought you were within earshot. She's a particu- 
 lar pet of yours, I believe. But how you can find any- 
 thing interesting in her, I can't see. She's plain, and 
 so shy and lackadaisical! I don't see how she's ever 
 going to get through the world without a little more 
 vim." 
 
 " Ah, you'll see. But as to her being plain, now 
 I don't think so. What rosy cheeks she has ! and 
 her eyes why, they're lovely. And she's not what I 
 should call lackadaisical, in the least. Why, she's 
 the busiest little body alive ! always doing something 
 for somebody. And then she has talent a wonderful 
 eye for figure. I think she's going to make an artist." 
 
 "Oh, Kate !" laughs Aunt Sophia, " what remarkable 
 people all your friends are, the younger ones especially. 
 There's that scapegrace of a boy, my nephew Harry ; 
 what do you think of him ? No doubt you'll say he's 
 the pink of propriety. Harry, Harry ! come down out 
 of that tree, this minute, and stop tearing about so, or 
 you'll be all in rags by night ! " .
 
 60 STOKIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " What do I think of him ? I think he's just mag- 
 nificent! " 
 
 " As black as the ace of spades." 
 
 "Yes, he's tanned up beautifully this summer, and 
 so full of health and spirits, with a heart as big as all 
 out-of-doors." 
 
 "If he would only take to books more." 
 
 " Oh, books are well enough (I wouldn't, for the 
 world, speak slightingly of them) ; but books are not 
 everything. Of what good is all the learning if one 
 hasn't the life the strength to put it to use ? Ah, 
 those sinewy fists ! they remind me of the old Greeks. 
 Bless him ! the young Hercules! when the work comes 
 for him to do he is going to be strong and able to do it." 
 
 " Oh, he has a mission to fulfill, then ! What may it 
 be, I wonder ? Lassoing wiM horses on the pampas ? " 
 
 " Oh, he's oiixg to do something splendid, by and 
 by, that will make you all proud of him." 
 
 " Well, you are encouraging. And there's that little 
 popinjay, Marie Maross, with her saucy eyes (by the 
 way, I never could make out which they are, gray or 
 black), and her stringlets I can't conscientiously call 
 them ringlets (I suppose they would have been wave- 
 lets if she had only known over night she was coming) 
 and her white dress as limp as if it hadn't come 
 fresh from the laundry this very morning. Do look
 
 IN THE WOODS. 51 
 
 at the grass-stains and mud on it, and half the ruffles 
 _on one side torn off! (I don't see how her mother 
 has any kind of patience with her ; but then she's an 
 <easy old shoe.) And her sash awry, and her ribbons 
 flying, and her bracelets rattling, and those half-dozen 
 strings of beads around her neck " 
 
 "Oh, not half-a-dozen !" 
 
 " At any rate, enough to be always jingling wherever 
 she goes, like the old woman in the nursery rhyme : 
 
 ' With a ring on her finger and a bell on her toe. ' 
 
 Well, how are you going to dispose of her ? Is she to 
 be a second a sort of feminine Kubenstein,- or a Pau- 
 line Lucca or are you going to send her as missionary 
 to the Feejee Islands ? " 
 
 " I'm sure the cannibals would not have the heart to 
 eat her up," Kate answers, laughingly. " The gay little 
 thing ! I like to watch her, over there in the garden, 
 fluttering about among the flowers, prattling to her 
 grandfather, keeping him company. I always think of 
 the butterflies harmless, pretty little creatures, meant, 
 it would seem, only to rollick in the sunbeams and en- 
 joy themselves, and brighten the landscape." 
 
 " But her everlasting chatter ! If, instead of living 
 opposite, you were right next door to them, as we are, 
 I'm sure you would tire of it sometimes, especially in
 
 52 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 summer, when the doors and windows are all open. Oh, 
 I assure you, her tongue is going from morning till 
 night. It fairly drives me wild, sometimes." 
 
 " But with all her prattle one hardly ever hears her 
 say anything really ill-natured." 
 
 " And it's just as uncommon to hear her say anything 
 with any sense to it ! " 
 
 " Well, somebody must do the chattering. If none of 
 us ever spoke but to say something sensible, what a 
 fearfully hushed, melancholy sort of world this would 
 be. That little brook purling among the stones, there 
 seems to be no meaning in what it says, yet Mother 
 Nature doesn't bid it keep quiet ; and if all these little 
 birds should stop singing, though we can detect but 
 little sense in their merry songs, how we should miss 
 the music ! There ! " Kate pauses, alarmed at her 
 own boldness, for it is like treading on matches to 
 argue with Aunt Sophia ! " I didn't mean to speechify ; 
 I beg your pardon." 
 
 "Ah, well, you and I never will agree. And here 
 comes your angelic protegee." Namely, Bessie, just now 
 approaching with Monsieur Maross, who has been 
 helping her gather the cardinal-flowers. 
 
 Did you ^ver see any of those, lads and lasses? 
 There is no color richer or more beautiful than the 
 deep, glowing scarlet of their corollas. It is this which 
 gives them the name.
 
 IN THE WOODS. 53 
 
 "Figure to yourselves," says M. Maross, who is a 
 naturalist and a foreigner, as you perceive, " figure to 
 yourselves some missionary priest of the early clays, as 
 he journeys through the wilderness from one Indian 
 village to another. Passing some moist and shady 
 nook he first spies this superb blossom. He admires 
 it. Instantly he is reminded of les chapeaux rouges.* 
 Behold, lobelia cardinalis is no longer at loss for a title." 
 Monsieur also goes on to state that the flower alluded 
 to " Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow " 
 was of this rich, vivid color. Whereupon the listen- 
 ers exclaim in surprise. They had supposed it was 
 white. 
 
 " Yes, that is the general impression, but erroneous. 
 I have myself seen the flower growing in that country. 
 Had it been of white the concluding words would not 
 have been so peculiarly applicable : ' Even Solomon in 
 all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.' Com- 
 preTiez ? " 
 
 " Ah, yes ; I see. If we only knew more about the East 
 how many of those passages would gain in force and 
 clearness that now one somehow cannot get at the pith 
 of." 
 
 "You speak truly, Mees." 
 
 *The red hats worn by cardinals.
 
 54 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 Presently, under some spreading beeches, the friends 
 and neighbors who have come to these woods, as is 
 their wont in sultry weather, for a few hours of recrea- 
 tion, gather together for luncheon without ceremony 
 of table or table-cloth, for this is "no stiff affair," as 
 some one complacently remarks, but quite "all in the 
 familee," as Harry says, bringing forth from its hiding- 
 place an unexpected treat. And now everybody under- 
 stands why so little has been seen of him to-day. 
 Doesn't he know these miles of woodland by heart ? 
 Is there any tree so tall he hasn't climbed it, or any 
 stream so small he hasn't traced it to its source ? He 
 can show you all the crows' nests and all the rabbit 
 burrows, and even hint to you mysteriously that a fox 
 dwells hereabout. He knows the banks where the 
 strawberries reddened in June, and the hill-sides where 
 the chestnuts will burst their burs in October, and it 
 is only he who could surprise the company with this 
 heaping basket of blackberries, so fresh and ripe and 
 luscious, still wet with last night's dew. 
 
 "Hal, you're a brick !" exclaims a youth of his own 
 age, piling his plate with the proffered fruit. 
 
 " Oo is weal dood, Hawy, I lite oo !" lisps the infan- 
 tile voice of Maggie McAllister, two wee, dimpled fists 
 making a successful dive into the basket. 
 
 " You ah the light of me eyes and the joy of me
 
 IN THE WOODS. 55 
 
 haaht ! " murmurs a recent graduate from a boarding- 
 school, languidly inserting a dessert-spoon the while 
 she regards this young man not yet far advanced in 
 his teens, to be sure as benignly as if he were about 
 the size of Maggie, there. 
 
 " Let 'em help themselves," he mutters in disgust, 
 setting down the basket directly, and joining Marie 
 where she is seated at the foot of a tree. " I can stand 
 half a day in a swamp and poke amongst blackberry 
 briers till my hands resemble the map of Germany done 
 in red chalk, but I can't go that sort of thing. Let's 
 wish." 
 
 Master Harry has not been many seconds in divest- 
 ing of its edible surroundings that part of the fowl 
 which is known to all as the " wish-bone," and which the 
 slender fingers of the " popinjay " always manage to 
 break in her favor. 
 
 " Say, now, what did you wish ? (You have to tell, 
 you know.) That there would be another war or revo- 
 lution right off, so you could have a chance to show 
 your courag j ? " 
 
 " Now you needn't make any more fun of my cour- 
 age. But I don't care if you do think I'm a coward. I 
 belong to somebody that was brave as a lion. He was 
 a duke, or marquis, or something. For, you see, we 
 didn't live in this country in the time of the Revolution."
 
 56 STOEIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 " No, we lived in France, and belonged to the nobil- 
 ity. I've been asking grandpa all about it, and he told 
 me such, a splendid, story. 
 
 " Grandpa " (she has approached the old gentleman 
 in a pause of the debate he is having with the Lieu- 
 tenant and some others, on the subject of French poli- 
 tics), " Grandpa, won't you tell us that story you told 
 me one evening, about your great-uncle, who was a 
 duke, or marquis, or something ?" 
 
 Just now a sunbeam, resting on the little head, turns 
 the long raven " mane" to purple. Purple hair! Strange 
 Aunt Sophia never noticed it before, ail these years ! 
 She leans forward with a sudden look of interest. Must 
 Marie owe it to the dukes and marquises that she is to 
 grow in favor with that lady ? 
 
 " Let us not speak of dukes and marquises, my Ma- 
 rie," her grandfather has answered, " lest our good 
 friends shall conclude that we are of that class of peo- 
 ple who, not being of perceptible merit themselves, en- 
 deavor to make up for the deficiency by boasting of 
 their ancestors. Whereas," with a twinkle of the eye, 
 " if we only trace back far enough, we shall find that 
 we all have the honor of descending from the same 
 illustrious tribe the monkeys." 
 
 " Oh, you wicked grandpa, to tell such fibs ! "
 
 IN THE WOODS. 57 
 
 " But, no, Mademoiselle, it is even true what I say. 
 At least so we are informed by the celebrated Mr. 
 Darwin." 
 
 " Well, then, I don't think much of that Mr. Darwin ! " 
 
 " Nor I ! " cries Kate. " Nor I ! " " Nor I ! " " Nor 
 I! " echo several voices. And here, in the midst of an 
 American forest, Darwin and his theories, after a heated 
 discussion, are, by vote of the majority, consigned to 
 oblivion. 
 
 But during this discussion, Harry, happening to 
 glance that way, discovers Kate, who has just left the 
 group, kneeling on the brink of a deep ravine a few 
 yards distant, and looking down with a very pale face. 
 Catching his eye, she beckons. He is beside her in an 
 instant. ""What is it, Katy?" he questions, wonder- 
 ingly. She motions to be silent, and to look down. 
 On this side, for a space, the wall of the ravine is almost 
 perpendicular. At its base, fifty feet below, a stream 
 gurgles along over broken ledges of rock. Peering 
 over, he sees bashful Bessie Barton working her way 
 up this wall by aid of the shrubbery rooted in the cre- 
 vices, which latter serve for foothold ; and as she climbs 
 she shifts from one arm to the other the little bundle 
 of innocence which answers to the name of Maggie, the 
 dimpled hands clasped about her neck. In the flash of 
 an eye he comprehends it all. While the grown-up
 
 58 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 people were disputing, the child must have slipped 
 away, and only Bessie noticing her absence, has come 
 to search. How little three-year-old ever crept down 
 there, cannot be explained. These tiny creatures will 
 worm themselves into the most astonishing places! 
 Harry's coat is off directly. He is going to the rescue. 
 But " No," Kate whispers, " she doesn't see there's any 
 one looking on. The least sound or motion may startle 
 her, and she will lose her hold, and and there are the 
 rocks below ! " 
 
 What agony, to watch some one in peril when you 
 may not lift a finger to save ! Harry never knew such 
 torture as at this moment. 
 
 Slowly the little heroine works her way up. Will 
 her strength give out ? 
 
 Oh, you Aunt Sophias, take care how you deride the 
 bashful people ! And did you. ever hear what the wag 
 said to the philosopher? "Why don't you hold your 
 head up, as I do? " And this is what the philosopher 
 said to the wag : " If you will examine the heads of 
 wheat in yonder field you will find that only those 
 which are erect are empty." 
 
 To those watching, the moments seem like hours. 
 Ah, Bessie sees them at last. Wait ! now quick I 
 Four hands are reached to her, grasp her, lift her with 
 her burden up over the brink. And now that there is
 
 IN THE WOODS. 59 
 
 no further need of exertion, she sinks back, weak and 
 helpless, in Kate's arms. 
 
 " Take the child to her mother, Harry, and bring me 
 water water ! " 
 
 "Why, where have yon been, darling ?" asks Mrs. 
 McAllister, suddenly remembering her, now that Dar- 
 win is disposed of. 
 
 " Me did do to find mo' bewies." 
 
 What with laving her forehead, and the fanning, and 
 the cool drink, Bessie soon revives. " She had got 
 down a good ways when I saw her first. I had to fol- 
 low so still, for fear of frightening her." So she ex- 
 plains. " It was her hat that lay here made me think 
 to look down." 
 
 "What does it mean?" "What has happened?" 
 "Did she faint away?" ask one and another, hurrying 
 up ; for all but the two witnesses are still ignorant of 
 that fearful scene. 
 
 " You tell them, Harry." says Kate ; " tell it to them 
 all ! tell it to them all ! We'll have it put in the morn- 
 ing papers. We'll trumpet it from the house-tops and 
 the corners of the streets." And hugging the little girl, 
 " Ah, my sweet, you needn't blush so ! I mean they 
 shall appreciate you." 
 
 And noting the cries of wonder and admiration 
 which follow the boy's announcements, and the crowd
 
 60 STOEIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 that presses around her shy little friend, and cannot 
 make enough of her, Mademoiselle is overheard aying 
 softly to herself : " Why. one can be brave, even in 
 these days."
 
 THE OLD MONSIEUB'S STOET. 
 
 "Lieutenant, they want I should ask you for a story/ 4 
 " They " are the dozen or more of lads and lasses who, 
 in the pleasant summer twilights, have frequently been 
 , as now, gathered before the house where the blind 
 ier lives. The sparrows soon learn to know that 
 or or window where they are welcome, and where 
 crumbs are scattered for them. They flock about it, 
 fearless, chirping cheerily, and make themselves at home 
 there. Thus these stone steps leading up to the porch 
 have become a favorite resort of the youngsters of the 
 neighborhood; for here they may meet unmolested, 
 and chatter and laugh to their hearts' content ; here 
 crumbs, in the shape of stories, are now and then 
 thrown out for bait ; and partly they may be drawn 
 hither by the presence of the amused listener to their 
 random talk ; tacitly understanding that to him, who is 
 denied the sight of their bright young faces, the sound 
 of their clear young voices is doubly sweet. But he is 
 not the only one who is entertained. Sometimes one 
 
 of his older friends will join the merry group -often 
 
 (61)
 
 62 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 the venerable Frenchman who resides across the street. 
 It so happens that he approaches just now, as Harry is 
 making that time-worn request " a story " ; and the 
 other says, " I think that is Monsieur, coming ? Per- 
 haps lie will tell us one." 
 
 " Yes, now, grandpapa," coaxes Marie, " tell us about 
 Gabrielle." 
 
 " Bien" and he accepts the proffered arm-chair; " I 
 will tell, then, the story of Gabrielle. 
 
 "Without doubt, my dear children, some of you 
 have heard of that event in the history of France 
 which is termed the Revolution ? I do not speak of 
 those more recent troubles which have distracted my 
 native land, but of that memorable Revolution which 
 blackened the closing years of the last century a 
 period at which you gaze as upon a sky filled with the 
 darkness of clouds, and the threatening thunder, and 
 the fierce lightning-flashes. 
 
 " Ah, my children, you are happy to be of a nation 
 which has not that wild and horrible dream to remem- 
 ber. And here I will say to you, I, that you are truly 
 fortunate to live in a land most free, where there is less 
 of oppression than in any other ; where one can say 
 what he will, do what he will. If but he keep the laws 
 he is secure. He may be of whatever party he chooses. 
 Nobody is going to harm him. He may, if so ill-dis-
 
 THE OLD MONSIEUR'S STORY. 63 
 
 posed, say whatever desagrcables he please of those who 
 believe not as he. He will not be obliged to fly and to 
 take refuge among strangers, as I myself, long time ago, 
 for that, in company with others, I preferred a king to an 
 emperor, and was not sufficiently secret about it. De- 
 serving, indeed, of gratitude are they who, defending 
 this beautiful country, have preserved to it peace and 
 freedom. 
 
 " Alas ! if poor France had not been for so long bur- 
 dened with oppressions, this Revolution could not have 
 occurred. That was the reaction, the recoil. Let me 
 illustrate. I will remove from my pocket-book this 
 band elastic which confines it. I stretch it with my 
 two hands to its full length. "With one hand I release 
 it. It flies back. Ugh ! it makes me wince. (That is 
 a very homely illustration, is it not ?) Now for a long 
 time the nations of Europe had been engaged in wars 
 in which France took a leading part. It requires 
 money to conduct wars. To procure it the people are 
 taxed. Also, there was no court so gay and luxurious 
 as that of France. To support this luxury and splen- 
 dor required money. Still again taxes. When taxes 
 arb great the cost of living is increased. Thus while 
 there was feasting and revelry in palaces, in hovels 
 there was famine and misery. The little ones moaned 
 and sobbed for bread, and there was no bread to givo
 
 64 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 them. The people were full of wrath at this state of 
 affairs. Force was required to keep them in subjec- 
 tion. Now there came to the throne a good and merci- 
 ful king, who in peaceful times would have been much 
 revered. But, in this situation, great wisdom as well 
 as justice was needful. From his unsteady grasp 
 the reins of government slipped, as you have seen the 
 elastic slip from mine. Behold the recoil most terri- 
 ble! r-which destroyed the king, the queen, and all 
 who believed in the royalist cause. The people who 
 had so long suffered might now take revenge. They 
 who had yearned for liberty were filled with hope. 
 Their land was to be free, like that one beyond the 
 ocean. 
 
 " Alas ! the despotism which had been called a mon- 
 archy was succeeded by a despotism far worse, which 
 was called a republic. This was truly the Reign of 
 Terror. The guillotine was never idle. 'Madame 
 Guillotine,' it was entitled that deadly machine in- 
 vented for those days, when victims were so numerous 
 it was necessary that they be dispatched in the swiftest 
 manner possible. This cruel slaughter was chiefly 
 confined to the metropolis, to Paris, until here a prov- 
 ince and there a city, disapproving of their deeds, re- 
 fused submission to the party in power the Jacobins. 
 Armies were sent to subdue them. The city of Lyons
 
 THE OLD MONSIEUR'S STORY. 65 
 
 made the resistance most notable. Thousands of roy- 
 alists, fleeing for their lives, had taken shelter there, 
 and were zealous in the defense. They hoped by this 
 resistance to inspire other towns, and perhaps all 
 France, to arise and check the course of this Revolu- 
 tion this monster, ever thirsting for blood. Alas ! it 
 was impossible. Besieged by the republican troops, 
 all supplies prevented, for lack of food and ammunition 
 the city was at length obliged to surrender, after a 
 brave and desperate struggle. For any who had taken 
 up arms against the republic there was now no safety 
 but in flight. Flight was nearly useless. They were 
 pursued, captured. The country was searched for 
 leagues around. Within the city, paid informers were 
 everywhere seeking whom they might report as guilty. 
 For the head of a priest or noble the price was dou- 
 bled. The prisons were filled, crowded. Madame 
 Guillotine could not work sufficiently fast. The Reign 
 of Terror had now begun in Lyons also. 
 
 " I must not pain you, dear children, with a recital 
 of the horrors of those days. 
 
 " Among the unfortunate royalists who had taken 
 shelter in Lyons was the Marquis de Rochemont. In 
 one of the fierce conflicts during the siege he had been 
 seriously wounded, and at the time of the surrender 
 was unable to attempt an escape. Nevertheless, he
 
 66 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 had taken the precaution to remove from his formei 
 quarters, and had established himself in a garret of a 
 lofty but dilapidated tenement facing upon an unfre- 
 quented court-yard. There concealed, in a manner 
 which would least betoken his rank, his sole compan- 
 ions his motherless little daughter and a faithful ser- 
 vant, he thought to avoid the vigilance of the spies. 
 Often, from his hiding-place, he would hear the explo- 
 sions of gunpowder, followed by the crash of falling 
 buildings. 
 
 " What were those buildings ? 
 
 " The residences or the property of Lyonnese, who 
 had engaged in the defense. The Jacobins, in their 
 fury, were reducing the city to ruins. 
 
 " One evening, as the attendant was dressing his 
 wounds, the Marquis asked, ' What is the matter, An- 
 toine? you are pale. Your hands tremble.' 
 
 '" The other responded : ' Just now, as I came up the 
 stairs, I saw some person listening and peering at the 
 key-hole. As I approached he glided away. It is 
 enough. I fear we are discovered.' 
 
 "After discussing this matter it was decided that 
 Antoine go out, and obtain, if possible, a uniform like 
 that worn by the soldiers of the republic. Disguised 
 in this, the Marquis would depart in the night, and 
 await in a forest not far from the city, there to bo joined
 
 THE OLD MONSIEUK'S STORY. 67 
 
 by the servant with the child, and to proceed thence 
 toward the mountains and the country of the Swiss, 
 where there were relatives and friends who had quitted 
 France upon the fall of the king. 
 
 " Scarcely had Antoine set forth upon that errand 
 when two gens d'armes appeared. They had come to 
 arrest the Marquis. To be arrested, that was the cell, 
 the mock trial. After these the scaffold. Had they 
 come in the name of law and order he would have re- 
 signed himself to that fate. They came in the name of 
 disorder and opposition to law. Bien ! Disabled as he 
 was, rising, he drew his sword. They supposed to over- 
 power him. Sword met sword. The hunted stag brought 
 to bay is dangerous. One of those intruders was slain. 
 The other, wounded, fled. Soon he would return with 
 assistance ; accompanied, perhaps, by the mob. No 
 time was to be lost. 
 
 " Seizing his little daughter, who had been a terrified 
 witness of that scene, the Marquis hastened away, along 
 a low passage leading to the stairs. A ray of the moon 
 lighted an apartment as he passed. He saw through 
 the open door heaps of rags. The ragman lay sleeping 
 in their midsfc. Near by were his tattered coat, his 
 wooden shoes, his greasy cap, his basket. The basket 
 was furnished with a lid. One thinks rapidly on such 
 occasions. The Marquis entered, arrayed himself in
 
 83 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 the coat, the cap, the shoes, forgetting not to leave some 
 gold coins in their place, as compensation. The basket 
 would contain the child. 
 
 " ' Fear not, my little Gabrielle,' he said, as he con- 
 cealed her in it, ' but remain quiet while I carry thee 
 away where those terrible men cannot find us.' 
 
 ""With this basket upon his head, thus shadowing 
 his face, he descended through the building to an en- 
 trance in the rear, which opened upon an alley. There 
 he hurried along. Already he could hear the shouts 
 and cries of people gathering in the court-yard. He 
 quickened his steps. Not far distant was the bridge 
 which spans the Rhone. He arrived there without in- 
 terruption. To proceed, to attempt to traverse the ex- 
 tensive plains beyond? Already, doubtless, pursuers 
 were upon his track. In no disguise was there secu- 
 rity. At the same time the earth seemed to be whirl- 
 ing about. There was a ringing in his ears. He saw 
 some boats upon the bank below. He approached and 
 shoved one of them into the water. He lifted Gabrielle 
 from her concealment and placed her in it. He then 
 rowed out into the midst of the river. There, no need 
 of oars. The current is swift, strong. It rushed with 
 them away from danger and the doomed city. He laid 
 himself down in the bottom of the boat. In the moon- 
 beams Gabrielle saw his face very white. She saw his
 
 ' Remain quiet while I carry thee away wnere those terrible men can not find us. 
 
 PAGE 68.
 
 THE OLD MONSIEUR'S STORY. 69 
 
 lips move. His hands reached out to her. She crept 
 to him. Then all was silent. ' He sleeps,' she said. 
 Soon she slept also. 
 
 " When Gabrielle opened again her eyes the sun was 
 shining ; the boat was no longer afloat, but lodged on 
 the sands under willow trees. A rough voice was say- 
 ing, ' What's this?' and Gabrielle saw a man in rough 
 clothes bending over. 
 
 " ' It is my father,' she said. ' He is very weary. 
 That is why he sleeps so long. You must not wake 
 him.' 
 
 " ' That would be difficult,' muttered the voice. 
 
 " True. The Marquis had received a sword-thrust 
 in that encounter with the gens d'armes, and had ex- 
 pired from loss of blood. 
 
 " The rough man went away to a cluster of cottages 
 near by. Soon he returned with several people, men 
 and women. One of the latter offered sweet-cakes to 
 Gabrielle. She had a pleasant face, too, but there were 
 tears in her eyes. Gabrielle was hungry. When the 
 sweet-cakes were gone she asked for more. 
 
 " ' If you will come with me to my house,' said the 
 good woman, * I will give you all you wish.' 
 
 " Gabrielle went home with her. After the dame 
 had amused her some hours she desired to return to 
 the boat. Her father was not there.
 
 70 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " ' Where is lie ? ' she demanded, weeping. 
 
 " The good dame pointed to a mound with the soil 
 fresh upon it. ' When people sleep a very long time,' 
 she said, ' they always are laid to rest in such places. 
 They sleep better there. No one can disturb them. Once 
 I had a little girl who is sleeping thus. I miss her. 
 Will you be my little girl ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes,' answered Gabrielle, ' until she wakens and 
 my father wakens. Then I will have mine, I, and you 
 will have your own.' 
 
 " After, she learned better to understand those mat- 
 ters. Also, as she grew older, she learned to be very 
 useful. She could drive the cow from the pasture and 
 assist in tending the garden. She could make the soup, 
 the bread. She learned to sew, to knit, and to spin. 
 Sometimes she heard them talk of a wonderful person 
 upon the throne, who was conquering all the world. 
 They called him Napoleon. The Revolution was fin- 
 ished. France was no longer a republic. 
 
 " One day, as Gabrielle stood at her spinning-wheel 
 before the door, two travelers rode by. One of them 
 gazed at her attentively. He addressed a few words to 
 the other. They halted and accosted a villager who 
 was passing. 
 
 " ' Who is that young girl ? ' they asked. 
 
 fl The villager it was he with the rough voice re-
 
 1/HE OLD MONSIEUR'S STOKY. 71 
 
 lated how the waves had brought her to them, how that 
 he had found her a sleeping child in the arms of the 
 dead. ' The man was clad in rags,' said he, ' but he was 
 provided with a purse containing much gold, and with 
 a sword.' 
 
 " ' It is true/ said the stranger who had first observed 
 Gabrielle, and who seemed to be the attendant. 'There 
 was a collector of rags who lodged near us, and who in 
 the crowd, after the escape of my master, complained 
 of the loss of his coat.' 
 
 " They requested to see the sword. "When it was 
 shown to them, the attendant said, ' It is the sword of 
 the Marquis. I recognize it by the carving of the hilt.' 
 Then gazing once more at Gabrielle, he exclaimed, 
 ' How she is like her mother ! ' (She had grown very 
 beautiful.) 
 
 " He approached, and seizing her hands, covered 
 them with kisses and with tears. * Dost thou not re- 
 member me ? ' he asked, ' me, old Antoine ? ' 
 
 " She had not forgotten entirely of that Antoine. 
 
 " ' And I,' said the other, embracing her, * I am thy 
 father's brother. It is along time that we have searched 
 and made inquiry for thee.' 
 
 "It was my grandfather. He took her far away to 
 his home. But the good dame was presented with the 
 purse, filled with gold, which she had been keeping 
 for Gabrielle's dowry.
 
