 | CHAPTER XIV.
THE DAY IN FAIRY-LAND. Oldtown folks |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
THE DAY IN FAIRY-LAND.
OUR little travellers, meanwhile, had had a prosperous journey
along the rocky road between Needmore and Oldtown,
in which Sol had planted their feet. There was a great, roundorbed,
sober-eyed October moon in the sky, that made everything
as light as day; and the children were alive in every nerve with
the keen interest of their escape.
“We are going just as Hensel and Grettel did,” said the little
girl. “You are Hensel, and I am Grettel, and Miss Asphyxia
is the old witch. I wish only we could have burnt her up in her
old oven before we came away!”
“Now, Tina, you must n't wish such things really,” said the
boy, somewhat shocked at such very extreme measures. “You
see, what happens in stories would n't do really to happen.”
“O, but Harry, you don't know how I hate — how I h—ate—
Miss Sphyxy! I hate her — most as much as I love you!”
“But, Tina, mother always told us it was wicked to hate anybody.
We must love our enemies.”
“You don't love Old Crab Smith, do you?”
“No, I don't; but I try not to hate him,” said the boy. “I
won't think anything about him.”
“I can't help thinking,” said Tina; “and when I think, I am
so angry! I feel such a burning in here!” she said, striking her
little breast; “it 's just like fire!”
“Then don't think about her at all,” said the boy; “it is n't
pleasant to feel that way. Think about the whippoorwills singing
in the woods over there, — how plain they say it, don't they?
— and the frogs, all singing, with their little, round, yellow eyes
looking up out of the water; and the moon looking down on us
so pleasantly! she seems just like mother!”
“O Harry, I 'm so glad,” said the girl, suddenly throwing herself
again! Was n't it wicked to keep us apart, — we poor
children?”
“Yes, Tina, I am glad,” said the boy, with a steady, quiet,
inward sort of light in his eyes; “but, baby, we can't stop to say
so much, because we must walk fast and get way, way, way off
before daylight; and you know Miss Sphyxy always gets up
early, — don't she?”
“O dear, yes! She always poked me out of bed before it was
light, — hateful old thing! Let 's run as fast as we can, and
get away!”
And with that she sprang forward, with a brisk and onward
race, over the pebbly road, down a long hill, laughing as she went,
and catching now at a branch of sweetbrier that overhung the
road, and now at the tags of sweet-fern, both laden and hoary
with heavy autumnal dews, till finally, her little foot tripping
over a stone, she fell and grazed her arm sadly. Her brother
lifted her up, and wiped the tears from her great, soft eyes with
her blue check apron, and talked to her in that grandfatherly way
that older children take such delight in when they feel the care
of younger ones.
“Now, Tina, darling, you should n't run so wild. We 'd better
go pretty fast steadily, than run and fall down. But I 'll kiss
the place, as mother used to.”
“I don't mind it, Hensel, — I don't mind it,” she said, controlling
the quivering of her little resolute mouth. “That scratch
came for liberty; but this,” she said, showing a long welt on her
other arm, — “this was slavery. She struck me there with her
great ugly stick. O, I never can forgive her!”
“Don't let 's talk any more, baby; let 's hurry on. She never
shall get you again; I 'll fight for you till I die, first!”
“You 'd kill 'em all, would n't you? You would have knocked
her down, would n't you?” said Tina, kindling up with that
inconsiderate exultation in the powers of an elder brother which
belongs to childhood. “I knew you would get me away from
here, Harry, — I knew you would.”
“But now,” said Harry, “you just keep hold of my hand, and
all, because maybe they will harness up the wagon when daylight
comes, and come out to look for us.”
“Well, if it 's only Sol comes,” said the little girl, “I sha' n't
care; for he would only carry us on farther.”
“Ay, but you may be sure Miss Asphyxia would come herself.”
The suggestion seemed too probable, and the two little pairs
of heels seemed winged by it as they flew along, their long shadows
dancing before them on the moonlit road, like spiritual conductors.
They made such good headway that the hour which
we have already recorded, when Miss Asphyxia's slumbers were
broken, found the pair of tiny pilgrims five miles away on the
road to Oldtown.
“Now, Tina,” said the boy, as he stopped to watch the long
bars of crimson and gold that seemed to be drawing back and
opening in the eastern sky, where the sun was flaring upward an
expectant blaze of glory, “only look there! Is n't it so wonderful?
It 's worth being out here only to see it. There! there!
there! the sun is coming! Look! Only see that bright-red
maple, — it seems all on fire! — now that yellow chestnut, and
that old pine-tree! O, see, see those red leaves! They are like
the story papa used to tell of the trees that bore rubies and
emeralds. Are n't they beautiful?”
“Set me on the fence, so as I can see,” said Tina. “O Harry,
it 's beautiful! And to think that we can see it together!”
Just at this moment they caught the distant sound of wheels.
“Hurry, Tina! Let me lift you over the fence,” said the boy;
“they are coming!”
How the little hearts beat, as both children jumped down into a
thicket of sweet-fern, heavy and wet with morning dew! The lot
was one of those confused jungles which one often sees hedging
the course of rivers in New England. Groups of pine and hemlock
grew here and there, intermixed with low patches of swampy
land, which were waving with late wild-flowers and nodding
swamp-grasses. The children tore their way through golden-rods,
asters, and cat-tails to a little elevated spot where a great,
precisely the shelter they wanted; for the pines grew so thickly
around it as completely to screen it from sight from the road,
while it was open to the warm beams of the morning sun.
“Cuddle down here, Tina,” said Harry, in a whispering voice,
as if he feared the driver in the rattling farm-wagon might hear
them.
“O, what a nice little house the trees make here!” said Tina.
“We are as snug here and as warm as can be; and only see
what a nice white-and-green carpet there is all over the rock!”
The rock, to be sure, was all frothed over with a delicate white
foam of moss, which, later in the day, would have crackled and
broken in brittle powder under their footsteps, but which now,
saturated by the heavy night-dews, only bent under them, a soft,
elastic carpet.
Their fears were soon allayed when, peeping like scared
partridges from their cover, they saw a farm-wagon go rattling
by from the opposite direction to that in which Miss Asphyxia
lived.
“O, it 's nobody for us; it comes the other way,” said the boy.
It was, in fact, Primus King, going on his early way to preside
over the solemnities of pig-killing.
“Then, Hensel, we are free,” said the little girl; “nobody will
catch us now. They could no more find us in this lot than they
could find a little, little tiny pin in the hay-mow.”
“No, indeed, Tina; we are safe now,” said the boy.
“Why don't you call me Grettel? We will play be Hensel
and Grettel; and who knows what luck will come to us?”
“Well, Grettel then,” said the boy, obediently. “You sit
now, and spread out your frock in the sun to dry, while I get out
some breakfast for you. Old Aunty Smith has filled my basket
with all sorts of good things.”
“And nice old