 *T2 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " And tlie sword ? My dear children, if any of you 
 have intention to some time visit France, I can indicate 
 where you will find an ancient chateau, in which is a 
 gallery a place of armor where, among shields, and 
 helmets, and coats of mail, and spears, and tattered 
 banners, and other relics of past centuries, still is to be 
 seen this sword. It was Gabrielle herself who pointed 
 it out to me, many years ago, when I was a young boy 
 like Master Harry, and she was a marchioness, and pre- 
 sided over the same chateau. And she it was who at 
 fche same time told me this story."
 
 BUTTEBNUT AND BLUE. 
 
 "Mr. Walter, where did you find this great, nice, 
 beautiful dog?" asks Marie, who has been having a 
 romp around the room with Ponto. 
 
 " I didn't find him ; he came to me." 
 
 " Came to you ! Oh, now there's some story about 
 him ! And you are going to tell it to me ? " 
 
 "No, Marie, it's all about a battle. Girls don't like to 
 hear about battles." 
 
 " Oh, yes, they do, sometimes. And you know you 
 never will tell us anything about the war ; does he, 
 Katy ? " 
 
 But Katy has quietly left the room. 
 
 " Well, Marie, once I woke up after- a battle, and 
 something, I couldn't see what, was tugging at my 
 coat. There was a sun in the sky the last I could re- 
 member. Now it was night, and a very dark night. I 
 reached out to feel what sort of creature this was 
 Then I first discovered that my right hand was gone. 
 But with the other I could feel the head and long 
 silken ears of a dog. He seemed pleased to hava me
 
 74 STOEIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 notice him, licked my face, and gamboled about, then 
 commenced to tug at my clothes again. He seemed to 
 want something of me. I finally got up and tried to 
 follow him tried, I say, because it is no easy matter 
 to walk about the field of battle the night after it has 
 taken place. One is apt to find obstacles in his way. 
 As I groped along, and my eyes became accustomed to 
 the darkness, I could just distinguish from the sur- 
 rounding shadows the figure of this strange guide of 
 mine. It was -a monster of a dog a black, moving 
 mass. I had known of one other like him. An idea 
 occurred to me. Perhaps this and that dog were the 
 same. That dog's name was Ponto. So I called 
 'Ponto?' to try him. Back he came bounding, directly, 
 leaping upon me, and seemed quite delighted. I was 
 pretty certain this was the dog I knew. As I went 
 along talking to him, some one spoke from among the 
 shadows ' Is that you, "Walt ?' There was only one per- 
 son who had been wont to address me after that fashion. 
 He had recognized my voice. Now I recognized hi.s. 
 And it would have been strange, surely, if we had not 
 known each other's voice. We were together at college 
 for four years, and great friends ' most intimate,' that 
 is the expression, I believe. I sometimes went home 
 and spent vacation with him. (He lived in Virginia, 
 among the mountains.) And sometimes he came home
 
 BUTTEKXUT AND BLUE. 73 
 
 with me. You would hardly remember him ; yet, when 
 a very small carriage, containing a very small child, 
 used to stop at our door, he was always on hand to lift 
 out that little Mademoiselle and bring her in only a 
 dainty bundle of embroideries, apparently, till two 
 bright eyes peeped forth, and pretty soon two little pink 
 fists that would get at his hair and pull it, and that 
 used to tickle him immensely. Yes, as I said, we were 
 the best of friends. Then suddenly there was a great 
 gulf between us; and we saw, and heard, and knew no 
 more of each other. It appears that, though we were 
 not aware of it, we had been fighting against each other 
 that very day. But now Ponto had brought us together 
 again, and we were glad enough to meet. So glad we 
 could forget, at last, that he belonged to the army of 
 the South, and I to the army of the Union. We had a 
 great many matters to talk over, not having seen each 
 other in some time. Ah, but we couldn't see, as you 
 know. So we had to be content with saying our fare- 
 wells in the dark. For that was the way our talk 
 ended, Marie. He passed away, there in the night, I 
 supporting him as best I could. Pouto was his dying 
 gift. Come here, old fellow." And the Lieutenant 
 hides his face against the dog's shaggy shoulder. 
 
 Marie steals softly from the house and toward home. 
 And when, a moment after, Kate conies down the hall
 
 76 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 stairs and into the room, Ponto lifts to her great, gen- 
 tle, human, sympathizing eyes. Perhaps he guesses 
 she, too, has a share in those remembrances. For who 
 shall deny that he has thoughts ?
 
 A SECKET. 
 
 " Why, you, Harry ? I didn't know you had come 
 home ! " Kate, glancing up from the book from which 
 she had been reading aloud, has only at this moment 
 noticod the boy's entrance. 
 
 " I haven't been home yet. I wanted to consult you 
 first. You see I'm expelled." (Harry, you must know, 
 has been away at school since early in September.) 
 " Thought I'd tell you on the start, so you wouldn't 
 feel imposed upon. Why, you take it all as a matter 
 of course ! You don't look a bit surprised ! ' 
 
 " To tell the truth, we're not very. And how do you 
 do, you blessed boy? You don't know how we've 
 missed you! " And Kate seizes his two hands with a 
 heartiness that proves her faith in him is still un- 
 shaken. 
 
 " Miss Katy ! if you've got a particle of respect left 
 for me, won't you give me some supper ? I'm hungry 
 as a bear. Just got in on the train. Haven't had a 
 mouthful to eat since noon ! " 
 
 " The poor child ! So he should have some supper. 
 
 I'll go directly and see about it." 
 
 (77)
 
 ? STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 "This was the way it happened," Harry explains, 
 over the waffles and coffee. " You see, when I first 
 went there the boys were a solemncholy lot, oh, I tell 
 you ! studious as owls, got to improve each shining 
 hour, and all that. "Well, I thought if that sort of thing 
 was going to last I shouldn't survive long. So I went 
 to work and got 'em stirred up after awhile, and things 
 got to be kind of lively. But Tabby that's the Prin- 
 cipal the way he hangs his eye out 's a caution. Oh, 
 no, Miss Katy ; that's only a nickname we gave him ; 
 he's got such a cattish way of prowling around nights 
 to see if there's any doings going on. Anything but a 
 sneak ! Well, I thought I'd be even with 'im ; so last 
 night I laid torpedoes all along the hall ; oh, Miss 
 Katy, nothing but those little paper wads that never 
 hurt anybody in the world. Well, the last bell rung 
 and we put out the lights, and lay still and listened. 
 By'n by pop ! pop ! pop ! Tabby was coming to see 
 if everything was all right. Ha, ha! guess his mocca- 
 sins must 'ave run against every identical one. You'd 
 'ave thought he was having a Fourth of July celebra- 
 tion out there all by himself. But wasn't he hoppin' 
 mad, though ! Called me into the study this morning 
 right after breakfast." 
 
 " ( Did you place those torpedoes in the hall last 
 night ? ' says he.
 
 "Ha, ha 1 guess his moccasins must 'ave run against every identical 
 one." PAGE 78.
 
 A SECBE1. 79 
 
 " ' Yes, sir,' says I. 
 
 " ' What was your object? ' 
 
 " ' Fun,' says I. 
 
 "Well, he gave me a long lecture, said he didn't like 
 my influence in the school, that he'd had more trouble 
 during the few weeks I'd been there than in any live 
 years before. Well, the long an' short of it was I'd got 
 to leave. That was just what I wanted. So off I 
 come, and here I am, with a letter for father in my 
 pocket that gives me an awful setting out, I expect." 
 (Harry's countenance grows suddenly grave.) "I 
 wouldn't care if it was only father I'd got to chalk up 
 to ; but Aunt Sophi' ! " (No use trying to describe the 
 tone in which that name is uttered.) "I thought, 
 Katy I thought, maybe you'd be willing to go over 
 there, and well, kind of talk her around, you know- 
 why, kind of smooth matters, that is, so she won't 
 be quite so hard on a fellow. Won't you, now ? If you 
 will I'll go back there to old Williams, and I'll study 
 like anything! I will, now, and behave myself; oh, 
 you shall -ee ! if ycull only go this once." 
 
 Kate doesn't like to get up a reputation for being 
 meddlesome ; but she recalls how kind and attentive 
 this boy has been to her brother, and it is not in 
 her heart to refuse. So she leaves the two chatting by 
 the fireside and crosses the street to spend an evening 
 with Aunt Sophia.
 
 80 STOKTES AND BALLADS. 
 
 "I don't know what possesses me, sometimes," says 
 Harry, at length, waxing confidential as usually when 
 alone with the Lieutenant. " I believe it's the Old Nick ! 
 1 was always getting into scrapes ever since I was 
 knee-high to a grasshopper. Now, some fellows find it 
 smooth sailing all along, never get into trouble. I 
 wonder why? " 
 
 "Perhaps they are not so blessed with animal 
 spirits." 
 
 " Well, I don't see how it's to be called a blessing." 
 
 " The river flowing through our town is a mischiev- 
 ous river, sometimes, especially in spring, when the 
 snow is melting, and, overfed by the streams from the 
 hills, it comes rushing along, sweeping away dams and 
 bridges, and tearing about generally, in a very unrea- 
 sonable fashion. Yet farther on, at Factoryville, where 
 it plunges over the rocks, it keeps the mills going all 
 the year round. In fact, there would be no mills there 
 if it were not for our brave little river 'putting its 
 shoulder to the wheel.' Besides, we must admit, it is 
 quite an important feature in the landscape, winding 
 among the woods a r .d fields, flashing and shimmering 
 in the sunlight. And how often you and I have stopped 
 to listen to the plash and ripple of its waters as we 
 walked along the banks. I remember what company 
 that music was to me, one dark night, a good w r hile ago,
 
 A SECRET. 81 
 
 when I was returning from a long tramp up the valley. 
 Just so, since the loss of my eyesight has made for me 
 continual night, you scarcely would believe, Harry, how 
 many times I have been cheered by your merry flow of 
 spirits. As sister says, we have missed you. It is no 
 small thing to be missed by one's friends when he is 
 away from them. Nor is such a good-for-nothing, 
 stove-up piece of humanity as myself the only one you 
 can find to cheer, if you will look about you. Life is 
 full of shadows. It is a sorrowful sort of night, to 
 multitudes of people. Such natures as yours were 
 meant to make the darkness less dreary, and when you 
 come to the mill-wheels to turn them." 
 
 " But the mill-wheels ? I don't exactly understand 
 about that." 
 
 " Well, for instance, the weather is growing cold ; 
 winter is not far off. We sit here by a fire and find it 
 very comfortable. There are a good many to-night who 
 haven't any fire. We have had our supper. There are 
 a good many who must go without. If you will notice 
 in the streets to-morrow, you will see little feet shoe- 
 less, stockingless. People who go without food, and 
 fire, and sufficient clothing, get sick, have fevers, diph- 
 theria, what not ? But, unfortunately, the fevers, and 
 so forth, won't stay shut up in alleys and tumble-down 
 tenements ; they creep out, out into the broad streets,
 
 82 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 into the fine mansions of brick and stone, and all over 
 the city, hunting for the cunning little Ediths, the 
 pretty Maries." 
 
 " Oh, I never thought of that ! " 
 
 " People who haven't food, and fire, and warm cloth- 
 ing, often attempt to steal them, or the wherewithal to 
 pay for them. People who steal, if they are caught at 
 it, go to prison. When they come out again nobody 
 will trust them oc employ them. Since they cannot 
 find work, and have got to live somehow, what must 
 they do ? Steal. So it comes about that a great many 
 people steal for a living. And where did all this crime 
 commence ? Like the fevers, with the lack of food, and 
 fire, and clothing. As Tennyson's ' Northern Farmer ' 
 says: 
 
 " ' 'Tisn' them as 'as munny as breaks into 'ouses an' steals, 
 Them as 'as coats to their backs and taaks their regular meals. 
 Noa, but it's them as niver knaws wheer a meal's to be 'ad. ' " 
 
 " That puts me in mind of the fellow that broke into 
 our house." 
 
 " This is the first I have heard of it." 
 
 " Why, you see, one night last winter I thought I 
 heard somebody in the dining-room. So down I went. 
 There 'e was at the sideboard. He'd got it open, and 
 was taking the silver out. Well, I pitched at 'im you 
 know I'm some on the muscle and got hold of his re-
 
 A SECRET. 83 
 
 volver, and there I had 'im. But my ! he looked so 
 starved, and kind of forlorn, and hollow-eyed, I opened 
 the front door for 'im and let 'im go. Expect I ought 
 to 'ave handed 'im over to the police. Guess I never 
 told of it before. It might scare the women-folks, you 
 know. But wouldn't it give Aunt Sophi the fidgets? 
 After that I used to sleep with one ear open. She 
 didn't know she was sending away her watch-dog when 
 she hustled me off to school in such a hurry." 
 
 The Lieutenant reflects. Here is a boy who does not 
 hesitate to cope with a burglar, who has been known to 
 risk his own life to rescue a drowning companion, and 
 yet is loth to enter his home from dread of an Aunt 
 Sophia's tongue. 
 
 "Then turning the mill-wheels," Harry resumes, 
 " that means helping the poor ? " 
 
 "Partly, yes. Though, as one thinks about it, it 
 seems to imply much more." 
 
 "But where's a body to begin? There's poverty 
 enough, I suppose ; but some are so proud you can't 
 get at 'em, and some, but they've got the cheek ! dog- 
 ging you and sticking their paws out for a penny every 
 turn you take. I always think they're sham." 
 
 " It might be a good way to exercise one's ingenuity 
 finding out. As for the pride, .you've read in the story- 
 books of the needfuls that found their way mysteri-
 
 84: STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 ously to empty cupboards. It sounds rather fanciful ; 
 yet there are people who take great delight in putting 
 romance into real life, and a generous deed is none the 
 worse for being delicately done." 
 
 "But that would be jolly, now! Jinks ! I'd go at it 
 to-morrow if I only knew where to begin." 
 
 "Sister could give you more information on that 
 subject than I can. You two will have to put your 
 heads together and talk it over. Ah, yes ! and I have 
 in mind a little newsboy to whom you can be of ser- 
 vice. I really believe our rollicking Harry would be 
 better satisfied with himself for using some of his ex- 
 tra energy and pocket-money in these ways. Come, 
 let him give the Tabbies, and Old Williamses, as he 
 calls them, a rest. There's something better for him 
 to do than worrying them. As I heard said once: 
 ' There is so much to be done in this world ! There are 
 so few to do it.' You are going to be one of those few, 
 surely. A rich man's son has it in his pOAver to set a 
 great many wheels in motion. You see the Lieutenant 
 is quite a sermonizer when he gets fairly started. But 
 I have taken this opportunity to be earnest, for once, 
 and before it is too late." 
 
 Before it is too late ! Harry, who has been wonder- 
 ing, the while, at this serious language, so uncommon 
 from his genial friend, wonders still more at that expres- 
 sion. What does he mean? He asks, finally.
 
 A SECHET. 5* 
 
 " I'm half sorry I let the words escape me ; but now 
 that I have aroused your curiosity, and since you trust 
 me with your secrets, well, yes, I will tell you. You 
 know one mustn't expect to engage in battles and come 
 out whole and sound. One day a small, round piece of 
 lead discharged from a rifle took lodgings in my shoul- 
 der, and has since been slowly working its way down 
 towards my heart. So it seems that a bullet is to be 
 the death of me after all." 
 
 Harry stares at the Lieutenant in mute amazement. 
 Death ! He suddenly becomes aware how strong are 
 the cords of love which bind him to the blind man. To 
 lose him, his best friend ! No more confidential talks, 
 him no more to come to in trouble, and doubt, and 
 perplexity, and lay open all one's thoughts ! he who 
 first discovered good in the wayward nature a little, 
 tender plant, so covered by the dust that others could 
 not see, and helped it to grow and thrive in spite of the 
 trampling that else would have destroyed it. 
 
 " Oh, Lieutenant ! it isn't true ! Something can be 
 done ! " 
 
 No, it appears from the reply, nothing can be done. 
 
 " Nobody knows ? Katy doesn't know ? " the boy 
 asks, at length, in a husky, tremulous voice. 
 
 " The surgeon and Lem have known of it only. It 
 was on sister's account that I wished the matter to be
 
 86 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 kept quiet. I wanted to spare her the sadness as 
 long as possible. But I must tell her very soon. It 
 will not do for it to come upon her too suddenly. Ah, 
 my Katy ! " and another voice is low and tremulous. 
 
 "Is it painful-ever? " 
 
 " Sometimes." 
 
 " And you've kept it to yourself all these years ! 
 We didn't know ! " 
 
 From the chimney corner where he has been loung- 
 ing Harry gazes once more at the patient face, pallid 
 from silent, secret suffering, at the empty sleeve, at 
 the eyes which cannot see ; then he throws himself flat 
 upon the carpet in a fifc of weeping he who so rarely 
 sheds a tear and his surprise, and grief, and anger, 
 take expression in one passionate outcry against the 
 war which caused all this that brothers' war ! 
 
 But as he lies there sobbing, listening to some calm 
 and soothing words, there comes to him even to 
 Harry a remembrance of a face he has somewhere 
 seen pictured. That, too, was a pallid face and patient. 
 It drooped from a cross ; and the brow was encircled 
 by thorns ; and underneath was written : 
 
 IT IS. FINISHED.
 
 CONSOLATION. 
 
 "It's lonesome without him!" 
 
 You may have noticed those high walls which some 
 build about their houses and grounds, so high you can 
 get but a glimpse of the tree-tops above them ; . the 
 shady walks, and gushing fountains, and green grass- 
 pi ats, and bright flowers are entirely hidden from view. 
 
 A certain great man died, and the tidings was car- 
 ried swiftly and far, for his name was known to many 
 nations. All over the land there were public demon- 
 strations of mourning, and numberless and eloquent 
 were the eulogies pronounced. Thus he who, living, 
 had been laden with honors and distinctions, went in 
 pomp and honor to his burial. Yet somehow we do 
 not hear that any one was really very sorry because of 
 his death, much less that any little children wept 
 because of it. Had his greatness been like a high 
 wall, concealing whatever was sunny and winsome in 
 his nature ? On the same hillside where that great man 
 was laid to rest there is a new-made grave beneath the 
 
 cedars, and not very many people know anything about 
 
 (87)
 
 8b STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 it ; but among those who do there is a void, as when 
 the fire goes out upon the hearth-stone, and all is cold 
 and desolate. " It is no small thing to be missed by 
 one's friends when he is away from them." Little did 
 he consider, who spoke thus, how truly those words 
 would soon apply to himself. And here one might 
 pause to ponder. Which is preferable to be so great 
 and renowned that when one dies the news will be told 
 abroad in the world, or to be so genial and lovable that 
 even a little child will weep at the sight of his vacant 
 
 chair ? 
 
 When we are sleeping in our graves so still, 
 When we are sleeping in ( our graves so low, 
 Ah, who will care to know ? 
 Ah, who will ? 
 
 A wee bird made its nest out in the porch last 
 May, and lived there the summer long. But the sum- 
 mer is gone, and the winter is come again, and the bird 
 has flown away, and the nest is empty, and the snow is 
 on it and on the ground, and the clouds are gray and 
 threatening, and again the wind wails at the casements, 
 moans down the chimney. Lem, coming in to replenish 
 the fire, sees the form shivering over it in spite of the 
 warmth, sees the wide, tearless eyes, with the new, 
 strange look in them, sees the carpet strewn with rem- 
 nants of a rare and fragrant bouquet, Harry's gift, tors 
 to bits by nervous fingers.
 
 CONSOLATION. 89 
 
 "Miss Katy," and lie lays his hand gently on her 
 head, " try to think of something else ; jess try. 
 Think of all the poor folks you an' Mr. Harry's got 
 on the dockit, an' what'll become of 'em if you don't 
 pick up sperrits an' help 'im look after 'em a little. 
 Come, they's no time to be settin' here idle ! " You 
 would hardly guess his voice was choking, and that 
 tears were streaming down his black face. 
 
 " Oh, Lem," she answers drearily, " I'm tired ; I'm 
 tired of living. I can't care for anything any more." 
 
 " But you must care, honey. What'll become of poor 
 old 'Liza an' me if Katy goes off an' leaves us too ? " 
 
 But she only hovers more closely over the fire, staring 
 at it vacantly. And the wind moans and wails down the 
 chimney. 
 
 Lem returns to the kitchen to consult with his wife, 
 Eliza, as to what shall be done for her in whose wel- 
 fare they have felt such a tender interest since, years 
 ago, she and her brother were left orphans. Not all 
 the heartfelt sympathy of young and old, and the 
 loving little attentions of the children, seem to be of 
 any avail. Eliza advises to go for Edith. " She used 
 to 'muse Master Wallie." 
 
 But once in the room, her toys about her, Edith soon 
 ceases to play. There is a change. Somebody is gone 
 who used to be here. She may somewhat have forgot-
 
 JO . STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 ten all that lias been passing of late, scarcely can have 
 understood what has been told her ; but whether she 
 thinks about it or not, or remembers, even, she feels a 
 want. "It's lonesome without him!" Ah, that is it; 
 and she begins to sob, creeping close to Kate. But 
 what new thing is this? Katy doesn't notice her? 
 Those queer, staring eyes, that do not turn and smile 
 upon her, they are not Katy's eyes. That white, stony 
 face, that is not like Katy, either. And all the while 
 the wind is moaning and wailing, and the gloomy 
 clouds grow gloomier, making the day dreary and the 
 room dreary. Everything is dreary and lonesome, and 
 not as it used to be. She flies into the hall, crying and 
 calling to Lem, below. 
 
 " Take me home ! I'm afraid ! Katy isn't Katy any 
 more ! " 
 
 "Oh, come back, Edie ! " calls Kate, arousing at that 
 pitiful little cry and holding out her hands to the child. 
 "Don't go away and leave Katy all alone! She'll be 
 good now. She's sorry she scared Edie ; she didn't 
 mean to." 
 
 " Are you all alone?" Edith has stopped crying 
 suddenly. There is a peculiar earnestness in her look 
 as she questions. 
 
 " Yes, Edie, all alone ! all alone ! " and the answer 
 ends almost in a wail.
 
 CONSOLATION. 91 
 
 " Then it's there there, Behind the book the paper 
 that he did write on. I must give it to you when you 
 was all alone, he said my captain. He said, would I 
 'member? Ha, ha ! I did 'member, didn't I? " 
 
 Kate opens the book-case, and finds, as the child 
 said, a folded paper behind one of the encyclopaedias, 
 It contains some lines written with pencil, so run- 
 ning together, lines and words, as to be almost unread- 
 able. As she recognizes that handwriting and slowly 
 deciphers it, the tears come at last like rain. Edith, 
 no longer afraid, wipes them away with her little white 
 apron, murmuring, the while, all sorts of baby talk 
 
 About two hundred years ago there lived a blind 
 man who was the author of what many think to be the 
 greatest of poems. But wherever that wonderful work 
 is read and admired, there, too, it is told how his 
 daughters, with one exception, were unkind to him and 
 uiidutiful, refusing even the task of committing to 
 paper those immortal verses. However, it may be he 
 was a trifle to blame, himself. (For we have seen, as 
 in that other case, how greatness does sometimes build 
 for itself a barrier, a high, impassable wall.) Suppose 
 day after day little eyes looked up wistfully, and he did 
 not see gazing far off into other worlds and other ages ; 
 little voices whispered timidly, and he did not hear : 
 listening to the converse of angels ; little hands clung
 
 92 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 caressingly, but unheeded. Ah, that was asking for 
 bread and getting a stone. Suppose it made some 
 little hearts ache, some little people were "afraid," 
 finally, like Edith, awhile since. So when they grew 
 up and he grew old and sightless, what came of it all ? 
 Paradise Lost, to be marveled at as long as the English 
 language is known and studied, and there in shadowy 
 background, the mighty genius, poor and blind, with 
 his unloving daughters. 
 
 And now, girl readers, here is that writing which to 
 her, so sorrowful, is like a consoling message from the 
 Beyond. 
 
 FOB MY SWEET SAINT CATHERINE. 
 
 TJiere was once a blind, crippled, helpless hulk of humanity who 
 had a sister. And such a sister! All the women who ever wrote 
 books, or painted pictures, or spoke or sang to gaping crowds, weren't 
 worth her little finger. At least, so he thougJit this selfish fellow 
 and with good reason. For lie owed it to her that life was not a bur- 
 den ; rather, he owed it to her that life was a pleasure. Ah, what 
 could she have done that she did not do for him ? Like a good fairy 
 she hovered about him, studying and scheming for his comfort and 
 diversion from morning till night. Would he be read to? She 
 would read to him by the hour. Did some rhyme or foolish fancy 
 escape him ? She was only too eager to preserve it. She was eyes for 
 him, she was his good right hand, she was everything! Ah, how 
 unmindful of self , how thoughtful of him al trays. f ev.n striving to 
 forget somo sorrows of her own, lest her sadness might make him sad.' 
 And now that he is gone, and she has nothing to regret tiot one im- 
 patient word or act and to remember only unwearied, loving care, 
 ceaseless devotion, let her be comforted. Surely "she hath done what
 
 CONSOLATION. 93 
 
 she could." Oh, my sister, my sister, bs comforted! and let us dare 
 hope that of those who watch over thee, unseen, he who writes tliis may 
 be one." 
 
 Daylight slowly fades from tli3 wintry sky, the lire- 
 light flickers up and down the wall, and, as night de- 
 scends, little Edith falls to sleep in Kate's arms. But 
 are these two alone? For though there is seen no 
 shape among the shadows, nor is heard the sound of any 
 voice, what is that something that like a radiance sud- 
 denly overspreads the bowed face ? " The peace which 
 passeth all understanding."
 
 JULIE, JTJLIEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE 
 
 I. 
 
 "Who could she be the little stranger asleep in the, 
 cabin ? 
 
 Nobody could tell. 
 
 She must have come aboard unnoticed, hours ago, 
 at the French port where the vessel had been lying for 
 repairs. Had she wandered away from her home, and 
 innocently lain down here to rest ? In that home there 
 would be grief, and anxiety, and long waiting, or ever 
 she would return ; for the ship was now many leagues 
 out at sea, and the child had just been discovered. 
 
 The sound of voices talking the matter over wakened 
 the little girl, and she shrank timidly from all the eyes 
 fixed inquiringly upon her. So the captain sent every 
 one away, and sat down by her, and in -her own lan- 
 guage questioned: 
 
 " How came you here, little one ? " 
 
 " Is not this, then, the ship which goes to America ? 
 There was a man in the street who told me it should 
 go to America. Is it, then, a mistake? "
 
 JULIE, JULIEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE. 95 
 
 " No, not a mistake. And you wish to go to America? " 
 
 " Oui, monsieur. I go to Julien." 
 
 " And who is Julien ? " 
 
 " He is my brother." 
 
 " But how does it happen that you go alone ? " 
 
 " I have none to accompany me." 
 
 " Have you neither father nor mother? " 
 
 " Non, monsieur." 
 
 " Does your brother know you are coming? " 
 
 " Non, monsieur, he does not know it. It will be a 
 surprise." 
 
 " But what put it into your head, little what shall 
 I call you ? What is your name? " 
 
 " Julie Leblanc." 
 
 "Well, then, my little Julie, how is it that you happen 
 to be going to America? America is a long way off, do 
 you know it? " 
 
 " But no ! is it, then ? It cannot be far away where 
 Julien is. Is it farther than Paris ? " 
 
 " A good deal farther, Julie." 
 
 " But what to do ! No home, no friend. Only Julien." 
 
 "No home, no friend ! " repeated the captain, strok- 
 ing the dark hair, pityingly. " Did the father fall in 
 battle?" 
 
 "Yes, monsieur, many years ago, before -I can re- 
 member."
 
 96 STOKIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " And how long is it that little Julie has been with- 
 out home or friends ? " 
 
 " Since they took my dear mamma away to the 
 burial," answered the child, her eyes brimming with 
 tears. 
 
 After awhile the captain asked : 
 
 " Julie, do you know just where your brother is, in 
 what part of America ? " 
 
 "In what part, monsieur? Is it then so great a 
 city? But, without doubt, there will be one who can 
 tell me where he lives. In our village one knew every- 
 body." 
 
 " Whew ! " exclaimed the captain, twirling his 
 thumbs. 
 
 " Or I will stand at the corner of the street until he 
 passes by. I shall know him, without doubt, he is so 
 handsome. Oh, monsieur, I would know him anywhere. 
 I knew him instantly the last time I saw him, al- 
 though he wore the clothes of Jacques, the mason." 
 
 As the captain seemed interested, Julie explained: 
 
 " I awoke in the night. It was the dear mamma who 
 stood by my bed with a candle in the hand, and one 
 with her like Jacques until I meet his beautiful eyes. 
 Then I laugh gaily and cry, * Ah, behold thee, my bro- 
 ther, covered with plaster ! and thy coat too large for 
 thee ! Didst thou think to fool me ? ' But our mother
 
 JULIE, JULIEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE. 97 
 
 lays the finger upon her lip, and her face is very pale ; 
 and Julien kisses and embraces me without ceasing, and 
 with tears, and I know not what to make of it. Soon 
 they go out and I fall again to sleep. Oh, monsieur, 
 he came that same night to America ! It was not an 
 hour after, while I slept mamma has told me it that 
 the wicked gendarmes came and searched the house for 
 him ! " 
 
 " Ah ! the gendarmes ! and why ? " 
 
 " Because mamma said he had written something 
 in the journals which meant that the Emperor was not 
 a good Emperor ; and for that the wicked gendarmes 
 would have put my poor brother in prison." 
 
 " Go on, my pretty one," said the captain, smiling, 
 <; thou knowest how to talk. Thou art more entertain- 
 ing than a book. How old art thou ? " 
 
 " Ten years." 
 
 " You are small for that age. Have you ever been to 
 school?" 
 
 " Never, monsieur. It was the governess who taught 
 me." 
 
 " T^he governess bah ! Did she ever see a geogra- 
 phy?" 
 
 " Geography, monsieur ? What is that ? Is it an 
 animal ? " 
 
 " Bah ! What did she teach you ? "
 
 98 STOKffiS AND BALLADS. 
 
 " The dance, and the drawing, and the embroidery, 
 and the music " 
 
 " The music? can you sing? " 
 
 " A little, monsieur." 
 
 " Sing me, then, a little song." 
 
 So Julie sang a little song. It was the " Farewell.* 1 
 
 Adieu ! ne m'oublie pas, etc. 
 "Bravo ! " applauded the captain when she had fin- 
 
 v 
 
 ished. Then he went up on deck. 
 
 Julie recollected something as he passed out. She 
 carefully drew a small package from the folds of her 
 dress and ran after him. The rolling of the ship made 
 her dizzy. She reeled and would have fallen, had not 
 a sailor caught her hand. 
 
 " Merci " (thank you), she said. 
 
 That brought another to the rescue. 
 
 " Merci, inerci ! " she repeated. 
 
 Half a dozen of the crew came to learn the cause of 
 alarm. 
 
 " Merci, merci, merci ! " she screamed. Would they 
 never understand ? 
 
 The captain did, and laughed heartily. 
 
 " And what can I do for mademoiselle ? " he asked 
 as she approached, smiling at sight of his bronzed and 
 furrowed face already that of an old friend among 
 this crowd of seamen strangers, from a country where 
 " nieivy ! " is a frequent exclamation.
 
 "Because this, mamma eaid, must pay for my voyage." PAGE 99.
 
 JULIE, JULIEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE. 99 
 
 ** Good monsieur, are you the man who takes the 
 moneys ? Because this, mamma said, must pay for my 
 voyage." She gave to him the little parcel. 
 
 The captain opened it, and found therein a beautiful 
 cross of solid gold, curiously wrought and thickly stud- 
 ded with precious stones. 
 
 "Will it not do, monsieur? There was nothing else. 
 No money. The woman demanded so much for the 
 room and all ! Poor mamma was so long sick ! Oh. 
 monsieur, monsieur, but for that if she had not been 
 sick, she also would have come to America to Julien! 
 ' Take it,' she said all so slow she whispered it all 
 so slow ' Take it and go to Julien. It will pay the 
 passage.' And she whispered still a little more. I 
 could not hear. But I thought she went to sleep. 
 When the morning came, and I could see her face so 
 pale ! so cold ! so still 
 
 "Here, my little Julie," interrupted the captain, 
 pressing his hand an instant over his eyes, "take thy 
 cross. ' Keep it. Thou shalt have it to remember her 
 by. And I I am very well pleased to have a little 
 passenger." 
 
 " Oh, mon oncle ! how good you are ! " and the child 
 covered his great brown hand with kisses. 
 
 The captain stooped to rub her soft cheek with his 
 grizzled beard.
 
 100 STOEIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 He had no reason to be surprised ; for wherever JIP 
 went, the wide world over, did not all children call him 
 "Uncle?" 
 
 II. 
 
 " When was it your brother went away, Julie ? how 
 long ago ? can you remember ? " the captain asked one 
 day as the little girl paced the deck at his. side, her 
 slender hand in his. 
 
 "It is a very long time, monsieur inon oncle," she 
 answered ; and after thinking, " it is a year." 
 
 " Now try to remember, if you can, something about 
 the place where he lives. Did he never tell you about 
 it ? did he write no letters ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, mon oncle ; often to our mother, and for 
 me, one time, a little letter all in an envelope by 
 itself. Always I carry it with me. Behold it!" she 
 said, drawing it from her pocket. 
 
 " Ah ! a letter ! " cried the captain, greatly relieved, 
 " that will help us." 
 
 It was dated six months before, and postmarked 
 "Philadelphia." Within, too, was given the name of 
 the street, and even the number of the residence. 
 
 "Ah ! " gasped the captain, more relieved than ever. 
 
 As soon as the vessel arrived in port, he addressed 
 some lines to Julie's brother. But as the days passed 
 and he received no answer, he went himself to Phila-
 
 JULIE, JULIEN AST) ONCLE LE CAPITAIKE. 101 
 
 delpliia, and to the street and number given in the let- 
 ter. No. 210 proved to be a boarding-house, where, 
 indeed, the person inquired for had stopped a short 
 time. He had, however, gone away long ago, whither, 
 no one could tell. The captain then inserted in the 
 newspapers a card asking information concerning his 
 whereabouts. "While waiting a reply, there came 
 orders to sail with a cargo for the "West Indies. (The 
 captain's, was a trading vessel, carrying merchandise 
 from one country to another.) 
 
 What was to be done with little Julie ? that was the 
 question. The captain went finally to a lawyer, told 
 him her story, charged him to make inquiries for her 
 brother. Then they talked awhile together, and the 
 lawyer did some writing. 
 
 After that the captain took Julie in the cars to a 
 town where lived a friend of his. Now, his friend, his 
 wife, and their five children were delighted to see the 
 captain. They always were when he came home from 
 his voyages. Perhaps it was because he never failed 
 to bring such costly presents ; this time a beautiful 
 gilt harness for the father or rather for a pair of fine 
 bays elegant French silks for the mother, and no end 
 of toys for the small folks. And when he asked Mrs. 
 Lane if she would, as a favor, take Julie into her home 
 and care for her until his return (he did not expect to
 
 102 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 be gone long, he said), she appeared to be very willing 
 to do so. 
 
 But when it came to bidding " good-bye," and the-* 
 child clung to him, trembling and sobbing, " Oh, mon 
 oncle! mon oncle! " he looked troubled. He just held 
 her close for a moment, gave her three great sailor 
 kisses that echoed from cellar to garret, and ran out of 
 the house without a word. 
 
 No sooner had the captain's ship set sail than Mrs. 
 Lane took Julie to an orphan asylum. 
 
 " Send her off somewhere," she said to the matron. 
 " A home in the West ! that would be the very place 
 for her. Ah, the West ! what a glorious place for little 
 homeless wanderers ! " 
 
 Riding away alone in her easy carriage, she muttered: 
 
 " The idea of his bringing that little vagabond for 
 me to look after ! I don't care if he did offer to pay 
 her board (of course it wouldn't have done to accept). 
 I don't intend to make my house a harbor for every 
 little straggler that happens along! and right there 
 with the children, too ! What do I know about her ? 
 What does he ? Maybe her story is true, and maybe 
 it isn't. Those French, they can lie ! And then she'd 
 be forever harassing me about that brother of hers. 
 
 Ha ! she'll never see him again ! those French ! 
 
 And then he's taken such a fancy to her ! why, she
 
 JTJLIE, JULIEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE. 103 
 
 Calls him ' Uncle ' already ! Just like him to go and 
 spend upon her the half he owns educate her, and all 
 
 that ! I won't have it ! There may be some 
 
 trouble over my sending her off? Well, well, 
 
 I'll have some pretty excuse ready. Time enough to 
 invent it before he gets back." 
 
 (It was thought that the captain would make the 
 little Lanes his heirs, for they were great favorites with 
 
 "Uncle Jack.") 
 
 III. 
 
 At the asylum, little orphans had a roof to shelter 
 them from the storms, a place to lay their tired selves 
 at night, food to eat when they were hungry, clothes to 
 protect them from the cold. But there was no mamma 
 there, no Julien, no oncle le capitaine. The great 
 clean rooms, with their whitewashed walls, were so 
 bare. No pretty mats on the floors, no carved tables, 
 no silken chairs and sofas, no crimson curtains, no beau- 
 tiful paintings and statuettes, as in that pleasant village 
 home from which Julie and her mother fled when the 
 terrible armies came marching on, with beat of drum 
 and thundering of cannon. It was dreary and lone- 
 some here. Julie could not understand a word that 
 was spoken, neither could any one understand her. 
 So she could not play with the other children, but sat 
 alone by herself watching them all day watching in a
 
 104 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 dream, tlie roar of the briny billows still ringing in her 
 ears. Now and then she cried a little for very home- 
 sickness ; and always she wondered why she was in this 
 place and why Julien did not come. 
 
 One day a lady was shown into the school-room, 
 where the children sang for her. Looking about upon 
 their faces she asked : 
 
 " Who is that delicate little creature in the corner, 
 with the dark hair and eyes? " 
 
 The matron told the story she. had heard from Mrs. 
 Lane. It was, she said, a little orphan girl who had re- 
 cently come over in an emigrant ship from France. Her 
 father was killed in the battle of Sedan. Did the lady 
 know of any one who would like to adopt the child? 
 
 " Why, I've a great mind to take her myself. She 
 could play with Charlie and Lizzie, you know," turning 
 to her companion, " and in that way they could learn to 
 speak French, couldn't they ? " 
 
 So, when this person she was visiting some cousins 
 in town when she returned home Julie went with her ; 
 why, she did not know, but she supposed it must be the 
 way to find her brother. To be sure, niadame let her 
 hold Lizzie a good deal, and holding Lizzie made one's 
 arms ache. What matter ? Julien w r ould be there, 
 where they were going ! 
 
 But when the long journey was ended, and they left
 
 JULIE, JULIEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE. 105 
 
 the noisy train, and monsieur met them, all smiles at 
 the sight of wife and baby, and they drove through the 
 streets to monsieur's house, Julien was not there ! The 
 child was ready to cry from disappointment. She sat 
 down by the window and watched the passers-by. Per- 
 haps one would be Julien. Now, a little boy of five or 
 six years, after being fondled and caressed by mamma, 
 and having given baby a dutiful but hasty kiss, came 
 and planted himself in front of her. When he had stared 
 at her to his satisfaction, he demanded : 
 
 " Who be you ? " 
 
 Julie could not understand, and so how could she 
 answer? 
 
 " Who be you, I say ? " 
 
 No reply. 
 
 " Why don't you speak, you ninny, you ?" 
 
 " Bonjour, mon ami,"* said Julie, scared at his rough 
 tones. 
 
 "Bonny Jew! what's the rest of it? Bonny Jew ! 
 Bonny Jew ! Ha, ha ! What a funny name !" 
 
 Charley caught up his cap and ran into the street to 
 tell Willie Wade : 
 
 " There's a girl in there. Her name's Bonny Jew. 
 She's deef, I guess, fur I couldn't make 'er- hear till I 
 hollered loud enough to take 'er head off." 
 
 * Good-morning (or good-day), my friend.
 
 106 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 At night, madame led Julie down to the kitchen, say- 
 ing, " Katrine, you may let her sleep with you," and 
 left her there. 
 
 Katrine's face flushed scarlet, and her mild eyes 
 flashed as they never flashed before. Was not France 
 at that very hour making war upon her countrymen ? 
 Were not all French, then, her enemies ? She took up 
 the lamp and strode toward her chamber. Julie, afraid 
 to be left in the dark, followed after. The door was 
 locked in her face. 
 
 Madame coming into the basement for a glass of wa- 
 ter, late in the evening, stumbled over the child lying 
 asleep on the hall floor, just outside of Katrine's room. 
 She tried the door, and finding it fastened, called 
 through the keyhole: " Katrine ! Katrine ! " 
 
 Katrine either did not hear or pretended not to. She 
 was snoring right loyally between two immense feather 
 beds Avhich had kept her company all the way from Yat- 
 erland. The lounge in the back parlor, with some shawls 
 and cushions, would serve for Julie's couch this time. 
 
 "Katrine," asked madame, " what did you mean by 
 locking Julie out of your room last night? " 
 
 " I vill not haf der Franchen mit me in my ped ! ' 
 
 " Why, Katrine, I think you are very unreasonable." 
 
 " I care not vat you tinks ! I vill go find me anodder 
 blacs ! "
 
 JULIE, JULIEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE. 107 
 
 But madame couldn't afford to lose Katrine. Katrine 
 was a treasure. Katrine could cook, and wash, and iron, 
 and do all kinds of work to perfection. She was tidy, 
 and she was industrious, and always good-tempered till 
 now. So, instead of her finding " anodder blace," a bed 
 was made for Julie in the attic the low, wide, win- 
 dowless attic, where not a breath of air moved in sum- 
 mer, where the winds whistled and moaned in winter, 
 where the rats and mice held revels all the year round 
 the great, gloomy attic, with its mysterious chests 
 and closets, where curious shadows dwelt ; strewn with 
 mysterious hats, and boots and shoes, that took strange 
 shapes after the sun went down; hung about with mys- 
 terious outcasts old gowns, and crinolines, and coats, 
 that weirdly swayed and swung on boisterous autumn 
 nights ; the dreadful attic, where, hour after hour, when 
 she ought to have been enjoying sweet, blessed sleep, 
 little tired Julie lay wide-eyed, staring at she knew 
 not what, listening to she knew not what, trembling, 
 shivering, the sweat upon her brow. 
 
 " Oh, madame, fai peur ! " * she said once, lingering 
 when bedtime came. 
 
 But madame didn't understand. 
 
 The weeks passed by. Julien did not come. Would 
 he ever come ? The question was often put to madame. 
 
 *J am fifraicl.
 
 108 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 But she didn't understand. Julie began to grow dis- 
 couraged. Baby was so heavy ! and she was cutting 
 teeth, too, and worried and fretted. Some new play- 
 thing must be invented every five minutes to amuse 
 and keep her quiet. She must be sung to, rocked, car- 
 ried backward and forward, to and fro, drawn in her 
 carriage up and down the sidewalk, wearily, wearily, up 
 and down. As for Charley, he learned to speak less 
 good French of Julie than he hurled bad English at her. 
 During his mother's visit East, he had improved the 
 chance for making acquaintance with all the boys on 
 the street, and thus had considerably increased the list 
 of words at his command. One day, Lizzie's dimpled 
 fingers found the ribbon about Julie's neck. Out in 
 full sight flew the precious cross. Julie hastened to 
 hide it, but a pair of keen eyes had caught the glitter. 
 
 "What's that? What's that shiny thing you've got 
 there, Julie ? I want to see it ! " cried the tormentor, 
 darting toward her. 
 
 She thrust out her hand to keep him off. He flung 
 it aside and clutched at the ribbon. 
 
 " Non ! non ! " she screamed, pushing him away. 
 
 At that he became furious, kicking and biting, and 
 pulling her hair. Julie, dropping the baby, shrieked 
 with pain. Baby began to cry lustily. The uproar 
 reached the drawing-room, where there were callers.
 
 JULIE, JULIEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE. 
 
 100 
 
 Madame came rushing in to still the noise. Charley, 
 who had succeeded in tearing it away, now, triumph- 
 ant, held up the cross. 
 
 " See, ma, see ! She had it hid in 'er neck ! She 
 stole it, you bet ! " 
 
 " Oh, donnez-la moi ! donnez-la moi ! "* sobbed 
 Julie. 
 
 Madame hadn't time to inquire into the matter. 
 She took the cross away from Charley, though he 
 stoutly resisted, locked it in a drawer of her writing- 
 desk, put the key in her pocket and then went back to 
 her guests. 
 
 The young gentleman picked at the lock with his 
 pencil. 
 
 " You plagued old thing ! " he muttered, shaking his 
 fist and scowling at Julie, " if you hadn't a' raised such 
 a rumpus she'd never a' knowed, and I'd a' traded it off 
 fur Tommy Tough's pearl-handled penknife plague 
 take you ! " 
 
 After the visitors had gone, Julie, pointing to the 
 writing-desk, entreated: 
 
 " Oh, madarne, la give, la give ! a present, s'il vous 
 please ! " 
 
 "Yes, yes, yes, by and by." 
 
 But " by and by," madame had forgotten. She did 
 
 , give it to me ! give it to me.
 
 HO STOKIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 not remember, indeed, until she opened the drawer to 
 get her portemonnaie before going out shopping. 
 
 " Some cheap gew-gaw, possibly," she thought, 
 taking up the cross. " I don't know, though ! Can 
 this be glass ? Wonder how she came by it ? Can it 
 possibly be of any value ? . . . I've a great mind to take 
 it down to Forsyth's and see what he says. He'll know 
 the moment he lays eyes on it." 
 
 Down to Forsyth's she took it. 
 
 " Mr. Forsyth," she said, handing it across the coun- 
 ter, " here is a little trinket that has accidentally come 
 into my possession lately. I'd like your opinion as to 
 its worth." 
 
 The jeweler's eyes sparkled like the precious gems, 
 as he held them to the light. 
 
 " Why, Mrs. , you have here a treasure ! Those 
 
 stones ! genuine article ! " and examining more closely: 
 "It's very old. Just observe the chasing. You know 
 nothing of its history ? " 
 
 "No. You consider it of value, then? " 
 
 "Of value? I would give five hundred dollars any 
 day, Mrs. - , to become possessor of that cross." He 
 added eagerly, " Could you not be induced to part with 
 it?" 
 
 Five hundred dollars ! Madame's glance fell upon 
 a silver tea-service which she had long coveted.
 
 JtfLlti, JULTEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAlNfi. Ill 
 
 " Possibly. I'll think about it," she said, and went 
 her way. 
 
 Such a lovely blue moire in one of the shop windows 
 five dollars a yard. It made one's mouth water to 
 look at it. Such a lovely Brussels in another! the 
 parlors needed carpeting anew. Such lovely, lovely 
 things in all the windows ! that one really oug lit to have. 
 As for the child, of what earthly use could that costly 
 trinket ever be to her? Like as not she stole it, as 
 Charley said. 
 
 "When madame reached home her purse was even 
 better filled than when she started out, and the silver 
 tea-set would be sent up from Forsyth's to-morrow. 
 Meantime a curious piece of workmanship in the jew- 
 eler's show-case was attracting much attention. 
 
 What a queer way to find the brother is tljis tend- 
 ing Lizzie and being knocked about by Charley, and 
 robbed of mamma's last gift ! Julie fears she will 
 never get it, for when she asked madame for it again, 
 madame blushed an,d did not reply. What strange 
 people these Americans are ! They make little chil- 
 dren take care of little children ! And she is afraid of 
 Charley. She trembles now to think of him. And 
 who is that creature peering out of the closet over 
 there ?
 
 112 BfORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 It is like the woman who let the room where mamma 
 was taken sick. 
 
 Why, this is that room ! and here is the mother be j 
 side her. 
 
 Julie leans over and asks: 
 
 " Why dost thou not waken, my mother ? Behold, 
 the sun is high. Why dost thou sleep so long ? Why 
 art thou so cold and pale ? Mamma ! Mamma ! " 
 
 The silken lashes are not lifted from the marble 
 cheek ; the white lips make no answer. 
 
 " She is so weary, I will not disturb her. I will 
 watch until she wakens." 
 
 The morning creeps away, the noon, and the after- 
 noon, and now the evening comes. 
 
 " Mamma ! my dear mamma ! " 
 
 Still the eyelids are not lifted, and the white lips are 
 dumb. 
 
 The night goes by, and a day, and another night, and 
 the morning dawns once more. And again the woman 
 comes peering through the door. 
 
 " She is dead," Julie hears her say. 
 
 Men enter and carry the mother away. 
 
 " Where are you going with my poor mamma? " 
 
 " We are going to bury her." 
 
 " You shall not bury her ! You shall not take her 
 away," cries Julie.
 
 JULIE, JULEEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE. 113 
 
 They thrust lier back with rough hands. They will 
 not let her follow. The woman locks her in. She is 
 left alone, alone. 
 
 The day goes by, the noon, and the afternoon. The 
 shadows reach out after her like claws. She crouches 
 in the chimney-corner, staring at them through the 
 long, dark hours. 
 
 At midnight the woman glides stealthily in, glides 
 stealthily about, peering, peering with wicked eyes. 
 She fumbles among the bedding, opens the trunk, takes 
 out its contents carefully. 
 
 " Nothing, nothing ! " she hisses between clenched 
 teeth. 
 
 She glides stealthily towards the child. Julie holds 
 the cross in her hand. 
 
 " What have you there, little wretch ? " demands the 
 woman, trying to wrest it from her. 
 
 Julie will not give it up. With a sudden bound she 
 escapes, runs out of the room, out of the house, down 
 the path, away, away, through the fields. On, and on, 
 she hurries, not daring to look back. Daylight comes, 
 and still she walks on. After awhile she grows faint. 
 She sits down by the roadside to rest. A peasant girl 
 passes by with a basket on her arm. 
 
 " Does this road go to the place where one finds the 
 ships ? " asked Julie.
 
 1H STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " Oui, mademoiselle." 
 
 When Julie is rested, she rises and walks on. Still 
 on and on. The way is long. At last the houses are 
 thick together. Beyond is the blue sea. There are the 
 ships, many, with white sails. 
 
 " Which one goes to America ? " asks Julie of a man 
 lounging about the wharf. 
 
 He points to one from which floats a beautiful flag. 
 
 While she looks, the great flag comes fluttering, 
 fluttering doAvn fluttering, floating before her, float- 
 ing about her, wrapping her in its folds; then back 
 it flies, whizzing through the air, up, up, up, among the 
 tall masts, so high above the water! Julie is dizzy, 
 and tries to catch at the ropes. Lo ! her hands are 
 pinioned. She cannot move them. A huge serpent is 
 coiled about her a huge serpent striped its whole 
 length with red and white. The coils are tightening, 
 tightening. She cannot breathe. She struggles to be 
 free. A flaming head swoops suddenly down. Two 
 terrible eyes glare at her two eyes two glittering 
 
 stars. 
 
 IY. 
 
 " Katrine," said madame, " go and call Julie. Why, 
 here it's seven o'clock, and she not up yet !' I never 
 knew her to lie abed like this before. Tell her she 
 must come down right away and dress the baby."
 
 JULIE, JULIEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE. 115 
 
 Katrine came back in a few minutes, looking fright- 
 ened. 
 
 " I calls von, dwo, dree dimes. She vill not hear. 
 Den I goes oop der shtep und calls von more dime. 
 She vill not ondershtand. She shtare mit de eyes 
 vide und see notting ! Den she schream like murter." 
 
 " Why, mercy on us, Dolf ! " exclaimed madame, 
 glancing across the breakfast-table at her husband, 
 " what if the child's sick ! some fever or other ! 
 something catching ! and these children ! she ought 
 to be got out of the house immediately ! . . . St. Mary's 
 Hospital! Yes, that's the place. She's Catholic, I be- 
 lieve. Katrine ! no, wait ! perhaps it isn't anything 
 serious, after all. We must find out first. Dolf, what 
 if you leave word for Dr. Smith to call round as you go 
 down street ? No, stay ! " in an undertone, " don't 
 send him. Get some one that doesn't go in our set 
 some stranger. Being up in the attic so, it might get 
 out that we didn't treat her well. You know how ab- 
 surdly people will talk, sometimes. Can't you think 
 of some one else we can call in ? " 
 
 "Well, I d-o-n'-t know. Let me see. Why, yes, 
 there's that young fellow who has stuck up his shin- 
 gle a few doors off from the office. Foreigner, I be- 
 lieve. Hasn't any too much custom, should judge. 
 Might get him."
 
 116 STOBIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " A foreigner. Oh, yes ; that will do very well." 
 
 In half an hour the young physician rang the door- 
 bell. He was shown up to the attic by Katrine'. As 
 he mounted the stairs, a pitiful little wail came floating 
 down: 
 
 " Oh, Julien, Julien, tu es bien longtemps a' venir. 
 Helas ! ne te reverrai-je plus ? "' 
 
 Madame, waiting below, wondered if the stranger 
 wasn't " some exiled nobleman, he looks so distin- 
 guished. Rather seedy, though." 
 
 Soon she grew impatient. 
 
 " "What is he keeping me so long in suspense for, 
 I should like to know? " 
 
 "When he came down at last, his eyes burned like hot 
 coals, and he had for her questions never a word of 
 answer. He walked swiftly away, and returned with a 
 carriage before she had recovered from her amazement. 
 Still speechless, he again made his way to the attic, 
 and when he descended this time he bore something 
 in his arms very tenderly. 
 
 It was little Julie, wrapped in his cloak. 
 
 " You are behaving very strangely, sir ! What are 
 you doing? Where are you taking her ? " 
 
 " Where she will be cared for, rest assured ! ' 
 
 *Thou art very long in coming. Alas ! shall I never see thee 
 more ?
 
 JULffi, ^TULIEN AND OXCLE LE CAPITAINE. 11? 
 
 " What do you mean, sir ? " cried madame, following 
 down the steps. " Do you dare insinuate that she 
 wouldn't be cared for here ? I want to know what 
 right you have to be meddling with that child ? " 
 
 " The best right in the world, madame a brother's 
 right." To the coachman: "Drive on!" and the car- 
 riage rolled away. 
 
 A passing glimpse of a tiny, fever-flushed face, wild, 
 unconscious, restless eyes, and lips that moved contin- 
 ually, was the last madame saw of the " delicate little 
 creature " she had " adopted " for a nurse-girl. 
 
 When she had recovered breath and collected her 
 scattered wits, she put on her shawl and bonnet, and. 
 went clow r n town to the office. 
 
 " Dolf, w r hat's that young doctor's name, do you 
 enow?" 
 
 " Name ? Never noticed, 'pon my word. "Why ? " 
 
 "It's out there on his door, or somewhere, isn't it? 
 Just step out and see, please." 
 
 " Leblanc," said " Dolf," returning. 
 
 " Leblanc Leblanc . . . yes, and that's the child's 
 name, now I recall it. Do you know, he's her brother ! " 
 
 The next place madame visited was the jeweler's. 
 She was very glad she had not purchased the watered 
 silk or the Brussels carpet, and that the silver service 
 had not yet been sent up to the house.
 
 IIS STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " Mr. Forsyth," she said, laying a roll of bank-notes 
 on the counter, " I regret our little transaction yester- 
 day. I prefer to keep the cross myself." 
 
 "Well a hem! a bargain's a bargain, you know." 
 
 " Oh, don't talk to me about ' bargains ' ! we're old 
 acquaintances. I w r ant that cross. I must have it." 
 
 The jeweler colored, and coughed, and objected. But 
 madame was obstinate. Finally, as they were " old ac- 
 quaintances," and as madame's husband was a lawyer, 
 and as he hadn't told her anywhere near the full value 
 of the cross, he yielded on one condition that it 
 should remain a few days longer in his show-case. It 
 added greatly to the display there, especially since a 
 card had been attached to it, reading thus : 
 
 ANTIQUE CROSS, 
 
 Formerly owned by the 
 
 EMPBESS EUGENIE, 
 
 Sold by her in her flight from Paris, to defray the expenses of the journey. 
 
 Madame agreed to the condition, thinking : 
 " If Doctor Leblanc cares anything for his sister he 
 won't be gaping at jewelers' windows for some time to 
 come. (Doubtful if she recovers. It's some fever or 
 other she must have caught on board that emigrant 
 ship. And the children ! bless me, I must go the very 
 next thing to Doctor Smith and see if he thinks there's-
 
 JULIE, JULIEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE. 119 
 
 any danger.) And then if he shouldn't happen to ask 
 for it, or make any fuss about it, why, I can wear it 
 myself, and everybody in town will suppose it has once 
 been worn by Eugenie ! " 
 
 A week from that morning little Julie came back 
 from her wanderings, looked up into the face bending 
 over her, and knew it for the first time. 
 
 " C'est lui ! "* she whispered, smiling faintly, closed 
 her weary eyes and fell into a sweet slumber. 
 
 "Thank God! she is going to live." 
 
 V. 
 
 "What art thou writing, my brother?" asked Julie 
 from among her pillows one day ; " something for the 
 journals ? " 
 
 " Oui, cherie." 
 
 " Oh, dear Julien, take care ! do not say thdt the 
 Emperor of America is not a good Emperor ! " 
 
 " Fear not, mon enfant : we are in a free country 
 where one says what one pleases." 
 
 Julien* brought a basin which had been heating on 
 the stove. 
 
 " Here is something for thee, little one." 
 
 *It is he !
 
 120 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " Wilt them not have of it also, brother ? Let us 
 dine together. I never see thee eat." 
 
 " The beef tea is not for strong men : it is for the 
 little invalids." 
 
 " Ah, but thou art not strong ! I remember when 
 thy cheeks were like the rose. .Now thou art so pale 
 and thin ! and I saw thy hand tremble while thou wast 
 writing. Oh, my brother, if thou shouldst be sick, I 
 fear I could not be to thee the good angel thou art to 
 me. Come, take of this a little : it is excellent." 
 
 " I have already dined, cherie." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 "While thou wast sleeping." 
 
 " I bet thy dinner was not so good as mine ! n'est ce 
 pas?" 
 
 No, truly it was not. . It was of stale bread, as wee a 
 morsel as ever kept body and soul together. But the 
 little one must never know. 
 
 " Tell me, Julie, who is oncle le capitaine ? " 
 
 " Oh, that is the monsieur charming Avho gave me a 
 ride in his ship. He promised to find thee for me. But 
 who hast thou heard to speak of him ? " 
 
 " A little fairy. And so he crave thee the ride ? " 
 
 / 
 
 " Yes, Julien, was he not good ? He would not take 
 the cross thou rememberest? our poor mamma's 
 beautiful cross. It was yesterday, was it not, that I
 
 JULIE, JULIEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE. 121 
 
 was telling tliee how she gave it to me? Madame 
 locked it in the drawer. I wonder if she would not let 
 thee have it if thou wert to ask her? for thou art a 
 man, and thou canst speak English, and she will com- 
 prehend. Oh, dear Julien, what is the matter ? what 
 have I said? art thou angry with me? " 
 
 " No, not with thee, my poor dear little angel ! but 
 with those people there the brutes ! " 
 
 " Comment ! who has told thee of them, my brother? " 
 
 "A little fairy." 
 
 " "Who is that little fairy that tells thee so much ? 
 what is she called ? " 
 
 "She is called Julie." 
 
 " Comment ! what dost thou say ? I am she ! But 
 how could I tell thee, since thou wilt scarcely allow me 
 to speak a single word, dear monsieur le docteur ? " 
 
 " My poor little Julie has had bad dreams and talked 
 in her sleep. There, now, thou art weary. Close thy 
 pretty eyes and rest thee. Already, I fear, I have let 
 thee talk too long." 
 
 " But it is so good to be with one who comprehends, 
 and can speak with me our own beautiful language ! " 
 
 " Poor little sister ! when thou art stronger, we will 
 do nothing but talk for a whole day." 
 
 While the child lay sleeping, there came a rap at the 
 outer door. Julien hoped he was going to have a pa-
 
 122 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 tient. But no, a tall, stout gentleman strode into the 
 office. His face was ruddy, his eyes twinkled merrily. 
 He didn't look as if he were in any need of medicine. 
 
 " I came to ask after the little Julie," he said. " She 
 came over in my ship," he explained. " Possibly she 
 has made mention of " 
 
 " Ah ! is it ' oncle le capitaine ' ? " 
 
 " The same," answered the gentleman, smiling. 
 
 " Then let me thank you for your kindness to my 
 little sister ! " cried the young man, grasping his hand. 
 " I know not how to express my gratitude." 
 
 " Bah ! where is she ? " 
 
 " In the next room. She sleeps. She is just recov- 
 ering from a fever of the brain." 
 
 " Indeed ! Strange that woman should not have 
 spoken of it ! Has she been very sick?" 
 
 " It has been a struggle for life." 
 
 " Ah-h-h, those Lanes ! the rascals ! Why, sir, I left 
 the child in charge of people I thought I could trust 
 people I had befriended. Why, that man, Lane, was 
 head and ears in debt ! but for me, he and his would 
 be in want and misery to-day ! What do they do, the 
 moment I am out of sight, but send her to an orphan 
 asylum ! Sent her off ! off West ! that was all they 
 could tell me at the asylum. Gone West ! Nothing 
 definite. No record, no trace. I've had a search, I can
 
 JULIE, JULIEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE. 123 
 
 tell you. Hunted, advertised, from place to place. 
 Yesterday I came here. It was by this cross I found 
 her. I saw it in a shop window and identified it at 
 once with one little Julie had shown me on shipboard. 
 You recognize it ? " 
 
 " I do, indeed. It is an heir-loom. It has been 
 handed down through I know not how many genera- 
 tions." 
 
 " I made inquiries in the shop, and was directed to 
 a lady who they said was its owner. She proved to be 
 the person who took the child from the asylum. She 
 seemed strangely embarrassed and disinclined to speak 
 about the matter." 
 
 " With good reason ! mon Dieu ! my blood boils as I 
 think of it. It was the cruelty and overtask that 
 caused my little one's illness." 
 
 "I suspected something of the kind. Listen to the 
 condition upon which that person acquainted me with 
 your whereabouts that I ' shouldn't mention the mat- 
 ter to any one in town ! ' And there's something 
 wrong about this cross. She said she was afraid the 
 child might lose it, and so had put it under lock and 
 key for safe keeping, and had afterwards lent it to the 
 jeweler as a curiosity. But he was wonderfully inquis- 
 itive, and undertook to pump me when I went back 
 after it. What do 3-011 think he had labeled it ? As one 
 of the jewels of your ex-Empress !"
 
 124 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " C'en est trop!* these Yankees ! " exclaimed Julien ; 
 then coloring to the roots of his hair he stammered : 
 
 " Pardon, monsieur ! " 
 
 " No offense," said the captain, smiling. " I am, then, 
 so genuine a Yankee ? " 
 
 " I do not say it," the other slowly answered. 
 
 The captain laughed aloud. 
 
 Julien opened the inner door. 
 
 " Didst thou call, sister ? " 
 
 " Oui, mon frere. Tell me who is with thee ? But I 
 know it I ! It is oncle le capitaine ! I heard him 
 laugh ! " 
 
 " Bonjour, bonjour, mademoiselle 1'Empress ! how is 
 your Majesty's health to-day ? " cried a voice over 
 Julien' s shoulder. " See, little pale one, I come to 
 bring thee thy cross." 
 
 " Oh, the cross of mamma ! the cross of mamma ! " 
 exclaimed Julie, seizing it and covering it with kisses, 
 while silent tears crept down her wan cheeks. 
 
 Julien turned away to the window, and the captain 
 sat down by the couch and shaded his eyes with his 
 hand. 
 
 " But, mon oncle," said Julie after awhile, " tell me, 
 did you have a good voyage ? Did the great waves 
 come and tip the ship right over on its side and almost 
 
 -That's too mucli !
 
 JULIE, JULIEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE. 125 
 
 spill you out ? You were gone so long I feared you 
 were drowned. Oh, mon oncle, do not go away again 
 upon the terrible sea ; but stay with us, my brother 
 and me." 
 
 "Ah, my little Julie, thy poor old uncle is, upon 
 land, like a fish out of water." 
 
 Julie must not yet hear, the captain thought, the 
 story of that great gale off the coast of the Carolinas, 
 in which his good ship had nearly been wrecked. It 
 would better suit the little convalescent to be told of 
 those islands where he had been ; those sunny islands 
 where it is always summer, where oranges and bananas 
 and the rarest and most beautiful flowers grow wild. 
 
 While the two were talking, Julien once more took 
 up his pen. 
 
 "With monsieur's permission. An article for the 
 Morning Post. It must be ready within the next two 
 hours." 
 
 " Ah ! a treatise on health, doubtless." 
 
 " A treatise on Louis Napoleon ce scelerat ! " 
 
 " My friend, take the advice of your sister's venera- 
 ble uncle ; let that poor wretch alone. He's about 
 played out. At all events, you are out of his reach. 
 Stick to your profession. "Writing is fool's business. 
 ' A jack at all trades is good at none.' " 
 
 " But monsieur knows one must find some way to kill 
 time."
 
 12G STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " All ? Pill-peddling is not a lively business nowa- 
 days, I take it." 
 
 " Monsieur, I have set up shop in three cities, and 
 in each have waited three months for a patient." 
 
 " Whew ! is that so ? Why didn't you tell me be- 
 fore?" 
 
 " Why be in haste to tell of it, monsieur ? It is noth- 
 ing tD boast of, surely ! " 
 
 "Why? Because I can help you. I am going to 
 help you. I intended to when I came here, if I found 
 you were in need of it." 
 
 " I have not said I was in need. I ask no one for 
 help. What I ask for is work ! " 
 
 " Young man, you are altogether too proud ! You 
 should take lessons of Young America ! Young Amer- 
 ica isn't afraid of the jingling of coin. Young America 
 doesn't spurn a good offer. Young America would 
 jump at the chance. But as for work, why, work will 
 come to you if you only wait for it long enough. ' Pa- 
 tient waiters are no losers.' " 
 
 " Wait, wait, wait ! mon Dieu ! and the child there ! " 
 
 " Yes, we must think of her ! Come, my dear fellow, 
 you've had a hard row to hoe. No use denying ! " 
 
 Julien was silent for a few moments ; then he said : 
 
 " I will confess, monsieur, that I have seen times 
 when I have wished myself well back in France. There, 
 at least, one could fight for one's country."
 
 JULIE, JULIEN AND ONCLE LE CAPITAINE. 127 
 
 " Is it worth fighting for ? Poor France ! a republic, 
 a kingdom, an empire, a bedlam, by fits ! ruled yesterday 
 by an idiot, to-day by a lynx, to-morrow by a pack of 
 bloodhounds! Better off where you are, young man; 
 better off where you are." 
 
 Julien had arisen, and stood glaring at the captain. 
 
 " Monsieur forgets he is speaking of the land of my 
 birth 1" 
 
 " And of the land of his birth, as well," was the quiet 
 reply. 
 
 " Quoi ! what do I understand monsieur to say ? " 
 
 " Have you never heard your mother speak of her 
 brother Jean ? 
 
 " Often." 
 
 " I am he." 
 
 " But no ! He entered a monastery. He was a monk." 
 
 " Still again, I am he. At your age I grew weary of 
 the cloister. Disguised as a sailor I escaped to the 
 United States ; and disguised as a sailor I have knocked 
 about the world ever since. My own country is the 
 one I avoid most of all, I suppose I never should 
 have known aught of Marguerite's children if the 
 little Julie had not corne to me just as she did. In- 
 deed, although she told me her name, I never sus- 
 pected who she might be until she showed me her poor 
 mother's cross. In the cloister one is buried from the
 
 128 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 world. I did not know whom my sister married. He, 
 too, is dead, the child told me. I mean your father.' 
 
 " General Leblanc, of the Italian campaign you have 
 never heard of him ? It was there that he lost his life." 
 
 " Poor Marguerite ! She was coming to you, it seems, 
 and fell ill upon the way." 
 
 " I first learned it from Julie. I had received no 
 tidings for months. Our home was in the region which 
 has fallen into the enemy's clutches. Mails, of course, 
 were stopped. What other reason for the silence? 
 Mon Dieu ! the agony of suspense ! I should have re- 
 turned immediately when the republic was declared, 
 if I could have seen my way ' 
 
 " And you two might have sought each other till 
 your locks were gray and probably would never have 
 met." 
 
 " Mon oncle, please tell to me also those strange, sad 
 things you have been telling my brother now for a long 
 time in that dreadful English, till suddenly, at this mo- 
 ment, he looks frightened." 
 
 Julien went over to the little questioner and kissed 
 her wondering eyes. 
 
 " Thy uncle, sister dear angel ! has been telling 
 me that he is also my uncle."
 
 THE VOICES. 
 
 " Come now, my children," said Dame Nature once, 
 in the morning of the world, " let me hear your voices, 
 that I may judge which of all is the most musical." 
 
 Up from the dewy grass sprang a meadow-lark with 
 a burst of melody that thrilled the listening air ; then 
 loud, and sweet, and clear, was heard the warbling of 
 a nightingale ; the mountain brook, swinging its censer 
 among the rocks, began to chant in lower, deeper 
 tones ; meanwhile, that wanderer, the wind, passing, with 
 nimble fingers touched the keys of the forest-organ, and 
 the towering pines and sturdy oaks and yews quivered 
 and throbbed as he played accompaniment ; then car- 
 oled in chorus countless millions of birds even the 
 tiny insects took to humming as they rioted among 
 the golden rays, and the wild beasts and every living 
 creature, encouraged, lifted their voices in trial ; from 
 the cloud-mass, above the far-off horizon, came the 
 thunder's rumble ; the river, leaping the cliff, roared in 
 rivalry ; quick followed the heavy voices of the great 
 
 billows as they came surging upon the beach. Oh, grand 
 
 (129)
 
 130 STOKIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 and mighty music did they all make together in that 
 glad morning of the world. The sunlit heavens leaned 
 over, breathless, to hear it, the purple valleys, lifting, 
 fondled it as they climbed, the speechless hills caught 
 it up, and in envy hurled it back again, note by note, 
 till the whole earth was wild with sound and deafening 
 reverberation, and "Cease, cease, my children! " Dame 
 Nature cried aloud, " lest I render you voiceless, every 
 one, and there be no more music forever." 
 
 But failing to make herself heard, she unrolled the 
 great cloud that lay coiled above the horizon, and 
 drew it like a veil across the sky. Immediately there 
 was silence silence unbroken for a moment's space, 
 when " Ha, ha, ha ! " giggled the mountain brook, una- 
 ble to restrain its mirth ; " Ha, ha, ha ! " repeated a 
 bright-winged forest bird ; " Ha, ha, ha ! " flew swiftly 
 back from the hills. 
 
 " Hush, irreverent ones ! " spake Dame Nature in 
 anger ; " listen, while I pass sentence upon you ! Thou, 
 mountain brook, who hast dared to break silence by 
 thine ill-timed laughter, laugh on, forever -and forever: 
 thy song is taken from thee, and thou shalt have thy 
 fill of merriment ! From thee, too, bird of the brilliant 
 plumage, is taken the power of song : henceforth thou 
 shalt find voice only to mimic the folly of others. And 
 you, ye hills, will I fetter and bind, that ye no more as- 
 tonish tho world with your envious wrath.
 
 THE VOICES. 131 
 
 " As for you, my obedient children, ye are all mu- 
 sical, each in his own way ; and now will I assign to 
 you places in my choir. Thou, wandering wind, shalt 
 be my organist ; and ye larks and nightingales, who are 
 my pride and joy, and all ye merry little birds, the 
 melody is yours ; and ye surging billows, and mutter- 
 ing clouds, and roaring cataracts, to you the base be- 
 longs. 
 
 " Sing on, now, my children ; sing on, and practice 
 well, that ye may know your parts when, by and by, I 
 call upon you for a grand and glorious anthem that 
 shall fill the world with wonder." 
 
 And alway since then they have been diligently prac- 
 ticing, till now, when Dame Nature calls for Te Deum 
 at the day-dawn, or for a vesper hymn at eventide, mar- 
 velous is the melody of gleesome and gay-hearted little 
 birds ; marvelous is the skill of the musician wind, as 
 he sweeps the forest-organ's answering keys ; marvel- 
 ous are the voices of cloud and cataract, and marvel- 
 ous the voices of the sea. 
 
 But there are birds of rainbow-tinted plumage, won- 
 derful to behold, whose harsh, discordant tones serve 
 only to mock and mimic ; the mountain brook wearies 
 ofttimes of laughter, querulous, complains to the rocks, 
 grieving for its lost song ; and faint and rare are the 
 echoes heard among the speechless hills.
 
 MOONSHINE. 
 
 Moonshine crept down, one clear, unclouded night, 
 to look about the world and see what was going on. 
 In her hand she carried a silver lamp, by whose white 
 rays all objects could be seen as" plainly as at noon- 
 tide ; and wherever she went, the shadows, ashamed 
 of their blackness, stole guiltily away and tried to hide 
 themselves. Her path led through a forest and down 
 a mountain side, where wild beasts roamed for prey ; 
 but now the timid deer browsed securely among the 
 underbrush, and the hungry bear trudged supperless 
 off to his den, the stealthy panther kept useless watch 
 from the branches overhead, the rattlesnake slid back 
 into its hole and left the tree-toads chirping cheerily, 
 the sly fox found the rabbits too wide awake for him ; 
 for was not Moonshine abroad with her silver lamp, 
 proclaiming to all harmless creatures : Here is your 
 enemy, and there is your enemy ? 
 
 On she passed till she came to a pioneer's log cabin, 
 standing alone in the wide wilderness. Listening, she 
 
 heard the sound of a voice singing : 
 (132)
 
 MOONSHINE. 133 
 
 *x 
 
 "Lullaby, lullaby, baby, 
 
 Lullaby, by, by, 
 While all the little stars twinkle, 
 
 Twinkle up in the sky. 
 
 "Lullaby, lullaby, baby, 
 
 Lullaby, by, by ; 
 Thy father has gone a journey, 
 
 And there's only thou an v d I, 
 To rock, rock, to and fro, 
 And to watch, watch for the savage foe, 
 To sleep, sleep, 
 And to keep, keep 
 
 Watch for the savage foe, 
 While all the little stars twinkle, 
 
 Twinkle up in the sky." 
 
 " Ah," said Moonshine, "the mother and her babe are 
 alone and unguarded in that rude dwelling. Even as 
 she sings her voice trembles with fear. I will set my 
 lamp in the window and pause awhile to keep her com- 
 pany." 
 
 Instantly a soft radiance flooded the room within, 
 and the mother, looking up, beheld the gentle face 
 peeping through the window. " Oh, Moonshine," she 
 cried, with tears of joy, " how glad am I that you have 
 come ! Stay with me a little, for I am lonesome ; and 
 tell me, pray, if there be any savages lurking about." 
 
 Not far off a band of red men, their faces bedaubed 
 with paint, and their hair decked out with plumes, were 
 gliding noiselessly through the dense woods, thinking
 
 134: STOEIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 to steal upon the cabin unawares and destroy it and its 
 inmates. But as soon as they saw the silver lamp upon 
 the window-sill, they turned away, saying: " Moon- 
 shine is there ! She would give warning of our ap- 
 proach." 
 
 Moonshine, seeing that the dreaded enemy had 
 turned aside, passed on and left the mother and her 
 child sleeping peacefully. As swift she glided through 
 valley and over hill, and across river and lake and 
 village-dotted plain, the rays of her glittering lamp 
 reached far and wide through the darkness, making the 
 trees and gardens and rippling corn-fields glad, point- 
 ing the shortest route to a weary boatman, revealing to 
 a belated traveler the robbers who stealthily pursued, 
 looking in upon three rosy children who slumbered 
 cosily in one couch together stooping to kiss their 
 shining curls and happy faces, and to whisper some- 
 thing pleasant in their ears. Nor did she pause when 
 she came to the great sea, but glided on over the foam- 
 ing billows. A white-sailed ship the winds were driv- 
 ing towards an unknown reef. Quickly she set her sil- 
 ver lamp upon the perilous rock. Far over tho angry 
 waters shone the beacon light, and the mariners, seeing 
 danger ahead, shifted their sails and changed the ^es- 
 sel's course. 
 
 The wanderer reached, at length, a distant coast, und,
 
 MOONSHINE. 135 
 
 holding her lamp aioft, passed on from town to town. 
 A student sat at midnight, wakeful among his books. 
 Moonshine glanced over his shoulder at the closely- 
 printed page, and the light of her silver lamp so put to 
 shame his miserable taper that he extinguished it, and 
 began to write some verses in her praise. 
 
 At last, Moonshine peered down into a deep, dark 
 dungeon, and saw a hapless human creature bound with 
 chains. Pale and wan he was, from long years of im- 
 prisonment. For hours she remained to speak to him 
 comforting words. 
 
 In the morning the pioneer came to his home on the 
 mountain side, and told how he had been rescued by 
 Moonshine from highwaymen who pursued him as he 
 journeyed. " Ah, bless her," said the wife ; " for she 
 also watched over us, and guarded us while we slept." 
 The three rosy children awakened smiling, and told 
 one another their dreams ; they had all dreamed of fairy- 
 land. The storm-tossed ship sailed into port, and the 
 grateful mariners declared that, but for Moonshine, 
 they would have gone to the bottom of the sea. The 
 student went about with such a beaming countenance 
 that people questioned, "Was he moonstruck ? A jail- 
 er, descending into a deep, dark dungeon, found the 
 fettered captive lying silent, with closed eyes ; and the 
 sad soul that had gazed out of those eyes who had 
 set it free ? Moonshine ?
 
 aiJNSHINE. 
 
 " Voila, Jeannette ! voila ! " 
 
 The little old woman lifts her wrinkled face from the 
 lace-work over which she is bending and looks where 
 the slender hand just pointed. How did it come there, 
 that sunbeam ? So the two question ; for never, in all 
 the time they have occupied the low, dim room, with its 
 one window, has a sunbeam shone into it, warm and 
 cheery, like that. Possibly some recent alteration in 
 the high buildings without has made way for the wel- 
 come visitor, now that the sun has moved farther 
 around to the north. However it came there, there it 
 is, the mellow ray, deepening in color as the sun sinks 
 lower down, changing from yellow to orange, from 
 orange to rose. The couch must be moved nearer, so 
 that the thin hand may press the wall and feel the warm 
 light as it rests there ; then a smile wreathes the wan, 
 weary young face, and its owner goes off dreaming 
 dreaming with eyes wide open. 
 
 Somebody knocks at the door. " Coom," calls Jean- 
 nette. A lad of twelve lifts the latch and enters. 
 (136)
 
 SUNSHINE. 137 
 
 " Is this the place where they mend lace, ma'am ? " 
 
 " Yes. C'est mot." 
 
 " Well, they sent a lot in this bundle. They said 
 they wanted it done right away, if you could. It's a 
 curtain. The kitten tore it, I guess. He's always 
 scampering up the curtains." 
 
 "Yes." (Yes is one of the few English words Jean- 
 nette is quite sure about, so she seldom adds to it in 
 her replies, when she can avoid doing so.) 
 
 " When shall I come after it ? " 
 
 " Maunday nsxt week," Jeannette slowly answers, 
 and takes the package the lad has brought. 
 
 His errand is done ; why does he linger ? Have the 
 brown eyes, in a rapid glance or two, taken in more 
 than they would if they were not so big and generous ? 
 The low ceiling with the laths bared of plaster here and 
 there, the scant furniture, the tumble-down stove, the 
 uneven, uncarpeted floor, the plants in the window 
 sickly for lack of light the withered little lace-mender 
 shivering in her shawl for lack of fire, the \)py on the 
 couch yonder, clutching at a sunbeam, gazing dreamily 
 into space ; he has seen all ; he has heard the hollow 
 cough, he winks hard to keep from taking the decided 
 shape of tears something that for an instant dims his 
 bonny eyes. 
 
 " Has he been sick a good while ? " he whispers.
 
 138 STOKIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " Yes," says Jeannette, and calls, " Ernest ! " 
 
 Ernest comes out of Iris dream. The great dark, sor- 
 rowful eyes meet the great bright, generous ones. In 
 a twinkling young America, with lusty health and 
 blooming cheeks, is at the bedside of young France, 
 shall we say ? 
 
 An hour after Ned hastens home to his sister with 
 the story he has just heard. 
 
 "Belle," he cries, as he bursts into the parlor, ''you 
 know where you sent me this afternoon to that French 
 woman's ? "Well, they're poor as can be. And he's 
 sick, too. And no doctor, no medicine, no nothing! 
 "Wish I was as rich as Crossus ! " 
 
 "He? Who's he?" 
 
 "Why, Ernest. His father was an artist, you see; 
 and they came to this country, and his pictures 
 wouldn't sell, and he couldn't get work, and he got dis- 
 couraged and drowned himself. Then, after awhile, his 
 mother died, and Jeannette she's a servant who came 
 with them* she stays with him and takes care of him. 
 He's got the consumption and coughs awfully. / know 
 what's done it ! Starving ! and freezing ! Guess what 
 he was doing ! Warming his hands in the sunshine ! " 
 
 "Well, did she say when she ould have the win- 
 dow curtain finished ? " 
 
 Where shall one go for sympathy and help ? There
 
 SUNSHINE. 139 
 
 is no mother. The father is a hundred miles away, en- 
 gaged as counsel in the settlement of a disputed estate 
 (if anybody knows what all that means). The live-long 
 night Ned lies awake, thinking the matter over some- 
 thing after this fashion : 
 
 " There's that house corner of South and High 
 Street. 'Booms to let noticed the advertisement to-day. 
 Nice rooms. Plenty of light. Just the place ! . . . 
 Wish I was rich as Croesus ! . . . What did I want to 
 go and throw away my last allowance that way for ? 
 Haven't got a red cent left ! Don't know where it's all 
 gone to, now ! Got a lot of trinkets that aren't of much 
 use to me, anyhow. Cut my thumb half off with my 
 jack-knife first time I used it ; broke all the strings to 
 my violin before I'd had it a week ; and made myself 
 about sick trying to smoke cigars. . . . Wish I was 
 rich as Croesus ! " 
 
 When, next morning, Ned meets on the street his 
 elderly friend, the physician, who helped him comfort- 
 ably through with the measles, mumps and whooping 
 cough, and is greeted with, " Why, young man, 
 there's a cloud on your face what's the trouble ? " he 
 answers, " Come and see," and leads to a dismal quar- 
 ter of the town, and from one story to another of a 
 dismal tenement, till they reach the chamber where 
 Ernest lies. When they are down in the street o.~aii?, 
 Ned takes up the old refrain
 
 140 STOKTES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " Wish I was rich as Croesus. We'd get him out of 
 there and cure him up, wouldn't we ? " 
 
 " Ah, my boy, if we had the wealth of twenty Croe- 
 suses it's too late to help him now. The best we can do 
 is to make him as comfortable as possible where he is. 
 Come round to the office with me, and I'll give you 
 something to ease the cough a little." 
 
 When the medicine is ready Ned rises to go, but 
 hesitates. 
 
 " There wasn't any fire there, Doctor. I've used up 
 all my last allowance, and father's away from home. 
 What's to be done ? " 
 
 The Doctor writes down some names and addresses 
 on a slip of paper. 
 
 " There. You go to these gentlemen, state the case, 
 and we'll see what they'll do for you. . . I might give 
 you a recommend. . . But no. We'll try without, 
 first. I fancy that honsst face of yours will open the 
 pocket-books quicker than any note from me." 
 
 And Ned sets out on his first begging expedition,, 
 which proves so successful that in a few hours the 
 tumble-down stove retires ignominiously to make place 
 for a shining new one, in which the fire need not go out 
 while cold weather lasts ; and the evening shadows, 
 creeping back to their fa-vrorite haunt, the attic, <ire 
 amazed and panic-strickeni to find it occupied by a rosy/
 
 SUNSHINE. 141 
 
 troop of hilarious elfs, dancing up and down the wall, 
 with whom they must battle for possession. 
 
 Moreover, Ned has enlisted the sympathies of another 
 of his particular friends, Bridget, the cook, who fails 
 not to prepare, daily, delicacies for him to carry to the 
 sick boy glad of an errand thither, for this new ac- 
 quaintance is extremely interesting, not in the least 
 like any one Ned has ever met before, so young and 
 yet so accomplished. Why, he can give a hundred 
 hints about playing on that precious violin, he can 
 show sheets of music of his own composing, a port- 
 folio full of sketches, his own work, in pencil and crayon 
 and oil ; and, oh ! to hear him talk of wonderful Paris, 
 and of famous people whom he has seen and whom 
 his father has known. 
 
 Perhaps a month has passed, when, upon an after- 
 noon, Ned, bounding in all aglow from the frosty air 
 without, stops short, seeing the pallid face is not lifted 
 in eager greeting from among the cushions. 
 
 " Is he asleep ? " he whispers. 
 
 " Yes," sobs Jeanette. 
 
 By and by as the lad turns slowly away, she places 
 in his hands the portfolio, saying ; 
 " He tells me eet ees for you." 
 
 #######
 
 142 STOKIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 Belle, noticing her brother as he enters the house 
 and hurries through the hall on his way to his room, 
 exclaims : 
 
 " Why, Ned, you've beer* crying ! What's the 
 matter ? " 
 
 " Ernest is dead ! " 
 
 "Who is Ernest?" inquires the father, late*ly re- 
 turned, glancing up from his newspaper. 
 
 When he has heard Ned's story he asks to see the 
 sketches. While he is examining them, Belle comes 
 and looks over his shoulder. Suddenly she utters a 
 little scream. 
 
 " Why, Ned, you darling ! look here ! " 
 
 They have found, among the rest, a picture which 
 Ned has not seen before. It brings tears to his eyes 
 again, to Belle's, too ; the grim old lawyer's lips twitch 
 for a moment, and he goes off and has the painting 
 framed in most costly style, and hangs it above the 
 mantel in his study. Perhaps it may serve as reminder 
 of a bit of a sentence, spoken centuries ago, which 
 fortune-favored people, snuggling about the ingleside 
 on boisterous winter nights, are very apt to forget : 
 " The poor ye have always with you." 
 
 You may imagine the faithful Jeannette is not neg- 
 lected. The sunniest spot in the cemetery is where a 
 marble cross tells you that Ernest is sleeping below.
 
 SUNSHINE. 143 
 
 And the picture, what is it ? It is a glimpse, in brown 
 and amber tints, of a wretched attic chamber with 
 dilapidated ceiling, and scant, worn-out furniture, and 
 bare, uneven floor. And the only light there comes 
 from the face peeping in through a door which stands 
 ajar a boyish face, round and merry, with ruddy 
 cheeks, and big, heartful eyes, and brown bits of curls 
 clustering about the broad forehead a frank, ojpen, 
 cheery, winsome face. Now, away from the light which 
 streams from this face and into the sombre shadows, 
 frightened demons are turning to flee. And one of the 
 demons whose gloomy features are. partly visible, and 
 whose hand grasps a dagger, you may guess was meant 
 for Despair. This picture has a name. Ernest painted 
 it underneath, in large letters of scarlet and gold. This 
 is the name SUNSHINE.
 
 CZAR AND CARPENTER. 
 
 " Dear Rudolph, art thou not well ? " asks his 
 mother, in that native language which she loves. " For 
 some time past thou hast been so very quiet, and ' 5 
 there she pauses, not wanting to remind him of how 
 fretful and ill-natured he has been of late. 
 
 " Feel well enough ! " he answers gruffly, and then is 
 sorry, and wishes he had gone to rest ten minutes ago, 
 as he thought of doing. 
 
 A tiny cloud of displeasure flits across the sweet, 
 gentle face, and little Karl, leaning against his mother's 
 chair, twines an arm about her neck, and smooths her 
 sunny hair, as if to make amends. As for Rudolph's 
 father, stern words spring to his lips ; but suspecting 
 what is the trouble, he withholds them, only glancing 
 up from his book with eyes so full of unutterable sad- 
 ness that the boy creeps guiltily out of the room, and 
 off to* his chamber above. 
 
 This is the trouble with Rudolph he is haunted ; 
 haunted by a demon whose name is Discontent. It first 
 appeared to him one evening in a certain elegant rnan- 
 CU4)
 
 CZAR AND CARPENTER. 145 
 
 sion on a certain fashionable avenue, whither he had 
 been sent with a .message ; for his father was to do 
 some repairing there. In the spacious, high-ceiled, 
 oak-paneled library, where he waited to see the master 
 of the house, this little demon stole up to him and 
 whispered : 
 
 " Look at it at all this splendor ! these tall mirrors, 
 and huge chandeliers, and rich paintings, and carved 
 cases of books ! You never saw the like, did you ? " 
 
 It followed him through the great hall with its 
 marble floor and high, arched entrance, followed him 
 down the wide steps and out into the street, whisper- 
 ing all the while, pointing back at the smooth front of 
 stone and the plate-glass windows ; then, when they 
 reached Rudolph's home, pointing scornfully at the 
 humble cottage, and the entrance that is neither high 
 nor arched. It followed him in, this demon, into the 
 single apartment that is hall and library and kitchen 
 combined. It sat down beside him in the corner. 
 " Bah ! " it muttered in disdain, " this lounge can't 
 compare with that sofa where you rested just now. 
 But wasn't it soft, though ! " It called his attention to 
 all the objects around, sneering at the eurtains because 
 they are not of damask, at the floor because it is un- 
 carpeted, at the wall-paper because it is cheap. It 
 noticed Rudolph's mother laying the table, and asked,
 
 146 STOKJES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " Do you imagine that ladies who live in fine houses 
 ever get supper themselves ? Bah ! don't you believe 
 it ! " It noticed Rudolph's father leaning back in his 
 arm-chair with closed eyes, weary after the day's labor, 
 and queried, " Do you suppose that gentleman you saw 
 to-night ever gets tired, ever works ? No, of course he 
 doesn't. Pie never wears work-clothes, shabby and worn 
 like that ! He always goes dressed in broadcloth, and 
 his purse is always full, and he carries himself like a 
 prince, and asks no odds of anybody. And did you mind 
 how he looked down at you, as if you were nothing 
 but a worm? because your father's only a carpenter ! 
 Wonder if he'll treat him so ? Bah ! isn't it wretched to 
 be poor and to have to work ! " And when Rudolph 
 took his place at the table, it was " Bah ! do you 
 think gentlemen ever eat anything so common as this ?" 
 and he pushed from him the simple food, untasted, and 
 went back to his corner ; and there he sat the whole 
 evening, and there he has spent every evening since, 
 his face buried in his hands, the demon whispering in 
 his ear. For it has never left him ; no, not for a mo- 
 ment. It has- followed him everywhere. In school, day 
 after day it kept up a continual buzzing, hindering him 
 from getting his lessons he, the one who had always 
 known them so well. It would compare his own gar- 
 ments with those of one and another better clad than
 
 CZAK AND CARPENTER. 147 
 
 he. " And there's Jesse James see, he carries a gold 
 watch !" " And isn't it mean for 'em to call you a 
 ' Dutchman ! ' just because your father and mother 
 came from Germany though you never lived there in 
 your life and because you're poor and only a carpen- 
 ter's son. Pity your father couldn't have been a count, 
 or a baron, or something like that ! How everybody 
 would have stared when he rode along in his glittering 
 carriage, and how everybody would have wanted to be 
 friends, and would have asked him to dinner, and all 
 that ! And how polite everybody would have been to 
 you I You wouldn't have been a ' Dutchman ' then ; 
 oh, not at all ! And if he had been a grand-duke, oh, 
 think of it ! How everybody would have gone down to 
 the depot to meet him, and how people would have 
 crowded around to shake hands with him, and what a 
 fuss they would have made over him as they did one 
 winter when Alexis was here, you know, and you 
 climbed up a lamp-post to get a glimpse of him. 
 "Wasn't he splendid, though ! How grand it must be 
 to be the son of a Czar ! " 
 
 But during the Christmas holidays, now almost over, 
 there has been no school, and Rudolph has had noth- 
 ing to do but the marketing, and keeping the walk be- 
 fore the house clear of snow, and running here and 
 there about the city on errands for his father who
 
 148 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 never has any vacation, the year round. And all these 
 days, oh, how that demon has tantalized him ! It would 
 lead him through the market to where lay great heaps 
 of .turkeys and geese and ducks, so plump and tempt- 
 ing, ready for the oven. " But you can't buy any, they 
 cost too much ! " It would draw him close up to the 
 bakery windows. " Wouldn't Karl like one of those de- 
 licious cakes, though ! But you can't buy it, it costs too 
 much. Isn't it too bad to have to count the pennies 
 so ? " All the way down the street, of pleasant after- 
 noons, it would keep tormenting, pointing now at the 
 richly-dressed ladies out shopping : " Pity your mother 
 can't have velvets, and feathers, and furs, like that, and 
 be fashionable ! " now exclaiming : " Look ! there goes 
 Jesse James. He's taking his sister out for a sleigh- 
 ride. Aren't those horses just splendid ! and that robe, 
 look at it ! it's a real tiger's skin ! and the bells, oh, how 
 they jingle ! By the way, did you hear him telling one 
 of the schoolboys, last week, about the Christmas pres- 
 ent he was going to give his cousin Florence ? a set of 
 diamonds ! think of it ! Here are some, right here in 
 this shop-window. Look at them ! see how they shine ! 
 .... Pity you can't make somebody a Christmas 
 present! your cousin M in a, for instance. Pity you 
 can't take somebody out sleigh-riding. Never had a 
 sleigh-ride yourself, for that matter. Never had a
 
 
 CZAE AND CARPENTER. 14!) 
 
 ride any way, except in a street-car. Never had a sin- 
 gle chance to drive a horse, even. .... What's the 
 reason some can have everything they want, and others 
 oh ! don't it make you mad the way things go on in 
 'this world?" 
 
 Yes, it does make him " mad." He goes about glum 
 and scowling. (He used to be pleasant enough.) The 
 ripple of his laughter is no longer heard, and he frolics 
 no more with little Karl, who hardly dares approach 
 him, he is so cross. And thus it is that his mother is 
 led to question if he is not well, and thus it is that his 
 father comes to suspect what is the trouble, and to 
 guess the name of the demon that has crept in to dis- 
 turb their peaceful home, and to vex the bright, ambi- 
 tious boy he is so proud of. The book he is reading 
 has lost its interest, for hours he scarcely turns a page ; 
 and it is a great relief to lay it aside when the consol- 
 ing little Karl, feeling that something is amiss, climbs 
 sleepily into his arms and lays a velvety cheek against 
 his own. 
 
 Meanwhile, there is that wicked demon up-stairs 
 upon the pillow, never ceasing its poisonous whisper- 
 ing, till Kudolph, unable to shake off the tormentor, at 
 last gives way to sobs and tears, thankful that he is 
 alone and in the dark, for he wouldn't have so much as 
 a ray of daylight catch him crying. '
 
 150 BTOEIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 Oil, Rudolph, is there no one to come to you here and 
 drive away that demon, by telling you of all the mighty 
 ones who have risen from humbler stations than yours 
 aye, climbed, round by round, up the ladder of fortune 
 till they reached the top, admired and applauded by the 
 crowds below will no one comfort you by telling you 
 of these ? 
 
 Wait; here comes some one into the room, comes 
 close to the bedside a stranger. Perhaps he has come 
 for that. . . But no ; listen to what he says : 
 
 " Arise, Rudolph, and accompany me to the palace of 
 the Czar." 
 
 The lad stares in amazement at the speaker a tall, 
 gaunt personage, wrapped in a black mantle that almost 
 touches the floor, and so conceals the head and face 
 with its ample folds that only the eyes are visible. 
 What black, piercing eyes ! blacker than the mantle. 
 Rudolph stares, and then arises, obedient. 
 
 ' The two travelers are not long in reaching their desti- 
 nation, and Rudolph soon finds himself in the imperial 
 palace, in a great saloon, magnificent beyond compari- 
 son with that oak-paneled library he saw some time 
 ago. There is dancing here, and the glittering dresses 
 of the dancers dazzle him, and the music is so delight- 
 ful it drives him nearly wild. When finally he lifts his 
 dizzy eyes from the whirling throng, he sees, sitting
 
 CZAK AND CARPENTER 151 
 
 in state at the farther end of the apartment, one who he 
 concludes is the Czar ; for all who approach him bow 
 low and speak to him reverently. 
 
 " Would Rudolph like to be Czar ? " asks the person- 
 age in black. 
 
 " A-a-ah !" exclaims the other, smiling and clasping 
 his hands. 
 
 " Then bide your time." 
 
 They wait behind a heavy curtain till the music 
 ceases, and the dancers are gone, and the lights are ex- 
 tinguished, and the long saloon is dark and empty. 
 Then the muffled stranger leads through a maze of gal- 
 leries and corridors, unlocks, at length, a door, bids 
 Rudolph enter, and Rudolph obeys. This apartment, 
 also, is magnificent, but not so large as the other. At 
 one side is a downy couch with golden-fringed drapery, 
 and there the great Czar reposes. Upon the wall, near, 
 hangs a sword. 
 
 o 
 
 " Take it down," commands the personage in black ; 
 and Eudolph takes it down. 
 
 " Raise it," is the second command, as they stand 
 over the sleeping Czar ; and Rudolph raises on high 
 the gleaming sword. 
 
 " Strike ! " And Rudolph strikes. 
 
 " Now return it to its place and follow me." And 
 Rudolph returns the weapon, dripping, to its place
 
 152 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 upon the, wall, and follows back through the long gal- 
 leries and corridors, and down the marble stairs, and 
 out and away from the palace, and out and away from 
 the city away to a cave in the mountains. And the 
 personage in black again commands, " Stay here and 
 bide your time." 
 
 Day after day there come to them, in their hiding- 
 place, rumors, now of the murder of the Czar, now of 
 strife and difference among his subjects over who shall 
 be successor, and, finally, of an invasion by the neigh- 
 boring monarchs, who, seeing the people at war among 
 themselves, would profit by this opportunity to gain 
 possession of the Empire. 
 
 "Now is your time ! " says the personage in black 
 to Rudolph, and he leads him into the rn^lst of the 
 battles, and teaches him so well the art of warfare, that 
 from, the ranks he soon rises to be Field-Marshal. 
 Then, the personage in black always secretly counsel- 
 ing, Rudolph (always blindly obedient, he knows not 
 why), following closely his instructions, defeats the in- 
 vading armies in every battle, drives them out of the 
 Empire, pursues them into their own provinces, and 
 returns triumphant ; and the people greet him with 
 loud rejoicing, and lead him to the great throne-room,, 
 and robe him in the ermine-lined robe, and crown him 
 with the jeweled crown, and shout till the echoes ring
 
 CZAR AND CARPENTER. 133 
 
 " Hail, Rudolph, the Czar ! " and, " Long live Ru- 
 dolph, the Czar ! " 
 
 And again there are music and dancing ; and it is 
 Rudolph, now, who is seated in state above the glitter- 
 ing throng, and all who approach him bow low and 
 address him reverently excepting one a tall, gaunt 
 personage, with muffled face, and piercing eyes, and 
 long, black mantle, who steals up behind him and 
 whispers, " Does Rudolph enjoy being Czar ? " And 
 Rudolph, remembering all, neither clasps his hands 
 nor smiles. 
 
 At midnight, as Rudolph lies upon the downy couch 
 with its silken folds and golden-fringed drapery, sud- 
 de"nly waking from slumber, he sees one standing over 
 him with lifted sword; and he springs upon the 
 assassin, and seizes his sword, and calls to the attend- 
 ants, and has him put in irons ; and this man makes 
 confession, and reveals to the Czar a plot among the 
 nobles against his life ; then Rudolph causes some of 
 those conspirators to be thrown into prison, and some 
 to be beheaded ; and, for further safety, the guard in 
 the palace is increased. But not long after, again sud- 
 denly waking in the middle of the night, he sees 
 another standing over him with lifted sword ; and he 
 springs upon this one also, and seizes his sword, and 
 calls to the attendants, and has him bound with irons ;
 
 154 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 and behold, when the lights are brought, this man is 
 found to be one of the palace guard ; and he, too, 
 makes confession, and reveals to the Czar that all in 
 the army are his foes and ready to take his life ; then 
 Rudolph sends out and causes some of the Generals 
 and chief conspirators of the army to be imprisoned, 
 and others to be beheaded ; and, for further safety, he 
 places his most faithful and trusty servant to watch in 
 his chamber while he sleeps. But a third time, sud- 
 denly waking at midnight, he sees this servant stand- 
 ing over him with lifted sword ; and him, too, he over- 
 powers, and seizes the murderous weapon ; and this 
 man, also, confesses ; and from him the Czar learns 
 that all in the palace hate him and have plotted to take 
 his life. 
 
 So it comes to pass that Rudolph, the Czar, dares not 
 close his eyes day or night, for there is no one whom 
 he can trust to protect him while he slumbers. And 
 as the weeks and months wear away, he grows so hag- 
 gard with watching, so weary for lack of sleep, that 
 one morning, ere the sun has risen, and while all is 
 hushed and silent, he casts aside the robe of ermine, 
 and the golden crown and sceptre, and steals away 
 from the palace, and out through the palace garden, and 
 off to the fields beyond ; and there, feeling secure, he 
 lies down and closes his eyes, and is just falling into a
 
 CZAR AND CARPENTER. 155 
 
 delicious slumber, when the sound of stealthy footsteps 
 arouses him, and looking up, behold one standing over 
 him with lifted sword ; and he springs up to defend 
 himself, but the other turns and flees. Then he goes 
 on till he reaches a wide forest, and thinking, " Surely 
 no one will molest me here," he lies down with a sigh 
 of relief, and is just losing himself in sleep, when the 
 howling of wolves disturbs him, and he is obliged to 
 hurry onward, to escape being torn in pieces by those 
 ferocious beasts. 
 
 When he reaches the plain at the other side of the 
 forest, he perceives, at some distance, a group of huts, 
 and saying, " Surely no one will know me there," he 
 approaches them and asks for lodging, and is shown to 
 a rude chamber, where, just as he is about to lie down, 
 he spies some object crouching among the shadows, 
 and moving toward it, behold, a peasant armed with a 
 glittering sword. And the wretched Czar departs in 
 haste, saying, "My enemies are my own subjects;" 
 and he pauses not till he is far beyond the boundaries 
 of his own realm. Now at last in a country ruled by 
 another, thinking, " I am surely safe," he throws him- 
 self down by the wayside, faint and footsore ; but just 
 as sweet sleep is stealing over him, listen a rustling, 
 and look a highwayman standing near with lifted 
 sword ; and he wearily moans, and, rising, hastens away.
 
 156 STOKIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 At length lie comes to a great city, and saying, 
 " Surely none will know me or wish to harm me here," 
 he finds lodgings for the night, and lays himself down to 
 rest, when lo ! one approaches softly with lifted sword, 
 and Rudolph, the Czar, recognizes the face of him he 
 saw in the field beyond the palace garden. " Alas, he 
 has folio wed me hither!" he cries, and hurriedly leaves 
 the city. 
 
 And so, wherever he goes, he dares not sleep, either 
 from fear of assassins, or of highwaymen, or of wild 
 beasts. And so he wanders, and ever wanders on. 
 And one day as he drags himself along, seeking a place 
 to rest, he stops to drink from a fountain beside the 
 path, and as he kneels over the smooth, mirror-like 
 waters, he discovers that his locks are very white, and 
 that his garments are thread-bare and torn. Still on- 
 ward and onward he journeys, sleep the one thing that 
 he longs for. 
 
 At last, as he emerges from the shadows' of a dark 
 defile between high mountains, he lifts his heavy, 
 drooping eyelids, and beholds, spread out beyond, a 
 valley far lovelier than any he has seen in all his 
 journeyings. Slowly and gently it climbs up and into 
 the purpling distance, with other valleys stepping 
 down between the hills to meet it, and little hamlets 
 nestling at the feet of those hills. And he says,
 
 At last, as he emerges from the shadows of a dark defile between high 
 mountains. PAGE 156.
 
 CZAR AND CARPENTER. 157 
 
 "Surely in so peaceful a valley nothing can disturb 
 me.- I will get me to one of those villages and inquire 
 for an inn, and there I will rest there I will sleep, 
 sleep, sleep." 
 
 But just where the denle opens into the valley he 
 encounters an armed sentinel, who steps forward and 
 asks for his pass. 
 
 " I have no pass," he answers. 
 
 " Then thou canst not enter." 
 
 " But I am no common man. I am great, and famous, 
 and much feared." 
 
 " That matters not. Thou hast no pass. I may not 
 let thee enter." 
 
 " But hark you ! I am Czar of all the Russias." 
 
 " Whatever or whoever thou art, thou hast no pass ; 
 therefore our King know& thee not ; I may not let thee 
 enter. Answer me no more." 
 
 And Rudolph, the Czar, complaining bitterly, crawls 
 a little way off and casts himself down among the 
 rocks. While he lies there, peering wistfully into the 
 beautiful valley, wondering at the blueness of the hea- 
 vens and the softness of the light, listening to the gurg- 
 ling of waters, and catching glimpses of cataracts 
 flashing down the distant hills, under overhanging 
 branches while he lies there, one, haughty, and bear- 
 ing himself like a prince, draws near, and Rudolph re-
 
 158 STOKIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 members to have met him in a spacious, oak-paneled 
 library, long ago, when he, the Czar, was a boy. 
 
 No sooner does this one reach the entrance to the 
 valley, than the sentinel appears as before, and de- 
 mands his pass. The other hands him a paper, which 
 he examines, and pronounces to be worthless. "It 
 bears not our King's signature, but that of his worst 
 enemy. Begone, impostor ! " 
 
 " But I am a millionaire ! I own ships upon the sea, 
 laden with merchandise, and mines in the earth rich 
 with ore, and acres of land more than I can count ! " 
 
 " Away ! Answer me no more." 
 
 And the rich man turns away in wrath and confusion. 
 
 Presently appears another, in workman's garb, which 
 proves to be only a disguise, for, as he nears the en- 
 trance to the valley, on a sudden behold him a warrior 
 clad in armor! And this armor is like nothing that 
 Rudolph, the 'Czar, has seen. The various pieces of 
 which it is composed are of different hues ; the helmet 
 white as snow, and so dazzling that he turns his eyes 
 from it as he would turn them from the burning sun of 
 noonday ; the breastplate like gold, only brighter ; the 
 sword red like flame ; the shield is as if it were of ad- 
 amant, and the device upon it is an anchor. As the 
 warrior gives his pass to the sentinel, the Czar, unseen, 
 recognizes his own father !
 
 CZAR AND CARPENTER. 159 
 
 But the sentinel does not look at the pass. " I know 
 thee by thine armor! " he cries, with a smile of -wel- 
 come, and immediately blows a bugle which he carries, 
 and the sound rings through the valley sweetly, 
 sweetly ! winding among the hills, sending back a 
 thousand echoes on its way. Then the people pour 
 out of the hamlets, and come down in myriads to meet 
 the warrior, strewing the way with flowers and greeting 
 him with music oh, so marvelous ! oh, so thrilling ! 
 that the very light moves to and fro in little waves, as 
 if keeping time, and the flashing, gurgling waters join 
 the chorus, and the overhanging branches swing a slow 
 accompaniment. 
 
 Among the people who surround the warrior, just 
 one glimpse has Rudolph, the Czar, of her who was 
 once his mother, arrayed in garments the beauty of 
 which is only surpassed by the beauty of her face, and 
 her face surpasses in loveliness all that he ever ima- 
 gined could be ; just one glimpse^ too, of another face 
 he has known ; then the people close about them and 
 they are lost sight of ; and while he reaches out his 
 hands, crying, " Oh, my mother ! Oh, my brother ! 
 Oh, my father ! " the radiant throng moves backward 
 up the valley and into one of those other valleys, and 
 disappears, and the music grows fainter and fainter. 
 As he lies weeping and listening to that faint, far mel-
 
 160 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 ody, one from the valley, mantled in white and mounted 
 upon a snowy steed, rides into the dark defile, and as 
 he passes by where Rudolph, the Czar, lies, the latter 
 questions : 
 
 " Where have they taken the warrior who entered 
 just now ? " 
 
 " They are leading him to the royal city, to receive 
 from our King's own hands the unfading crown of 
 laurels which is given to the victors." 
 
 " But I was once well acquainted with this one, and 
 I never knew that he was a warrior, nor did I guess 
 that he wore armor." 
 
 " There are many who wear armor unsuspected, and 
 fight their battles unseen." 
 
 " But how did he procure his pass ? " 
 
 " Hast thou not heard how our King sends forth 
 spies into all lands to search for those who will make 
 good, loyal subjects, ever willing to obey and carry out 
 his commands ? To all such are given passes, signed 
 by the King himself, that when they come hither they 
 may be allowed to enter. All others are excluded, lest, 
 entering, they annoy the peaceful citizens, and stir up 
 strife and discord." 
 
 "But this warrior's armor was unlike anything I 
 have ever seen. Of what metal is it composed ? " 
 
 " It is made of several different metals ; the hel-
 
 CZAE AND CAEPENTEE. 161 
 
 met of a mixture of two metals, called Truth and Hon- 
 esty , the breastplate is also of two metals, Patience 
 and Constancy ; the sword, of the Hatred of all that is 
 base and evil ; and the shield, of the Hope of admis- 
 sion to our land ; for this to gain entrance here is 
 considered the highest privilege that can be granted to 
 any mortal. But I ride on an errand for the King, and 
 must not delay." 
 
 " One moraeiit more, O bright one ! Is there no 
 secret path by which I can gain entrance to this peace- 
 ful kingdom ? Ii this the only way ? " 
 
 " This is the only way." 
 
 " O bright one, return, I pray thee, to the King, and 
 entreat him in my behalf that he will permit me to 
 enter ! for I am weary, oh ! I am so weary, and I can 
 find no place where I may rest ; and there, too, are all 
 who love or care for me, and all I love or care for." 
 
 But the messenger answers sorrowfully, " Thou hast 
 no pass ! " and rides away, and the snow-white mantle 
 and the snow-white steed flit along through the brood- 
 ing shadows till, in the distance, they are lost from 
 view. And Rudolph, the Czar, straining his eyes to 
 follow them, is suddenly startled by a loud, mocking 
 laugh that rings weirdly up and down the dark defile ; 
 and, turning, he sees standing behind him the tall, 
 gaunt personage in black ; and the sight of that muffled
 
 1(52 GOBIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 figure so fills him with terror, that he rises and hastens 
 away as fast as his feeble limbs can carry him. 
 
 And now there comes to him remembrance of a place 
 where, when he was a boy, he rested well and slept 
 undisturbed ; and onward he journeys by land and sea, 
 pausing not till he reaches his native town and has 
 found the humble cottage where he used to dwell He 
 creeps softly to the window and peers in. It is all 
 there, just as it used to be the cupboard in this cor- 
 ner ; the chintz-covered lounge in that ; the simple 
 brown paper on the wall ; the window-curtains of mus- 
 lin ; the clock on the mantel ; the clean, white floor ; 
 the polished stove ; the vapor curling from the spout 
 of the shining tea-kettle all there, so comfortable, so 
 cosy, so homelike ! But the people are strangers. 
 That is not little Karl playing on the floor ; that is not 
 the mother knitting in the rocking-chair. And Ru- 
 dolph, the Czar, weeps again, remembering how the last 
 words he had for them were harsh words, and that he 
 is never to see them more. 
 
 , At length he knocks at the door and explains to the 
 master of the house 
 
 " I am a feeble old man, in agony of weariness for 
 lack of sleep ; for I have traveled far and searched 
 long, but have found no place where I might rest in 
 peace. And I finally botliouglit me of a low room un-
 
 CZAE AND CAEPENTER. 
 
 163 
 
 ler a sloping roof, where, in my childhood, I rested 
 well and undisturbed. The roof above is that same 
 sloping roof, and beneath it is that chamber. And I 
 will give to thee, good sir, all the gold in my purse 
 and there is much gold in it if I may lodge there for 
 one night only, and sleep once more as I slept wlien I 
 was a lad." 
 
 And the good man of the house bids him enter and 
 welcome, but refuses the proffered gold. And Ru- 
 dolph, the Czar, climbs up the narrow stairs to the low 
 room under the sloping roof, and he lies down there, 
 forgetting to look for the lifted sword, and he closes 
 his weary eyes, and a delicious drowsiness steals over 
 him, and there is no fear in his heart, and nothing mo- 
 lests him, and at last he sleeps, sleeps, sleeps. 
 
 What sound is that ? A ringing of bells. It wakens 
 Rudolph. He gazes about the room. On a stand in 
 * the corner a lamp is dimly burning. Some one is sit- 
 ting here beside the bed. " Oh, go away, good sir, and 
 leave me in peace ! " he moans piteously. " Did I not 
 offer thee all the gold in my purse ? Why, then, dost 
 thou trouble me ? Do no murder, I beseech thee, for 
 I am old and feeble, and I have not slept before in a 
 hundred years." 
 
 " Thou art dreaming, Rudolph. There is nothing to 
 fear."
 
 1G4 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " Thou, my father ! " and he seizes the two toil-hard- 
 ened hands, covering them with kisses and with tears. 
 " How earnest thou here? I feared I should never be- 
 hold thy face again ! And where are my mother and 
 my brother? " 
 
 " The dear mother and our little Karl will see thee 
 in the morning to wish thee a ' Happy New Year.' ' 
 
 A Happy New Year ! Kudolph puts his hand to his 
 forehead, as if to smooth out some knot there under- 
 neath. " Truly, I do not know," he murmurs, " it all 
 seemed so real. Have I been dreaming, dear father ? " 
 
 And then the father explains how he heard wailing 
 and shrieking in the night, and came to learn the 
 cause, but, fearing a fever, staid to watch awhile. 
 
 " It is hard, dear father, that after thou hast been 
 working all the day thou must needs watch all the 
 night." 
 
 "I would do much more than that for Rudolph, al- 
 though he is ' only the son of a carpenter.' " 
 
 " Alas, that I talked in my sleep ! " 
 
 Hark, the bells ! once more they clang together 
 all the bells in the town. So it is, so it is the New 
 Year ! They are ringing in the New Year. And these 
 New- Year days standing like mile-stones all along the 
 highway of Time who gave them to the world for 
 holidays ? Was it not " the carpenter's son " ? Ku-
 
 CZAR AND CARPENTER. 
 
 165 
 
 dolpli, trying to smooth out the kink in his brain, 
 finds that thought entangled with it, somehow. After 
 awhile he exclaims, with face aglow : 
 
 " It is good that this is the first day of the year ! 
 That is the grand time to turn over a new leaf no, to 
 put on a new suit of armor ! For I have learned some- 
 thing from my dream, father; it is this thou art a 
 Hero. And I mean to be another, just like thee ! " 
 
 And the father looks down into Rudolph's eyes, and 
 sees that the demon has departed.
 
 QUEEN MABEL. 
 
 (166) 
 
 "Green, green are the meadows, 
 
 And blue, blue is the sky, 
 And glad, glad is the morning, 
 
 And happy and gay am I. 
 Tirra-la-la, la, la, la ! 
 
 And happy and gay am I. 
 
 "White, white are the daisies 
 
 Blossoming everywhere, 
 And red, red are the roses, 
 And sweet, sweet is the air ! 
 
 "And sweet is the burnie's music, 
 
 And the music of bee and bird 
 Ha, ha ! the sweetest music 
 That ever and ever you heard ! 
 
 " Gold, golden the sunbeams, 
 
 And bright, bright is the day, 
 And the bees, and the birds, and Mabel, 
 Little of .care have they ! 
 
 "Oh! and over the meadows, 
 
 Oh ! and under the sky, 
 And all in the dewy morning, 
 Happy and gay am I !
 
 p* 
 
 I 
 
 i
 
 QUEEN MABEL. ^ 
 
 Tirra-la-la, la, la, la ! 
 Happy and gay am I ! " 
 
 The queen passed by in her carriage, 
 
 And little Mabel's song, 
 By a roving zephyr wafted, 
 
 She heard as she rode along. 
 "Ah, child ! " she sighed as she listened, 
 
 A shadow upon her brow 
 
 "With the birds, and the bees, and the blossoms 
 How happy and gay art thou ! " 
 
 Standing knee-deep in clover, 
 
 Mabel looked up and saw 
 The glitter and royal splendor, 
 
 And her voice was hushed with awe ; 
 And the light from her sweet eyes faded, 
 
 And the song died out of her heart ; 
 "O queen ! " she sighed in her envy, 
 "How happy and grand thou art ! " 
 
 And the glee was gone from the morning, 
 
 The gladness gone from the day, 
 *As through the tangle of clover 
 
 She wearily took her way. 
 * 5 What a wretched place to live in! " 
 
 She paused at a cottage door. 
 __ u How lowly and plain and humble ! 
 
 I never noticed before ! " 
 And over her work she muttered, 
 "Little the queen of the land
 
 168 STOSIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 With the soot and grime of the kitchen 
 
 Needs ever to soil her hand ! " 
 And over her simple sewing, 
 
 As the afternoon went by, 
 Often she fell to musing, 
 
 Often she breathed a sigh; 
 And often she thus would murmur 
 "I doubt if ever the queen 
 Would deign, with her jeweled fingers, 
 
 To sew an inch of a seam." 
 And wearily on her pillow 
 
 At even she laid her head; 
 " I never shall be a queen," she sobbed, 
 "And I wish that I were dead ! " 
 
 But presently came a message, 
 
 Beading oh, was it true ? 
 "Arise and come to me, Mabel; 
 
 I, the queen, have sent for you. " 
 Then quick to the royal palace 
 
 She rode in the carriage grand, 
 And they led her through halls of marble 
 
 To the queen of all the land; * 
 And the queen arose, and laying 
 
 Her crown at Mabel's feet, 
 " I go to be free and happy, 
 
 And play in the meadows sweet," 
 She said, and to all her people 
 "Farewell ! " and " farewell ! " she said; 
 And the people took up the golden crown
 
 QUEEN MABEL. 109 
 
 And put it on Mabel's head. 
 And oh! it was heavy, heavy ! 
 Heavy, heavy as lead ! 
 
 To a gilded throne they brought her, 
 
 In purple and ermine clad. 
 "Hail to thee, fair queen Mabel ! " 
 
 They shouted with voices glad; 
 And "Hail to thee, fair queen Mabel !" 
 
 Bang in her ears all day, 
 Till, weary, herself she questioned, 
 "Is it right, is it right to stay ? 
 To drive the cows from the pasture 
 
 Is Mabel's task alone; 
 And my father at work since morning, 
 
 He will soon be coming home. 
 
 ' ' He will miss his little Mabel, 
 
 For there is no one but me 
 To toast the bread for his supper 
 
 And make him a cup of tea. 
 But no ! am I not a lady? 
 
 It is no care of mine 
 To worry about the supper 
 
 And the milking of the kine !" 
 
 So she dwelt in the marble palace, 
 
 And dined from a golden plate, 
 And slept in a silken chamber, 
 
 And sat in the chair of state. 
 And whenever she went riding
 
 170 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 The people with cheers would greet, 
 And maidens and little children 
 
 "With blossoms would strew the street. 
 
 And royally thus lived Mabel, 
 
 Her only task to command; 
 Servants, unnumbered, ready 
 
 To move at the wave of her hand; 
 And alway about her lingered 
 
 Gay courtiers, a dazzling throng; 
 And the blithe hours swiftly flitted 
 
 With story, and dance, and song. 
 But often herself she questioned, 
 
 As she sat on the gilded throne, 
 "How is it with them, I wonder 
 
 How is it with them at home ? " 
 
 As the palace with mirth and music 
 
 Echoed and rang, one night, 
 The people peered through the windows, 
 
 Watching the festive sight: 
 And a beggar in rags and tatters, 
 
 Listening, shook his fist; 
 "What right have they to be merry 
 
 When my little ones starve ? " he hissed. 
 And the people his words repeated: 
 "What right, to be sure ? " they said, 
 "Flaunting in silks and diamonds 
 
 While our little ones cry for bread." 
 
 And ever, as thus they murmured, 
 Louder their voices grew,
 
 QUEEN MABEL. ill 
 
 Till, all in a red-hot anger, 
 
 To the palace doors they flew. 
 And the sentinels, at each entrance, 
 
 Quickly they put to flight, 
 And hurried with cries and clamor 
 
 Into the halls so bright 
 Into the halls of marble, 
 
 With clubs and with axes armed, 
 Till the sound of their shouts and curses 
 
 The courtiers hearing, alarmed, 
 Fled in their silks and diamonds, 
 
 Leaving the queen alone. 
 On rushed the riotous rabble, 
 
 Making its way to the throne, 
 And they who had "Hail Queen Mabel ! " 
 
 Shouted with loyal will, 
 Now aloft their cruel weapons 
 
 Brandished, intent to kill. 
 
 Then she shrieked for help in her terror, 
 
 Never a friend came nigh. 
 So, as the crowd drew nearer, 
 
 Sudden she turned to fly; 
 And casting aside the purple robe 
 
 And the heavy golden crown, 
 Away and away she hastened,. 
 
 To the meadows she wandsred down; 
 
 
 
 Down to the meadows wandered, 
 
 Hastened away and away, 
 Till the birds and the dewy blossoms 
 
 "Were ro-..-. . : fche . . . .V/.
 
 172 STOEIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 But the world it was sad and silent, 
 
 Clouded and gray the morn, 
 As wearily on she wandered, 
 
 Wearily and forlorn. 
 The burnie it went complaining, 
 
 Fretting its way along, 
 Making no pleasant music, 
 
 Singing no pleasant song; 
 And ever as iu the hedges 
 
 She came to a sweet wild rose, 
 At the touch of her queenly fingers 
 
 The petals would sadly close. 
 Once did she call, "Sing, birdies ! " 
 
 But the little birds were dumb: 
 " Come to me as you used to ! " 
 
 But they, fearing, would not come. 
 
 "What a cosy place to live in ! " 
 She paused at a cottage door. 
 " Not a palace half so lovely 
 
 Is there the country o'er ! " 
 Within sat a woman knitting 
 
 A woman aged and blind; 
 And ever she dropped the stitches, 
 
 Trying in vain to find. 
 "Grandmother, let me help thee," 
 
 Mabel held out her hand. 
 "Nay," said the 'gray -haired woman, 
 " Thou art the queen of the land ! " 
 
 Just at that moment entered 
 
 A workin^man quick she cried
 
 QUEEN MABEL. 173 
 
 " Father, oh, dost thou know me ? " 
 
 Sorrowfully he sighed, 
 "Oh, queen and gracious lady, 
 
 Tell me if thou dost know 
 Aught of our little Mabel, 
 
 Who was lost long years ago ? 
 On a sunny summer morning 
 
 She strayed from the meadows green. 
 Tell me if thou hast seen her 
 
 Tell me, oh, gracious queen ! " 
 
 "Alas, they, too, have forgotten !" 
 
 Bowing her head, she wept 
 And the weeping queen awakened, 
 
 And found she had only slept. 
 Safe in her low -ceiled chamber, 
 
 Flooded with rosy light, 
 Only the little Mabel, 
 
 The Mabel of yesternight ! 
 Then aloud rejoicing sang she 
 
 The song of the day gone by- 
 "Glad, glad is the morning, 
 
 An'd happy and gay am II"
 
 PRINCESS GEEDA. 
 
 1174) 
 
 I. 
 
 The King carne home from battle, 
 
 He came in triumph proud; 
 Before, the heralds flying, 
 
 With trumpets pealing loud, 
 Ten thousand, warriors followed, 
 
 With gleaming spear and shield, 
 A goodly store of trophies 
 
 Brought from the bloody field, 
 A forest bright of banners 
 
 Unfurled like tongues of flame, 
 And clanking ranks of- captives 
 
 To swell the mighty train. 
 
 Beneath the arching gateway 
 
 And up the stony street, 
 To time of martial music, 
 
 Passed on the trampling feet; 
 But ever chief and foremost 
 
 The King in triumph rode; 
 His armor flashed in sunlight, 
 
 Gray-plumed his helmet glowed, 
 High stepped his coal-black charger,
 
 PK1NCESS GEEDA. 175 
 
 Impatient of the rein, 
 And curved the sleek neck proudly 
 And shook the rippling mane. 
 
 More proud than he the rider 
 
 In look and mien more proud; 
 Before, the heralds speeding 
 
 And trumpeting aloud 
 How Eric, the invader 
 
 Long time a dreaded foe 
 Lay with the gory corses 
 
 Upon the plain below; 
 And how of his great army 
 
 A paltry little band 
 In hopeless rout 
 Had turned about 
 
 And fled to their own land. 
 
 Quick, at the cry of herald 
 
 And clattering of hoof, 
 From door and wall and window, 
 
 From balcony and roof, 
 Black hung the crowd; with praises 
 
 Did all the city ring 
 With praises for the warriors, 
 
 "With praises for the King : 
 So loud, the infant Gerda 
 
 Was wakened from her sleep, 
 And, writhing in her cradle, 
 
 Forsooth began to weep,
 
 176 STOBIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 The while they praised her father 
 
 Till all the air did ring, 
 The while the people shouted, 
 "Forever live the King ! " 
 
 n. 
 
 All day it rained. The white doves 
 
 Came not at Gerda's call, 
 To flock about the casement 
 
 High up the palace wall, 
 To coo 'neath her caresses, 
 
 And plume their wings of snow, 
 And pick the crumbs she scattered 
 
 Upon the ledge below. 
 
 It rained all day. The sunbeams 
 
 Were weak and wan and rare 
 The beams that seven summers 
 
 Had played with Gerda's hair. 
 All day it rained unceasing. 
 
 The quaint old lofty room, 
 For lack of bird and sunbeam, 
 
 Was drear and full of gloom; 
 And left among the shadows, 
 
 The while the raindrops beat, 
 With restless little fingers, 
 
 With restless little feet, 
 Went Princess Gerda roaming 
 
 The quaint old room around, 
 And thus behind the tapestry,
 
 There in the masonry. 
 Black space and then a stairway. PAGE 177.
 
 PEINCESS GERDA. 177 
 
 It chanced, a picture found 
 A painting blurred and faded: 
 
 Two men had fought, and one 
 Lay vanquished, while the other, 
 
 With foot his neck upon, 
 A murd'rous weapon brandished 
 
 Above the prostrate head. 
 " Thou hateful, hateful fellow ! " 
 
 In anger Gerda said, 
 And clenched her small fist straightway 
 
 And smote the lifted hand. 
 Lo ! backward swung the picture, 
 
 As tho' a fairy's wand 
 Obeying; and before her, 
 
 There in the masonry, 
 Black space and then a stairway- 
 So much did Gerda see. 
 *' Where does it go ? " she wondered, 
 
 And, no one being nigh, 
 Into the darkness ventured, 
 
 Nor waited for reply. 
 
 Down, down, and ever downward, 
 
 The granite steps led on; 
 With now and then a winding, 
 
 With ever and anon 
 A pause, a narrow landing, 
 
 But never ray of light. 
 On, on, went little Gerda, 
 
 And downward thro' the night,
 
 178 STORIES AKD BALLADS. 
 
 Recalling wondrous stories 
 
 The good nurse Hedvig told 
 Of a strange realm and dreamlike, 
 
 All paved and ceiled wfth gold, 
 Where ruled the merry elf -king 
 
 A realm far underground, 
 That a few favored mortals 
 
 By patient search had found. 
 
 So, on and on went Gerda, 
 
 And downward through the night. 
 At length in maze of passages 
 
 That led to left and right, 
 The stony staircase ended; 
 
 And, searching in the dark, 
 She wandered hither, thither: 
 
 The elf-land, where ? But hark ! 
 What sound was that ? She listened. 
 
 A moaning somewhere near ! 
 Again, again, a moaning ! 
 
 She fled away in fear. 
 From right to left she hurried; 
 
 She hurried to and fro; 
 She called: " O good nurse Hedvig, 
 
 Come to me here below ! " 
 
 Came never word of answer. 
 
 She could not find the way. 
 In terror trembling, sobbing, 
 
 Still onward did she stray.
 
 PRINCESS TJEKDA. 
 
 " Who weeps ? " Again she listened. 
 
 The voice was low and kind. 
 '"Tis I 'tis Princess Gerda; 
 
 The way I cannot find." 
 
 "Fear not, O Princess Gerda ! 
 
 If thou wilt turn the key, 
 How gladly will I offer 
 To be a guide for thee." 
 
 Her little fingers feeling 
 
 The slimy stones along, 
 Found out the door of iron 
 
 The iron door so strong: 
 And standing there on tip-toe, 
 
 With all her might and main, 
 She, reaching, tried the rusty key, 
 
 But tried and tried in vain. 
 
 ** Once more, once more, O Princess ! " 
 
 At that she tried once more ; 
 The hinges grated harshly, 
 
 And open flew the door; 
 And one came forth whose features 
 
 And form she could not see 
 For the deep darkness round her ; 
 
 But never aught cared she, 
 Because the voice was pleasant 
 
 And drove away all fear 
 Th voice that softly questioned, 
 " How happened Gerda here ? "
 
 STOKIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " Down, down the longest stairway 
 
 That ever yet was found, 
 I came to hunt for fairies 
 That dwell beneath the ground." 
 
 "Now tell me, sweetest Gerda, 
 
 If I will show the way, 
 And lead thee from the darkness 
 
 Par up into the day, 
 "Wilt never of thy venture, 
 
 Nor ever of thy guide, 
 To any speak ? "Wilt promise ? " 
 
 She eagerly replied, 
 "Oh, yes, yes, yes ! I promise ! " 
 
 And, hand in hand, the two 
 The dank and dismal corridors 
 
 "Went searching through and through. 
 
 t narrow length of passage, 
 
 Low-ceiled, at last they gained, 
 And midway in this passage 
 
 A narrow doorway framed ; 
 And winding from this doorway 
 
 Stone steps, a narrow flight, 
 They found and followed followed 
 
 Far up out of the night. 
 
 But when the little Gerda, 
 
 Safe in the dim old room, 
 That now seemed full of sunlight 
 
 After the greater gloom
 
 HEttNCESS GEKDA. 
 
 When quick she turned to see Mm 
 
 Who led the pictured wall, 
 The overhanging tapestry 
 
 She saw and that was all. 
 
 And many days she marveled, 
 
 And many nights did dream 
 Of that good guide and gentle, 
 
 Who came and went unseen. 
 But never more the stairway, 
 
 So long and dark, she tried. 
 She told not of her venture, 
 
 She told not of her guide. 
 
 The dungeon-keeper, bringing 
 
 The daily drink and bread, 
 The iron doors found open ! 
 
 The prisoners had fled ! 
 In doubt and wonder gazing, 
 
 He paled with sudden fear : 
 " Alack ! the King will hear it ! 
 
 Alack ! the King will hear ! " 
 
 Down fell the bread and water 
 
 With flaming torch he sought 
 A narrow length of passage 
 
 Deep through the rough rock wrought ; 
 And there for miles he wandered, 
 
 Lit by the torch's ray, 
 Nor guessed how lately other feet 
 
 Had traveled the same Way.
 
 182 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 At last lie reached a country 
 Beside the western sea 
 
 A fair and goodly country. 
 There now in peace dwelt he. 
 
 m. 
 
 The years have passed, and Gerda, 
 
 Now grown a maiden tall, 
 Looks from the latticed casement 
 
 High up the palace wall ; 
 But not for flash and flutter 
 
 Of snowy wings looks she 
 Thro' rain or sun 
 No longer come 
 
 The white doves merrily ; 
 For peace and they have flown afar, 
 And all the land is red with war. 
 
 Great Ivar, dreaded Ivar, 
 
 Who rules the northern coast, 
 Across his rocky borders 
 
 Has led a conquering host ; 
 And smiling field and hamlet 
 
 Despoiling as they came, 
 Five months before the city walls 
 
 The savage hordes have lain. 
 The glimmer of their camp-fires 
 
 The Princess Gerda sees, 
 Their tents, their hostile ensigns 
 
 A-floating in the breeze.
 
 PEINCESS GERDA. 183 
 
 She looks forth from her window 
 
 With eyes grown used to tears ; 
 And as she looks she listens 
 
 What sound is that she hears ? 
 
 A crash, a shriek, a shouting 
 
 A battlement gives way ; 
 Swift thro' the breach come rushing 
 
 The foe in dire array, 
 And sudden as a thunder-storm 
 
 Sweeps o'er the smiling day, 
 The air is dark and clamorous 
 
 And wild with deadly fray. 
 
 But calm and clear 
 Does Gerda hear 
 His orders ring, 
 As the brave King, 
 Unfaltering, 
 Keeps the fierce foe at bay. 
 
 But see ! he falls' ! 
 " The King is down ! " 
 Who'll guard the walls ? 
 Who'll save the town ? 
 " The King is slain ! we fight in vain ! 
 Alack, alack, the King is slain ! " 
 
 The panic-stricken soldiers, 
 
 Pale-faced, from street to street 
 Flee wildly, as the enemy
 
 184 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 Pursue their flying feet : 
 "The King is slain, the town is lost ! 
 Who can withstand great Ivar's host 1 " 
 
 But look ! what stranger legions 
 
 Against the hostile tide 
 Leap forth in shining armor 
 
 And bold advancing ride, 
 Hide on and ever onward, 
 
 Beat back the hostile tide ? 
 
 "The gods ! the gods ! Valhalla 
 
 Has sent its warriors down 
 To fight against our Ivar ! 
 , To battle for the town ! " 
 
 And in dismay and terror 
 
 Is hushed the conquering cry. 
 From street to street, 
 In swift retreat, 
 And over fallen battlement, 
 
 The pale besiegers fly 
 My fast and far; nor pause they 
 
 Till, on the northern shore, 
 They see the birchen forests, 
 And hear the breakers roar. 
 
 Meanwhile, with peals of gladnesa 
 
 The rescued city rang, 
 And loud their great deliverance 
 
 The joyous people sang, 
 And loud they sang the praises
 
 PEINCESS GEKDA. 185 
 
 Of him, the unknown knight, 
 Who led his valiant legions 
 To battle for the right. 
 
 So loud and long their praises, 
 
 Awaking from his swoon, 
 The King o'erheard, and seeing 
 
 Who wore the chieftain's plume, 
 Aghast, stood up and questioned, 
 
 Hand on his horse's rein, 
 " What art thou man or spirit ? 
 
 And what may be thy name ? " 
 
 "I am, O King, no spirit; 
 
 And Eric is my name; 
 Prince Eric, son of Eric, 
 Who sleeps on yonder plain." 
 
 "What! Eric? son of Eric ? 
 Ah, I have heard of thee, 
 How wise and well thou rulest 
 
 Beside the western sea. 
 But why dost thou come hither 
 
 To drive away the foe, 
 And earn my people's praises, 
 Since well thou seem'st to know 
 That it was I, 
 In years gone by, 
 Who laid thy father low ? " 
 
 "Not for thy people's praises 
 I hither led my band,
 
 286 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 But -with, O king, thy favor, 
 To win thy daughter's hand." 
 
 " Great soul and gallant suitor ! 
 
 Well doth he play his part, 
 Who, seeking hand of daughter, 
 Doth steal the father's heart. " 
 
 But Princess Gerda saw not: 
 
 She heeded naught of all, 
 Nor gazed she from the window 
 
 High up the palace wall. 
 " Wherefore the loud rejoicing, 
 
 Wherefore the triumph vain, 
 Since he is dead my father, 
 
 Since he, the King, is slain ? " 
 
 With streaming eyes she greeted 
 
 Two ent'ring at the door, 
 Aye, even him who bowed so low 
 
 His white plumes swept the floon 
 The other lo ! her father ! 
 
 Behold his spirit come ! 
 She stood in trembling wonder; 
 
 Her pallid lips were dumb. 
 
 "Fear not, O Princess Gerda ! 
 If thou wilt turn the key, 
 How gladly will I offer 
 To be a guide for thee ! " 
 
 So spake the Prince; and Ger&* 
 In listening paler grew;
 
 PEINCESS GEEDA. 187 
 
 Becalling guide and venture, 
 
 The words, the voice she knew. 
 "They come to me from spirit-land ! 
 Two heroes are they, tall and grand, 
 And clad in armor bright ! " 
 And in her fear, 
 As they drew near, 
 
 The quaint old room reeled round her, 
 And all was black as night. 
 
 But when again the Princess 
 
 Her blue eyes opened wide, 
 And saw the good King kneeling 
 
 And smiling at her side, 
 And heard him softly whisper, 
 "Behold, my little one, 
 I bring to thee a suitor 
 
 Will please me for a son " 
 She bowed in sweet submission, 
 
 And meekly answered she : 
 " Whatever please my father, 
 
 That also pleaseth me." 
 
 And in the royal city, 
 
 And all the country thro', 
 Were festal cheer and gladness 
 
 Where late were war and woe; 
 For the good King's dominions 
 
 And those the sea beside, 
 Were wed v>-hen Princess Gerda 
 
 Became brave Eric's bride.
 
 JUNGENTHOR, THE GIANT. 
 
 O Giant Jungenthor, 
 What a mighty one was he ! 
 He was so big, he was so strong, 
 Whenever he walked the world along 
 The people would turn in terror, 
 The people would turn and flee 
 
 Oh, oh, Jungenthor, 
 Such a mighty one was he ! 
 
 Oh, Giant Jungenthor, 
 
 What a terrible one was he ! 
 Whenever he went to take a ride, 
 The bald old oaks would step aside, 
 
 The pines would bend the knee : 
 And at the sound of his heavy tread 
 The hills would tremble and quake with dread, 
 
 The islands would rise to see 
 Oh, oh, Jungenthor, 
 
 Such a terrible one was he ! 
 
 Oh, Giant Jungenthor, 
 What a dreadful one was he ! 
 
 Whenever he happened to say a word, 
 (188)
 
 JUNGENTHOR, THE GIANT. 189 
 
 For miles and for miles his voice was heard, 
 
 Like the thunder's roar and rumble ; 
 The stones would rock and the timbers shake, 
 The glass in the windows all would break, 
 
 The chairs and tables tumble ; 
 The kettles and pans would play and prance, 
 About the shelves would the dishes dance, 
 The clock would stop and the doors swing wide, 
 The cats would scamper, the dogs would hide, 
 
 The pigs would squeal and grumble ; 
 The cocks would crow and the geese would fly, 
 The women would scream, the children cry, 
 
 The men look pale and humble ; 
 And that is the way it would be 
 
 Oh, oh, Jungenthor, 
 Such a dreadful one was he ! 
 
 Where dwelt Jungenthor, 
 
 "Where in the world dwelt he ? 
 Not on the mountains clad with snow, 
 Not in the valleys deep below, 
 
 Not by the surging sea ; 
 Not in the desert white with sand, 
 Not in the icy Northern land, 
 
 Not in the South Countrie. 
 Oh, oh, Jungenthor, 
 
 Where in the world dwelt he ? 
 
 Under the mountains clad with snow, 
 Under the valleys deep below,
 
 190 
 
 Under the surging sea ; 
 Under the desert white with sand, 
 Under the icy Northern land, 
 
 Under the South Countrie ; 
 Down, down, under them all 
 They but the "floor, and roof, and wall 
 There in a cavern high and wide 
 (For the round earth was but a shell ; 
 "Who and whoever knew so well 
 As Jungenthor what was inside ?) 
 There, there, there did he dwell, 
 
 There, and oh there dwelt he. 
 
 What do you guess was there inside 
 That earth-bound cavern, high and wide ? 
 Oh, there were millions of chambers roomy, 
 Oh, there were galleries long and gloomy, 
 
 Oh, there were wondrous sights ! 
 Here the ceilings were golden-beamed, 
 There the pavement with jewels gleamed, 
 
 With marbles and malachites ; 
 Diamonds were set in the roof for stars, 
 The rafters were made of silver bars, 
 
 The columns of crystal clear. 
 Oh, in that cavern, high and wide, 
 Had ever a daring mortal tried 
 To travel alone and without a guide, 
 He had lost his way 
 And gone astray 
 And wandered many a year ;
 
 JUNGENTHOK, THE GIANT. 191 
 
 And if lie had met the giant, 
 He surely had died of fear. 
 
 But there was a fairy who knew the way : 
 Often by night and often by day 
 To a dense forest she would go, 
 And there, in a cave-all dark and low, 
 A rock as heavy as iron, 
 
 And as bright and as black as coal, 
 Swift, when her wand she lifted, 
 
 Away and away would roll ; 
 And down would she clamber, clamber, 
 Through hundreds of miles of gloom, 
 On the reminds of a golden ladder 
 That led to a wonderful room - 
 Oh, a wonderful, wonderful chamber, 
 
 Flooded with amber light ; 
 For there, at the centre of the earth, 
 A mighty fire on a mighty hearth 
 
 Burned ruddy, and warm, and bright ; 
 Burned ruddy and bright forever, 
 
 "With billows of orange flame, 
 And the giant's occupation 
 
 Was never to let it wane. 
 And there would the fairy find him 
 
 Stirring the coals red hot : 
 " Good-morrow to you, Jungenthor ! " 
 
 So would the fairy say ; 
 " And what and what does "Winnikin want, 
 And what does she want to-day ? "
 
 192 STORIES AND BALLADa 
 
 So would the giant grumble ; 
 But Winnikin feared him not. 
 
 And, now, " O Giant Jungenthor ! " 
 
 Did her tale of wrong begin, 
 " There are two wicked cities 
 
 A trouble to "Winnikin, 
 The rich they are proud and cruel, 
 
 The poor they will lie and steal, 
 And trouble is always brewing 
 
 That "Winnikin cannot heal ; 
 And the friendly care and watching 
 
 Of the fairies they are not worth; 
 O Jungenthor, those cities 
 
 Are blots on the face of the earth I" 
 
 As soon as he guessed her errand, 
 
 The giant poked the fire 
 Till it roared, and hissed, and crackled, 
 
 Till the flames curled high and higher, 
 And billows of smoke and cinders 
 
 From the chimney-top rolled out, 
 And darkened the sky at noonday, 
 
 And shadowed the land about. 
 Then he filled ten billion barrels 
 
 With the soot that trickled down, 
 And up through the chimney hurled them. 
 
 Up through the chimney brown; 
 And lo ! when the morning's sunlight 
 
 Shone through the clouds of smoke,
 
 JUNGENTHOR, THE GIANT. 193 
 
 In those two wicked cities 
 
 Neither prince nor beggar woke ; 
 For the soot from the giant's chimney 
 
 Had deluged the country wide ; 
 
 And over those wicked cities 
 
 
 
 It rolled in a turbid tide. 
 All in the night 
 They were buried from sight. 
 "Ha, ha ! " laughed Giant Jungenthor, 
 "Is Winnikin satisfied ? " 
 
 And this was the fairy's errami 
 
 When she came another time : 
 " O Jungenthor, a monarch 
 
 Has builded a palace fine ; 
 Aided by dwarf and elfin 
 
 He has builded it tall and grand. 
 With marble white from the quarrj, 
 
 Not hewn by mortal hand ; 
 For night by night 
 In the pale moonlight 
 
 Did we hammer and delve away, 
 To get the great stones ready 
 
 For the workmen of the day. 
 O Jungenthor, we labored, 
 
 Behold, for a thankless King ! 
 For he has cut down the forest 
 
 Where oft, in a merry ring, 
 Did the fairies dance and frolic, 
 
 Or among the branches swing.
 
 194 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 After all our toil and trouble 
 He has destroyed our trees, 
 
 And the sight of his gorgeous palace 
 Winnikin does not please." 
 
 As soon as her story ended 
 
 Did the angry giant frown; 
 He lifted his voice of thunder, 
 And the palace toppled down. 
 Oh ! he roared so loud 
 That the frightened crowd 
 Fled from the tumbling town, 
 And the thankless monarch stumbJed, 
 
 And fell, and broke his crown. 
 And forth from his firelit cavern 
 Did the giant peep and grin, 
 Then growled at the fay beside him 
 " Does that please Winnikin ? " 
 
 And such werevthe fairy's errands. 
 
 As from time to time she camo 
 To Jungenthor the giant, 
 
 Feeding' the flood of flame; 
 And such were the tales she told him 
 Of trouble, and wrong, and grief, 
 And thus and so 
 Would the giant go 
 To Winniken's relief. 
 
 Once came the fairy, weeping, 
 " O Jungenthor ! " said she,
 
 JITNGENTHOR, THE GIANT. 
 
 "O mighty giant, listen 
 
 To the news I bring to thee. 
 
 11 All up among the mountains, 
 
 Amid the forests dim, 
 There stands a ruined castle, 
 
 A castle old and grim : 
 And in its shade at evening 
 
 The elves are wont to meet, 
 To dance upon the mosses 
 
 And sway with lilies sweet. 
 Well, yestere'en, it happened, 
 
 Just at the midnight hour, 
 While we were making merry, 
 
 Forth from the vine- wreathed tower 
 There came a plaintive moaning, 
 
 And I alone who heard 
 Flew up the twining ivy, 
 
 As lightly as a bird, 
 And found on high a dungeon 
 
 Beneath the shattered roof, 
 And there a pale young captive 
 
 From mortal aid aloof, 
 By heavy, clanking irons 
 
 Chained to the wall of stone. 
 O Jungenthor, good reason 
 
 Has he to weep and moan ! 
 And this is what he told me, 
 
 And this is what he told; 
 Now hear, O mighty giant, 
 
 What fiends the earth doth hold:
 
 196 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " 'All up a mountain pathway, 
 
 That winds through forests green, 
 There rode three gallant horsemen 
 
 And nevermore were seen. 
 Three other gallant horsemen 
 
 Rode up in search of them, 
 Kode up the narrow pathway 
 
 And came not back again. 
 
 And after went three others 
 
 
 
 The mountain searching o'er 
 It fared with those three others 
 
 As with them that went before. 
 And all the people marveled, 
 
 And all were filled with fear, 
 And no one dared to venture 
 
 The mountain pathway near. 
 
 " ' Now, one of those nine horsemen 
 
 Was a knight of our good King ; 
 And so a prize he offered 
 
 To any who should bring 
 A true report and trusty 
 
 Of all those hapless men 
 Who ventured up the mountain 
 
 And ne'er came down again. 
 Whoso should dare the pathway 
 
 And bring a true report, 
 Thus he should be rewarded*- 
 
 Oh, he should dwell at court, 
 And all shoiild do him honor,
 
 JUNGENTHOK, THE GIANT. 197 
 
 And the King should make him knight, 
 And give to him a war-horse 
 And a suit of armor bright ! 
 
 " 'Now, we are seven brothers, 
 
 So hale, and strong, and tall, 
 Save me, who am the seventh, 
 
 The youngest of them all; 
 And for my lowly stature, 
 
 Fair face, and yellow curls, 
 The rest they loved to taunt me 
 
 And tease the livelong day, 
 The while we watched the cattle 
 
 Or turned the new-mown hay. 
 "Go hence, go hence, fair lily, 
 
 And haste thee," they would say; 
 "Lest thou shouldst tan or freckle 
 
 Beneath the burning sun, 
 Go get thyself a bonnet 
 
 To shield thee, gentle one ! 
 Go gossip with old women ! 
 
 Go spin and sew with girls ! " 
 
 " 'Aweary of their mocking 
 
 And jests at last I grew, 
 And much I thought and pondered 
 
 What brave deed I might do, 
 Their cruel scorn to silence; 
 
 And when I heard the news, 
 A chance such prize of winning
 
 198 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 How could I well refuse ? 
 So, thro' the brooding midnight, 
 
 The while the others slept, 
 Across the fields and pastures 
 
 All silently I crept; 
 And when mine eyes I lifted 
 
 At breaking of the day, 
 I saw afar the mountain, 
 
 Toward which I took my way. 
 And on, and on I journeyed, 
 
 Till, just as night came down, 
 I passed into the forest 
 
 Among the shadows brown. 
 Then up the winding pathway 
 
 I hurried on, in fear, 
 'Till, through the darkness shining 
 
 Forth from a ruin near, 
 A light I spied, and thither 
 
 I turned, in hope I might 
 Find food for I was hungry 
 
 And shelter for the night. 
 I reached the door, and ent'ring 
 
 (I thought the place an inn, 
 For there were sounds of feasting 
 
 And merriment within), 
 Fierce men, with cruel weapons, 
 
 A table gathered 'round, 
 Sprang up and seized me, helpless, 
 
 And with these fetters bound. 
 " What brings thee here, thou stripling ?'
 
 JTJNGENTHOR, THE GIANT. 
 
 In anger questioned they. 
 
 *' O sirs," I answered, trembling, 
 
 " I've journeyed all the day ; 
 
 For food, and rest, and shelter 
 
 I chanced to turn this way, 
 But since I am not welcome, 
 Let me pass on, I pray." 
 
 "Ha, not so fast, young villain ! 
 
 We know that is a lie. 
 What errand brings thee hither ? 
 
 Confess thou art a spy ! " 
 " It is a peaceful errand, 
 
 O sirs," I answered then ; 
 "I seek nine gallant horsemen. 
 
 And have ye heard of them ? 
 They rode this way, nor ever 
 
 Eeturned, and I would bring 
 Some tidings of the missing 
 
 To our good lord, the King." 
 At that, with peals of laughter 
 
 The dreary place did ring. 
 "Thou'lt see thy gallant horsemen 
 Ere thou shalt see the King 1 " 
 They said, and roughly dragged me 
 
 Along the banquet-hall, 
 And up into this lonesome tower, 
 
 And chained me to the wall. 
 "Lie there, lie there and rest thee I" 
 They cried in mocking tones ;
 
 200 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " Thou'rt welcome to thy lodging 
 And the lichens on the stones !"' 
 
 " ' O fairy, now for many days 
 
 Have I thus helpless lain ; 
 No food but these gray mosses, 
 
 No drink but pearls of rain 
 That through the sunken ceiling 
 
 Drop to me where I lie, 
 When the blessed clouds in pity 
 
 Creep downward from the sky. 
 O fairy, I beseech thee, 
 
 Release me ere I die ! 
 For they who keep this castle 
 
 Are robbers fierce and bold, 
 I've learned from bloody stories 
 
 By one and other told, 
 As night by night, grown merry 
 
 With wine, their voices rise, 
 And come to me with secrets 
 
 Through the long galleries. 
 They gather here at midnight 
 
 From all the country o'er, 
 To hide their plundered treasure 
 
 Beneath the stone-paved floor, 
 To talk of their adventures 
 
 And feast till break of day, 
 When quick they mount their horses, 
 
 And swiftly ride away 
 To seek the mountain-passes
 
 When the fairy had finished speaking, 
 The giant stood up and knocked. PAGE 301.
 
 JUNGENTHOR, THE GIANT. 201 
 
 And lie in wait for prey. 
 The very steeds that bear them 
 
 Were stolen, and they tell 
 Of three who once rode hither, 
 
 On whom they, waiting, fell 
 And slew, and of three others 
 
 Who up the mountain came, 
 And yet again three others; 
 
 And all did fare the same. 
 And now for who could doubt it ? 
 
 Those were the missing nine ! 
 Oh ! I would bear the tidings, 
 
 The prize it should be mine, 
 But that thus bound with irons 
 
 And helpless here I lie. 
 Good fairy, I beseech thee, 
 
 Belease me ere I die ! ' 
 
 " Such was the tale he told me. 
 
 O Jungenthor, I plead 
 That thou wilt lift thy mighty arm 
 And help him in his need." 
 
 When the fairy had finished speaking, 
 
 The giant stood up and knocked 
 Again and again on the ceiling, 
 Till the ruined castle rocked, 
 And the roof fell in 
 With a deafening din, 
 And the stones fell out
 
 02 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 And tumbled about ; 
 And the thieves who merrily feasted, 
 
 Or ever they could take flight, 
 The earth gaped wide and swallowed, 
 
 Then closed and covered from sight. 
 " Ha, ha !" laughed Giant Jungenthor, 
 " Haven't I served them right ? " 
 
 But there was one part of the castle 
 The tow'r where the young lad lay- 
 Left standing (and who denieth 
 
 That it stands there to this day ?) 
 The door it had flown wide open 
 At the knocking of Jungenthor, 
 The iron chain 
 It had snapped in twain, 
 And the captive was free once more. 
 
 And still in his clanking fetters, 
 
 "Wasted, and weak, and wan, 
 He crawled away to the forest, 
 
 He wandered and wandered on. 
 Bewildered and faint, all slowly 
 
 Here and there did he stray, 
 Till he saw a snow-white charger, 
 
 With saddle and trappings gay, 
 Feeding among the herbage, 
 
 And him did he mount straightway, 
 Saying, "Good steed, 
 O speed, O speed !
 
 JUNGENTHOE, THE GIANT. 203 
 
 And carry me, carry me, cany me 
 Safe to the King this day ! " 
 
 Then the beautiful snow-white charger, 
 
 As tho' he had understood, 
 Galloped ad own the mountain, 
 
 Down and on through the wood; 
 And, eager, as one long absent 
 
 Seeking his home again, 
 The road to the royal city 
 
 He took when he reached the plain ; 
 And the folk in the fields at labor, 
 
 And the passers to and fro, 
 Lifted their eyes in wonder, 
 
 Seeing him speeding so 
 For ever the farther he traveled 
 
 The faster he seemed to go. 
 
 The King from the palace window 
 
 Looked forth at set of sun, 
 And along the dusty highway 
 
 Saw a horse and rider come ; 
 And he watched till the snow-white charger 
 
 Paused at the palace gate, 
 Then he turned to the courtiers round him, 
 
 Saying in wonder great, 
 " Look, ye ! it is the war horse 
 
 Of my brave knight, Harald, he 
 Who rode on the fated mission. 
 
 Bring the rider to me ! "
 
 204 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 And into the royal presence, 
 Trembling, the young lad came, 
 
 Wasted, and wan, and pallid, 
 Feebly dragging his chain, 
 
 " Who art thou ?" the King demanded, 
 
 Marveling at the sight; 
 " Whence dost thou come, and wherefore, 
 
 And why in this woeful plight ? " 
 
 Then the youth made timid answer 
 
 " O my gracious lord the King, 
 I am a humble peasant, 
 
 And tidings I come to bring 
 Of the fate of the missing horsemen. " 
 
 Bidding the lad come near, 
 Eager the King did question, 
 And the courtiers all, 
 Both great and small, 
 Crowded about to hear. 
 
 When the boy had told his story 
 
 The King laid hand on his head; 
 "If thou wert but ten years older 
 
 I would make thee a knight," he said. 
 "Alas ! " sighed the boy, recalling 
 
 The scorn and the cruel jeers 
 Of his brothers, " I am not worthy, 
 Because of my youthful years ! " 
 And wasted, and weak, and pallid, 
 He sank with a weary moan.
 
 THE GIANT. 805 
 
 His fetters clanking around him, 
 There at the foot of the throne. 
 
 Then the King's fair little daughter, 
 Who had listened with tearful eyes, 
 
 Spake softly, "Have pity, my father I 
 Hath he not won the prize ? " 
 
 "Arise ! " said the good King, smiling, 
 "Forsooth I will keep my word " 
 (And, saying, the young lad's shoulder 
 
 Lightly he touched with his sword) ; 
 "Forsooth I will keep my promise, 
 
 Since the little one pleads thy claim I 
 Henceforth shall they know thee only 
 
 As the Knight of the Golden Mane. 
 The steed that hath borne thee hither 
 
 Henceforward thine own shall be, 
 And when thou art grown to fit it 
 
 Mine armor I'll give to thee." 
 Then to the servitors turning 
 " Unbind him without delay, 
 Tho' these chains were a badge of honor 
 
 And clanked in his praise 
 
 And the youthful knight thereafter 
 At the court of the King abode, 
 
 Like a prince did he go appareled, 
 And the snow-white steed he rode. 
 
 And the King's own suit of armor 
 He wore when a man he grew
 
 200 STOEIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 Helmet, and shield, and coat of mail, 
 
 And the good King's broad-sword, too. 
 And so valiant was he in warfare, 
 And so wise alway, that his fame 
 Afar did ring, 
 And the foes of the King 
 Trembled to hear his name. 
 
 Now, once to the royal city 
 
 The people by thousands came 
 (For that day did he wed the princess, 
 
 She who pleaded his claim) ; 
 And there were six stalwart brothers 
 
 In the gay and festive throng, 
 And low did they make obeisance 
 
 As grandly he rode along; 
 But sudden, amazed and awe-struck 
 
 Were they when the warrior bold 
 In his bright and dazzling armor, 
 
 With his flowing locks of gold 
 Halted to give them greeting; 
 
 Sudden they blanched with shame, 
 For, behold, their long-lost brother 
 
 Was the Knight of the Golden Mane .' 
 
 And none of all this had happened, 
 And the castle, so grim and gray, 
 
 Might have been the home of robbera 
 Unto this very day; 
 
 And the poor young lad imprisoned,
 
 JUNGENTHOK, THE GIANT. 20? 
 
 Bound by the iron chain, 
 Had clambered the lonely mountain 
 
 And tried for the prize in vain, 
 But for the giant's knocking. 
 
 And from this and from that you see, 
 When the fairy asked help of Jungenthor, 
 
 Just the way it would be 
 Oh, oh, Jungenthor, 
 
 Such a mighty one was he I
 
 LITTLE FLOBENCE. 
 
 (J08) 
 
 O Florence, little Florence, 
 With your face so bonny-bright, 
 
 With your hair so full of sunshine, 
 With your eyes so full of light, 
 
 With your head so full of frolic, 
 With your heart so full of love, 
 
 If you could only tell me, 
 Could tell me, pretty dove I 
 
 Do the little laughing cherubs 
 Slide down the moonbeams white, 
 
 And whisper funny stories, 
 And talk to you all night ? 
 
 The funny bits of ballads 
 You babble now and then, 
 
 In a sweeter, softer language 
 Than other mortals ken. 
 
 Do they joke and jest so gleeful, 
 From set of sun till dawn, 
 
 That you lie and crow and giggle 
 Long after they are gone ?
 
 LITTLE FLORENCE. 209 
 
 Do they always bring two dewy, 
 
 Fresh pieces of the sky, 
 And lift your lashes softly 
 
 And slip them under sly ? 
 
 Do they pinch your cheeks a triflo, 
 
 To make the roses blow ? 
 Do they punch your chubby fingers, 
 
 To make the dimples grow ? 
 
 Do they show you sights of mischief, 
 
 All sorts of things to do 
 (Just to keep a body busy, 
 
 And the world from getting "blue") ? 
 
 Do they tickle you at table, 
 
 And tempt you to a spree 
 (Just to shake the mental cobwebs) 
 
 When the Parson's in to tea ? 
 
 Do they pity the canary, 
 
 And come to you and say, 
 'Tis weary of its prison 
 
 And wants to get away ? 
 
 Do they hint the budding calla 
 
 Is bold enough to bloom, 
 If some one isn't careful 
 
 To pluck it pretty soon ? 
 
 Do they tell you on which bushes 
 Grows " de bestest zdnzerbread " ?
 
 210 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 That how to get new dollies 
 Is to smash the old one's head ? 
 
 Do they teach you model methodp 
 For enslaving humankind 
 The way to rule the father 
 And to make the mother mind ? 
 
 And to keep all of us people, 
 Who live across the street, 
 
 Forever on the listen 
 For the tinkling of your feet ? 
 
 Alas ! ere you can answer, 
 I'm very much in fear 
 
 The cherubs will have finished 
 A-whispering in your ear. 
 
 'Tis cloudy April weather, 
 There's a chill in all the air, 
 
 And over in the window 
 I see the golden hair. 
 
 Somebody must stay indoors. 
 
 For fear of catchinsr cold; 
 And it's " defful " tiresome business 
 
 For little Three-years-old. 
 
 But the whole town remembers 
 How, not six months agone, 
 
 All round the house the curtains 
 Were ever closely drawn,
 
 LITTLE FLORENCE. 
 
 And where erewhile the door-bell 
 
 Its frequent summons rang, 
 Was pinned a penciled notice, . 
 
 To hush the piercing clang. 
 
 For little, little Florence 
 
 Among the shadows lay, 
 In fever, moaning, tossing, 
 
 The livelong night and day. 
 
 And oft was asked the question, 
 "Is she any better now ? " 
 With a choking and a tremor 
 One couldn't help, somehow. 
 
 But she does not remember, 
 Of course the blithesome heart. 
 
 See ! she has donned her " yiding-hood," 
 All ready for a start. 
 
 And now ! quick, no one watching, 
 Down, down the walk she flies 
 
 And Betsy rushing after, 
 With a twinkle in her eyes. 
 
 Ha ! let us see you catch her 
 
 The wee Bed Biding-hood ! 
 A flash of scarlet lightning; 
 
 She's in a racing mood. 
 
 Quick, o'er the muddy crossing 
 (The dainty buttoned shoes ! )
 
 212 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 Quick, quick, around the corner 
 Ah, she begins to lose ! 
 
 now ! the race is over. 
 You little midget, you ! 
 To laugh such bubbling laughter, 
 The other must laugh too. 
 
 And now the door closed on her, 
 
 As yesterday, no doubt 
 " Mamma must haf to lock it, 
 Or some peoples vitt get out." 
 
 Once, left alone a moment, 
 They couldn't find the child; 
 
 And the father's face was ghastly, 
 And the mother she went wild. 
 
 Nor here, nor there, the missing; 
 
 The neighbors, looking out, 
 Saw all the household flying 
 
 Promiscuously about, 
 
 And joined the search, in terror, 
 
 And hurried to and fro; 
 " Oh ! where oh ! where is Florence ? 
 Does anybody know ? " 
 
 "O Florence ! Florence ! Florence ! " 
 
 There came a little squeal 
 From pony Prince's manger 
 ' ' I be here in de meal. "
 
 LITTLE FLORENCE. 213 
 
 The darling ! may kind Heaven 
 
 Preserve her safe and sound ! 
 For her ways defy conjecture, 
 
 And her plans they are profound. 
 
 But bless the little cherubs 
 
 Who ride the moonbeams white, 
 And come to her a-cooing, 
 
 A-cooing all the night ! 
 
 Who come to her with manna 
 
 The melting music-mirth 
 She scatters in her pathway, 
 . To gladden all the earth. 
 
 And bless the little Florence, 
 
 With her face so bonny-bright, 
 With her hair so full of sunshine, 
 
 With her eyes so full of light ! 
 
 Aye, bless you, little sunbeam ! 
 
 Shine on a good long while ! 
 The world will be the better 
 
 For the ripple in your smile I
 
 A CENTENNIAL TEA-POT. 
 
 Great-great-grandmother, Winifred Lee, 
 Brought, when she came across the sea, 
 A porcelain tea-pot pictured o'er, 
 After a fashion they knew of yore, 
 Bright with birds and with summer flowers 
 And fairies dancing in shady bowers 
 A pretty treasure to keep in mind 
 The pleasant home she had left behind. 
 
 Weeks of battle with storm and gale 
 Wore on timber and mast and sail, 
 And just a league from its destined goal 
 The ship was wrecked on a hidden shoal. 
 Kescued, the people sped to shore, 
 Saving their lives and nothing more. 
 
 But Winifred, pacing the beach next day, 
 Dreaming of England far away 
 A little homesick, and lone, and sad, 
 In spite of the morning gay and glad 
 Saw, as she strolled, how the thieving tide 
 Had brought its plunder and scattered wide, 
 And behold, in seaweed carefully wound, 
 
 The porcelain tea-pot safe and sound I 
 (214)
 
 A CENTENNIAL TEA-POT. 215 
 
 When years had passed and the King's demand 
 
 Boused the people of all the land, 
 
 And a ship's cargo was put away 
 
 To steep at the bottom of Boston Bay, 
 
 With a rebel heart and a flashing eye 
 
 Winifred laid her tea-pot by; 
 " Till we are granted our rights," said she, 
 " I'll drink not another cup of tea." 
 
 (Oh, matrons of this luxurious age, 
 
 Who lightly turn from History's page, 
 
 Just for a year or two forego 
 
 Your redolent draughts of rare Pekoe, 
 
 And say if you deem the self-denial 
 
 Of our great-great-grandmothers not a trial !) 
 
 Murder, and pillage, and cannon's roar, 
 All along the Connecticut shore, 
 Frighted from town the worthy dame. 
 Next day a barrack her house became, 
 And a troop of Redcoats helped themselves 
 To all they could find on the pantry shelves. 
 They drank and feasted, and sang and swore, 
 They tumbled the beds and the curtains tore, 
 And the quiet, orderly, well-kept house 
 Was the scene of a livelong night's carouse. 
 
 Homeward stealing when they had passed, 
 Winifred gazed at the sight aghast. 
 With wrecks of revel the floors were strewn, 
 With tables broken and chairs o'erthrown;
 
 216 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 Delicate saucer, and cup, and plate, 
 Buined all but, strange to relate, 
 The porcelain tea-pot standing still, 
 Safe and sound, on a window-sill ! 
 
 Long and long have the lichens grown, 
 Wreathing a slender slab of stone, 
 Till scarcely the letters can you see 
 That spell the name of Winifred Lee. 
 But the pictured porcelain, handed down, 
 Far from the old elm-shaded town, 
 An heirloom prized, had found retreat 
 High over a thronged Chicago street 
 There, in its corner, fresh and gay 
 As tho' it were made but yesterday. 
 
 When in the night a terror came, 
 
 And the great city was red with flame, 
 
 And the people, jostling, gasped for breath 
 
 As they wildly fled from the jaws of death; 
 
 Little leisure or care had they 
 
 Their household treasures to bear away. 
 
 Nevertheless, as one returned 
 To where the debris smouldering burned, 
 Where heaps of ashes, and brick, and stone, 
 Were all that remained of a goodly home 
 Saving a charred and blackened wall, 
 Like skeleton rising gaunt and tall 
 Glancing upward, with wondering eye,
 
 A CENTENNIAL TEA-POT. 217 
 
 The marvelous tea-pot did he spy, 
 Boldly gleaming against the sky. 
 
 Ah, old tea-pot, gleaming still, 
 
 What is the magic that guards from ill, 
 
 From tempest, and war, and time, and fire 
 
 All for thy ruin that conspire ? 
 
 Behold thee, shining so bright and gay! 
 
 Old tea-pot, art thou bewitched, I say ?- 
 
 If that be true, and in some hour 
 
 Thou shouldst possess thee of speech the power, 
 
 With the vapor that curls from thy graceful spout 
 
 What prisoned secret wilt thou let out ? 
 
 Wilt tell how gossips have lisped and chided 
 
 At little suppers where thou hast presided ? 
 
 Wilt ever laugh at the fortunes told, 
 
 The willing credence of young and old, 
 
 As the sibylline leaves thou didst unfold ? 
 
 Forsooth, as I watch thee blink and shine 
 In that remarkable way of thine, 
 I'm half afraid of thee ! No, not so, 
 Thou precious relic of long ago ! 
 Breathing fragrance and friendly cheer, 
 Live for many and many a year ! 
 The next Centennial may'st thou see, 
 Is the toast I drink in a cup of tea. 
 ORANGE, N. J., 1876.
 
 IN LILAC TIME. 
 
 The bobolink sung to 'is mate, 
 The doves wuz softly cooin', 
 
 I heard the clinkin' of the gate, 
 When Joe first come a-wooin'. 
 
 I stood beside the lilock bush 
 (The sun was slowly sinkin') ; 
 
 My cheeks wuz all to once a-blush, 
 "When I heard the gate-latch clinkin'. 
 
 Fer Joe he wuz so good an' kind 
 (Tho' such a bashful lover), 
 
 No truer friend you'd ever find 
 In all the wide world over. 
 
 He sez, " Ez I wuz goin' by, 
 
 I seed yer hair so shiny, 
 Yer eyes ez blue ez summer sky, 
 
 Yer cheeks ez red's a piny ; 
 
 "My heart my throat come thrummin' in, 
 
 The dusk it struck my fancy; 
 I couldn't help a-comin' in 
 
 An' speakin' to ye, Nancy." 
 (218)
 
 LILAC TIME. 219 
 
 An' then 'e sez 'e sez O me ! 
 
 My feelins gits unruly 
 He'd liked me all along, you see; 
 
 I know he loved me truly. 
 
 An' I wuz but an orphan, too, 
 
 A-workin' fer my livin', 
 Without a kith er kin I knew, 
 
 An' jest myself to give 'im. 
 
 An' when iz voice sunk soft away 
 A kind o' tremblin' in it 
 
 The words I tried so hard to say 
 Kep' chokin' fer a minute. 
 
 The lilock blossoms wuz in blow, 
 So sweet, with dewdrops beaded; 
 
 I handed 'im a bunch, an' Joe 
 No other answer needed. 
 
 The year it passed, the war wuz come, 
 
 The soldiers fast enrollin'; 
 I heard the beatin' of the drum, 
 
 I thought like church-bell tollin'. 
 
 I stood beside the lilock bush, 
 The shadows round me lyin', 
 
 An' all the evenin' in a hush, 
 Except the wind a-sighin'; 
 
 An' down the lane the whip-'oor-will 
 So sad an' mournful callin'
 
 220 STOKIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 Somehow it wuz so dreadful still, 
 The tears would keep a-fallin'. 
 
 An' then lie come so brave an' strong, 
 
 An' yet 'is lips a-quiv'rin'; 
 I guesst 'is errant all along, 
 
 An' couldn't help a-shiv'rin'. 
 
 friend, the year went round went round- 
 But this'll tell you better; 
 
 This withered lilock some one found, 
 An' sent me in a letter. 
 
 Ah, well ! there's more than me that know 
 
 How sad is war, an' fearful, 
 An' since the good God plans it so, 
 
 I must try to be cheerful; 
 
 But when the lilocks air in bloom, 
 An' when the day's a-dyin', 
 
 1 creep off to my little room 
 An' have a fit of cryin'.
 
 BLUE EYES. 
 
 Violets, violets, blossoming low, 
 Shadowy grasses under; 
 Blue, blue eyes, 
 Up at the skies 
 Peering, as if in wonder. 
 
 What tho' the garden with bloom be sweet, 
 Its mantle the wood renewing; 
 
 And the birdlings glad 
 
 Be rollicking mad 
 And musical in their wooing ; 
 
 What tho' the streamlet softly flow, 
 
 Murmuring, laughing, grieving, 
 
 And the livelong day 
 
 The zephyr gay 
 Story and rhyme be weaving ; 
 
 Never the spring-time hath been complete 
 Till, the long grasses under, 
 I find blue eyes 
 Up at the skies 
 Peering, as if in wonder. 
 
 (221)
 
 THE APPLE-GATHERING. 
 
 (222) 
 
 Apples, apples, apples, 
 
 Here they come tumbling down, 
 Yellow, and white, and rosy, 
 
 Crimson, purple, and brown; 
 Seek-no-further and russet, 
 
 Gilliflower, Jersey sweet, 
 Strawberry, mellow Fameuse 
 
 Fit for a king to eat; 
 Pound royals, golden pippins, 
 
 Spitzenbergs hard and red; 
 Take care ! get out of the way, there, 
 Or they'll plump, 
 Cathump, 
 
 On somebody's head ! 
 
 Gather them into the baskets, 
 
 Empty them into the bin; 
 What a luscious store to go to 
 
 "When the winter wild sets in ! 
 Oh, if the apples Eve saw 
 
 "Were as handsome as some of these, 
 How ever could she help saying 
 
 "I'll take one, if you please " ?
 
 GOOD-BY, LITTLE BIRD. 233 
 
 Yellow, and white, and rosy, 
 
 Crimson, purple, and brown, 
 Apples, apples, apples, 
 
 Here they come tumbling down. 
 
 GOOD-BY, LITTLE BIBD, 
 
 Good-by, little bird, the storm-clouds 
 Are gathering gray and drear ; 
 
 At the chilly touch of the Frost-king 
 The sunbeams have paled with fear ; 
 
 "Wither'd, the leaves, and fallen lie ; 
 
 Sadly the winds of autumn sigh ; 
 
 Good-by, little bird, good-by, good-by; 
 Little bird, stay not here. 
 
 Good-by, little bird, I see thee 
 
 Winging thy southward way 
 To a sunny land thou knowest, 
 Caroling as thou goest, 
 
 Singing a blithesome lay. 
 Alas, and alas, no longer 
 
 Shall thy tuneful voice be heard, 
 Till the leafless limbs be clothed again, 
 And the blossoms gladden hill and glen. 
 Good-by, good-by, little bird, till then ; 
 
 Good-by, good-by, little bird.
 
 HE WILL COME BACK. 
 
 Slow the sunset's glory fades 
 In a thousand shifting shades, 
 Crimson passing into gray, 
 Where the waters of the bay, 
 Mirror, serve the sky alway. 
 
 From the dim, far-reaching sea 
 Blows the cool wind merrily, 
 Fills the snowy sails spread wide, 
 And the fishers gaily glide 
 Out against a rising tide. 
 
 Children on the sea-beach white 
 Watch them speeding out of sight; 
 Hose, the eldest of the band, 
 Sees but him who waves his hand- 
 Boldest sailor in the land. 
 
 "All is well when father goes," 
 Softly murmurs little Rose, 
 Listening to the breaker's moan, 
 As she wends her way alone 
 
 Up the cliff-side to her home. 
 (224)
 
 HE WILL COME BACK. 225 
 
 Thro' the night the storm-bells toll, 
 And she hears the thunder's roll, 
 Sees across the heaven's black 
 The red lightning's zigzag track; 
 Still, "I know he will come back I " 
 
 Broken spar and shattered mast,. 
 By the reckless billows cast 
 On the shore at early day, 
 As they, guilty, steal away, 
 Find the villagers and say 
 
 While above them smiles the sun 
 "'Twill go hard with such an one, 
 'Twill be sad for these and those, 
 But who shall the news disclose 
 To the little orphan Eose ? " 
 
 Bose, small housewife, mixing bread, 
 When they tell her shakes her head: 
 "Do you think I can forget 
 All the perils he has met, 
 And naught ever harmed him yet ? " 
 
 And the neighbors say, '.' Poor child ! " 
 Whispering, "Grief has made her wild." 
 But at eve white sails behold ! 
 Flashing up a path of gold, 
 Just as little Rose foretold.
 
 (226) 
 
 KATY. 
 
 Katy on the doorstep sat, 
 While her dimpled fingers fat 
 Moved industrious to and fro 
 O'er the gay pink calico; 
 For an apron she was making, 
 All herself, with much painstaking. 
 
 Pretty picture made she there, 
 
 Humming a quaint Celtic air, 
 
 Blue eyes on the work intent, 
 
 Cheek where tan and roses blent, 
 
 Brown hair smoothly brushed and braided, 
 
 Tied at ends with ribbon faded. 
 
 Such a happy little maid, 
 
 Sitting in the porch's shade, 
 
 Tempted me to questioning, 
 
 Till she fell *a-gossiping, 
 
 All about her country telling 
 
 And the peasant's mode of dwelling ; 
 
 How she came from " ferninst Corrk 
 Tin miles," how she used to walk 
 There and back without a rest,
 
 KATY. 227 
 
 Only, by the way confessed, 
 
 That the miles " bey ant " "air shorrter" 
 
 Than they are this side the water ; 
 
 How the houses are of clay, 
 And the roofs are green alway 
 Thatched with turf ; how very sweet 
 The odor of the burning peat, 
 Which warms in winter-time the cottage 
 
 And cooks the oatmeal or the pottage ; 
 
 / 
 
 How now and then a troop passed by, 
 
 Fox-hunting, riding gallantly 
 
 Fair ladies and fine gentlemen, 
 
 Who dashed through field, and wood, and glen 
 
 Nor hedge, nor fence, nor stream could stay 
 
 Their fiery steeds upon the way; 
 
 How on a hill-side near her home 
 There stands a ruin, ivy -grown, 
 Which long, and long, and long gone by 
 Was a grand castle, strong and high; 
 And now by night the people passing 
 Make haste, for fear a ghost be chasing. 
 
 Thus and so did Katy chat, 
 As in the shaded porch she sat. 
 The little maiden twelve years old 
 With ready tongue her story told, 
 Better than all the books relate it 
 Or half the travelers can state it.
 
 MAEIE. 
 
 Little Marie is lonesome, . 
 
 Little Marie is sad, 
 Tho' the summer sun is shining 
 
 And the summer days are glad. 
 
 Ever she stops to listen 
 
 As her weary task she plies, 
 
 Anon at the open window 
 Lingers with dreamy eyes. 
 
 Not at the distant woodlands, 
 . Veiled in a golden haze, 
 Or the miles between of meadow 
 And wheat and rippling maze, 
 
 Dotted with elms and maples 
 
 That move in the morning breeze, 
 
 And now and then a farm-house 
 Shaded by apple trees, 
 
 The shallow, winding streamlet, 
 
 Where cattle lazily wade, 
 Here in the sunlight flashing, 
 
 Trembling there in the shade 
 (228)
 
 MARIE. 229 
 
 Not at the quiet landscape 
 
 Gazes she ; far and dim 
 She sees the white clouds fleecy 
 
 That crown the horizon's rim. 
 
 They are the snow-clad mountains 
 
 She saw from the chalet low, 
 Where she dwelt in the dear old Bhineland 
 
 Ah ! it seems so long ago. 
 
 Not to the streamlet's murmur 
 
 Listens she ; far away 
 Gurgles a mountain torrent 
 
 Over the rocks all day 
 
 Gurgles and laughs and plashes, 
 
 Turning the mill-wheel 'round ; 
 Gurgles and laughs so merry 
 
 Hush ! she can hear the sound. 
 
 She and the village children 
 
 Clamber along its route ; 
 Ernest is always leading 
 
 Hark ! she can hear him shout : 
 
 ' Marie ! I'll help thee, Marie ! " 
 
 She reaches her hand to him 
 Sudden the wide eyes vacant 
 Fountains of tear-drops brim. 
 
 Suddenly far and mocking 
 Sounds the voice of the brook.
 
 230 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 She turns away from her mountains ; 
 Ah, no, no ! she must not look. 
 
 " Courage, my little Marie ! " 
 
 Was it an echo, then ? 
 When he went off to the battles 
 He never came back again 
 
 Thus did he say, her lover, 
 
 Stroking her golden hair : 
 "Courage, my little Marie ! " 
 Hist ! a step on the stair. 
 
 Idling and dreaming, Marie ! 
 
 Quick to her work she flies ; 
 What if the madame find her 
 
 Staring with wistful eyes ? 
 
 All in the land of strangers 
 
 Pity is sweet and rare. 
 Dreary the life before her, 
 
 Never a soul to care. 
 
 So, tho' the sun be shining, 
 So, tho' the day be glad, 
 
 Sometimes she loses courage, 
 Sometimes Marie is sad.
 
 "THE BANJO." 
 
 Ting-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling, 
 
 Ting-a-ling-a-ling, 
 Ting-a-ling-a-ling, ling, 
 
 Ting-a-ling, ling. 
 
 Under the window, 
 
 Down in the street, 
 Little brown curly head, 
 
 Little bare feet ; 
 Pleadingly lifted, 
 
 Slumberous eyes, 
 Thrumming, fingering, 
 
 Nimble hand flies. 
 
 Ting-a-ling-d'-ling-a-ling i 
 
 Ting-a-ling-a-ling, 
 Ting-a-ling-a-ling, ling, 
 
 Ting-a-ling, ling. 
 
 Song of the Southland 
 
 Over the sea, 
 Sing, little Napolese, 
 
 Sing to me. 
 
 (231)
 
 232 STOBIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " Beautiful Southland 
 
 Over the sea, 
 Gayly and gladly 
 
 Sing I of thee ! 
 Ting-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling, 
 
 Ting-a-ling-a-ling, 
 So will I sing, 
 
 And so will I sing. 
 
 "Purple the mountains, 
 
 Purple the wines, 
 Sunny the hill-slopes 
 
 Clad with vines ; 
 Sunny the skies are, 
 
 Balmy the air, 
 Time floateth dreamily, 
 Dreamily there. 
 
 Tirra, la, la, la ! 
 Tirra, la, la, 
 Viva, viva, 
 Italia !" 
 
 Tattered cap held for 
 
 The pennies dropped down ; 
 Off he goes wandering 
 
 Over the town, 
 Thrumming, fingering 
 
 Ting-a-ling-a-ling, 
 Ting-a-ling-a-ling, ling, 
 
 Ting, ling, ling.
 
 WINSOME MAGGIE. 
 
 When winsome little Maggie 
 Comes dancing down the street, 
 
 The people smile upon her, 
 And pause, and kindly greet. 
 
 The white-haired parson gently 
 Lays hand upon her head, 
 
 The roguish doctor pinches 
 Her cheek so round and red. 
 
 The grim old judge's visage, 
 
 Forever in a frown, 
 Relaxes for an instant, 
 
 As, passing, he looks down. 
 
 The matrons stoop to kiss her, 
 The children, at their play, 
 
 Call out, as little Maggie 
 Goes tripping on her way. 
 
 Not e'en the dreaded gossip, 
 
 Who through her half -closed blind 
 
 Peeps forth, with little Maggie 
 Has any fault to find. 
 
 (233)
 
 234 STOKIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 When winsome little Maggie, 
 
 With basket on her arm, 
 In which her father's luncheon 
 
 Is wrapped so nice and warm- 
 When she enters the long workshop 
 
 And pauses at his side, 
 Quick down he lays his hammer 
 
 And turns in love and pride, 
 
 To look into her limpid eyes, 
 And stroke her sunny hair, 
 
 And jest and frolic with her 
 Forgetting toil and care 
 
 For the music of her laughter 
 And the mirth of her replies, 
 
 The while there's not a happier man, 
 Or richer, 'neath the skies. 
 
 Ah, well, it is a blessing 
 To have a heart so gay 
 
 That it keeps your feet a-dancing, 
 Your face alight alway, 
 
 And that, like winsome Maggie, 
 It seems, where'er you go, 
 
 As if the clouds had parted 
 To let a sunbeam thro'.
 
 A HAPPY PAIR. ' 
 
 " Contented wi' little and cantie wi' mair." 
 
 Yes, we live down in the orchard, 
 
 Under an apple tree ; 
 We've got a palace down there, 
 
 Little Padoy and me. 
 
 "We built it of sticks and timbers 
 
 The carpenters threw away. 
 We worked at it hard, I tell you ; 
 
 It took us a whole long day. 
 
 There's a door (without any hinges), 
 And a window (without any blind), 
 
 And a chimney (it's built of pebbles, 
 And it smokes but never mind). 
 
 And the roof (it's a little leaky), 
 
 We tried to make it look 
 With straw laid smooth like the houses 
 
 I found in my picture book. 
 
 There's a stairway made of corn-cobs, 
 And parlor and kitchen and hall, 
 
 And sofas and chairs and tables, 
 A-'icl n, lookirig-glass on tho wall ;
 
 236 STOEIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 And in the kitchen a cupboard 
 With real dishes on the shelves ; 
 
 Mother, she gave them to us, 
 But the rest we made ourselves. 
 
 Oh, just come along now, won't you ? 
 
 It's only a little way. 
 I want to show you our palace 
 
 How old am I, did you say ? 
 
 I'll be six years old next summer, 
 And my wife she's going on four; 
 
 There she is, waiting for me 
 There by our palace door. 
 
 Padoy, see, we've got company, 
 
 Now you must be polite 
 And say " Good morning " pretty, 
 
 And "Won't you sit down ?" That's right. 
 
 And here's the dinner ready 
 
 Biscuit and sauce and tea. 
 The tea it's water and sugar, 
 
 And as sweet as sweet can be; 
 
 And the biscuits Padoy, she makes 'em: 
 
 She mixes water and flour, 
 And sets it to rise in the sunshine 
 
 For almost a half an hour; 
 
 And then she kneads it and kneads it 
 lato tiny cakes of dough,
 
 * " 
 
 s 
 
 IX 
 
 \ 
 
 $
 
 A HAPPY PAIR 237 
 
 And it's fun to play ball with 'em, 
 Before they're baked, you know. 
 
 Say, now, won't you have some ? 
 
 Only one ! Why, look here. 
 There's lots more where these come from, 
 
 Ain't there, Padoy, my dear ? 
 
 You'd like to look at my garden ? 
 
 Oh, yes, it's right out there; 
 Somehow it doesn't do well, 
 
 In spite of all my care. 
 
 The wind it blew down my bean-vine, 
 
 My radish it never grew, 
 The bugs they eat up my cabbage, 
 
 And my turnip and cucumber too. 
 
 (Padoy, run wash the dishes). 
 
 I wouldn't have her know, 
 But I tore up the tomato 
 
 Trying my bran-new hoe. 
 
 Ever quarrel ? Why, no, I guess not. 
 
 Sometimes she won't play fair, 
 And once I got out of patience, 
 
 And bit her and pulled her hair. 
 
 But she cried so hard, I tell you 
 
 I was sorry as could be ; 
 And, well, I I I kissed her, 
 
 And we made up, you see,
 
 238 
 
 Candy ! Oh, my 1 Padoy, 
 Just look here, will you, then ? 
 
 Going ? Well, to-morrow 
 Come and see us again. 
 
 SIGS VEEGS OFER. 
 
 Von'd you puy someclings, laty ? 
 
 I haf not solt dis tay 
 Von shillin's wort'. I kess maype 
 
 De folks dey no forshteh. 
 
 I haf peen sigs veegs ofer, 
 I comes vrom Cherman land, 
 
 De lankuache of dis konetree 
 I no yed ondherstand. 
 
 "Pints, neetles, rippones, laces," 
 
 All de tings vod I sells, 
 "Pock't-hankchies, neckdies, shpenders," 
 
 I fer mooch careful dells. 
 
 " Vod prize ? " So den I dells dem. 
 Dey shmiles. Dey no forshteh. 
 Dis lankiiache ish der drooples; 
 I haf do durn avay.
 
 SIGS VEEGS OFEE. 
 
 So habbens I sells noding; 
 
 De dime koes py und py; 
 Und oop und town I trafels 
 
 Of hunker I shall tie. 
 
 Von'd you puy somedings, laty ? 
 
 Oh, tanks ! Der subber ? Goot ! 
 It ish not since last efening 
 
 I haf some leetle foot. 
 
 I bays you noding for it ? 
 
 Veil den, I sells you cheap ? 
 No ? Veil, I fer mooch tank you. 
 
 Goot day. Got sent you sheep ! * 
 
 THE CHILD ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. 
 
 Over the flowery meadow 
 
 She wanders with careless feet, 
 
 Chasing butterflies golden, 
 Gathering blossoms sweet. 
 
 She talks a-while to the roses, 
 She grasps at the sunbeams bright ; 
 
 To pieces she plucks the daisies, 
 And scatters their rays of white. 
 
 * God send you a ship ; i. e., May you prosper.
 
 240 STORIES AND BALLADS. 
 
 " Tra, la, la, la, la, la, la !" 
 
 She carols so sweet and clear, 
 Unheeding the 4;wo great armies, 
 Gathered in silence near 
 
 The two great hostile armies 
 
 Gathered in battle array, 
 Watching the tiny creature 
 
 Among the blossoms at play. 
 
 And never a sword is lifted, 
 
 And never an order heard, 
 As they list to the silvery accents, 
 
 Like the trill of a blithesome bird. 
 
 They listen, the grim old warriors, 
 
 To the voice so full of glee, 
 Singing, "Tra, la, la, la, la, 
 
 Tra, la, la, la, la, lee ! " 
 
 And over the rippling tresses 
 Do they watch the sunbeams glide, 
 
 Till many a lip that quivers, 
 The gray mustaches hide. 
 
 And many a heart beats faster, 
 
 As the thoughts of those thousands stray 
 
 To the little ones singing, playing, 
 In the homes so far away ; 
 
 Little ones singing, playing, 
 Happy and gay and free,
 
 THE CHILD ON THE BATTLE-FIELD. 
 
 Sunny-haired little children 
 They never again may see. 
 
 Thus do they wait in silence, 
 Till the child to her cottage-door 
 
 Creeps as the sunshine, often, 
 From skies that are clouded o'er. 
 
 Then as those clouds in anger 
 
 Meet with deafening din, 
 So the two hostile armies 
 
 The battle straightway begin. 
 
 That was hundreds of years since ; 
 
 Scarcely the records tel] 
 To which of those hostile armies 
 
 The glory of winning fell. 
 
 But though 'twas hundreds of years smoe. 
 
 There you may read, this day, 
 How a little child, unwitting. 
 
 Held fc&em an .hour at i>ay.
 
 PINKETY-WINKETY-WEE. 
 
 Pinkety-winkety-wee ! 
 
 Ten pink fingers has she, 
 
 Ten pink toes, 
 
 One pink nose, 
 
 And two eyes that can hardly see; 
 
 And they blink and blink, and they wink and wins, 
 
 So you can't tell whether they're blue or pink. 
 
 Pinkety-blinkety-winkety-wee ! 
 Not much hair on her head has she; 
 She has no teeth, and she cannot talk; 
 She isn't strong enough yet to walk; 
 She cannot even so much as creep; 
 Most of the time she is fast asleep > 
 Whenever you ask her how she feels, 
 She only doubles her fist and squeals. 
 The queerest bundle you ever did see 
 Is little Pinkety-winkety-wee. 
 
 (242)
 
 PUSS IN A QUANDARY. 
 
 The table is spread, my daughter dear, 
 
 Let us just climb up there's no one near 
 
 And help ourselves to the best that's here. 
 
 "Wouldn't you like a piece of trout ? 
 
 Ow ! but the bones should have been picked out. 
 
 Here's a savory dish of meat. 
 
 Ah, this omelet is a treat ! 
 
 Don't be dainty a feast so gay 
 
 Isn't granted us every day. 
 
 (Enter the master'' Out of that! 
 
 Scamper! off with you! s-s-s-scat ! ") 
 
 Oh, the wearisome life of a cat ! 
 
 Mew, mew, meou, ow ! 
 
 I think it's curious, anyhow. 
 
 Where people can come and go so free, 
 
 Why, and I wonder, shouldn't we ? 
 
 What's the reason these two-legged fry 
 
 Are any better than you and I ? 
 
 (243)
 
 LENA LAUGHED. 
 
 Ah, pretty Lena ! why is she weeping ? 
 What has befallen ? What is it creeping 
 
 All the way, all the way down her pink cheeks ? 
 One little, two little, three little tearies; 
 
 One little, two little, three little streaks ! 
 
 One little, two little, three little brothers 
 Out on a frolic, chasing each other 
 
 And ever and ever so many more ! 
 Quick, let us catch them poor little dearies ! 
 
 Here in this handkerchief, ere they fall o'er. 
 
 Now let us find them. Why, they have hidden ! 
 Perhaps they were fairies that came all unbidden, 
 
 And ran away, frightened, when Lena laughed out. 
 Ha, ha ! how she scared them ! but very queer is 
 
 The change that a laugh can alone bring about. 
 
 (244)
 
 'TIS THE APPLES. 
 
 Little kid, 
 Frisking kid, 
 Pretty as a fawn, 
 Kuns to me when I pass 
 Where he lies in the grass, 
 At the early dawn. 
 
 Little one, pretty pet, 
 You have not forgotten yet 
 How the other day I fed 
 You with apples, rosy -red, 
 
 By the garden wall, 
 "Tis for juicy apples sweet 
 You are kneeling at my feet, 
 'Tis the apples you love so 
 Apples, and not me, I know, 
 
 Oh, not me at all 1 
 
 (245)
 
 FOOLED, 
 
 After the long and merry day, 
 Little cousin, tired of play, 
 
 Has fallen asleep in the rocking-chair. 
 Soft, let me whisper in her ear 
 There are better places to rest, my dear ; 
 
 Come, let us go up-stair. 
 
 She doesn't waken. Now, eyes so bright, 
 Under a curtain, out of sight, 
 
 Cannot I get a glimpse of you ? 
 Creep, creep, creep, mouse, creep, 
 Cautiously up the dimpled cheek 
 
 Peek, peek-a-boo, boo ! 
 
 Not a glimpse ! Now, then, little girl, 
 I'll tickle your ear with this stray curl, 
 
 This curl of your tangled hair. 
 Now I'll count the dimples : One, two, three- 
 " Ha ! ha ! " you rogue, you were fooling me ! 
 
 Fooling me, I declare I 
 (246)
 
 A NEW TOY. 
 
 Sunshine dances on the floor ; 
 
 Baby reaches after ; 
 Golden toy, ne'er touched before, 
 
 Wakens smiles and laughter. 
 
 Mighty orb, so wondrous bright, 
 
 Human gaze defying, 
 The round earth with warmth and light 
 
 Lavishly supplying ; 
 
 Making green the forest wide, 
 
 Blue the ocean's billow, 
 And the rosy eventide 
 
 Meet to be thy pillow ; 
 
 Clothing vale and slope and plain 
 With rare blossom-treasure, . 
 
 Purpling grape and rip'ning grain 
 For the people's pleasure ; 
 
 Driving chill and gloom away, 
 Wheresoe'er they may be ; 
 
 Lo, thou bringest, god of day, 
 Playthings for a baby. 
 
 (247)
 
 CHARLEY ON HORSEBACK. 
 
 I had a little hobby-horte." 
 
 (248) 
 
 Bock away ! rock away 1 
 
 Here we go 
 All on a journey 
 
 Kee ! ki oh ! 
 
 Over the mountains, 
 
 Over the sea, 
 Bock away, rock away, 
 
 Here are we ! 
 
 Now we're in China, 
 Now we're in Spain, 
 
 Now we're in Texas, 
 Now we're in Maine. 
 
 Now we're in London, 
 Now we're in Bome 
 
 Here we are back again, 
 Safe at home ! 
 
 Look at us, look at us, 
 
 Tim and me ! 
 No greater travelers 
 
 Will you see.
 
 CRUEL. 249 
 
 Can't stop for questions, 
 
 Oh, no, no ! 
 Bock away, rock away, 
 
 Off we go ! 
 
 CEUEL! 
 
 She tried to scratch out both my eyes 
 
 (It is true !) 
 Tried to pull off both my ears, 
 
 My nose, too; 
 
 Scolded me I thought she said 
 She would leave upon my head 
 
 Not a solitary hair 
 
 Meant it, laughing didn't care ! 
 
 Well, it rather hurt, but I 
 Murmured not, nor made outcry; 
 Let her pull, and scratch, and scold ; 
 (She is only six months old).
 
 CLUCK, CLUCK! 
 
 Cluck, cluck ! come under my wings, 
 
 All you poor little shivering things ! 
 
 It's cloudy above and muddy below; 
 
 The rain pours down and the four winds blow. 
 
 Coo bad the weather's so damp and cold, 
 
 And you, poor chicks, but three days old ! 
 
 You haven't much chance, that I can see; 
 
 But cluck, cluck ! come hither to me. 
 
 Yellow, and Brownie, and Tan, and "White, 
 
 Blackie and Spot yes, six that's right. 
 
 Cluck, cluck ! hide under my wings, 
 
 And I'll keep you warm, you poor little things. 
 
 BOBBIE AND THE BEE 
 
 " Hark, the bee ivinds ite small but inelloio horn." 
 
 (250) 
 
 All roun' de flowers, you pwitty fly, 
 
 All roun' de flowers an' me, 
 You sing so loud ! Dess reason why 
 
 You's happy as tan be. 
 Bet I tan tatch you if I try. 
 
 Zere ! now I's dot you, see ! 
 Boo-hoo ! Do 'way, you udly fly 1 
 
 What for you bited me ?
 
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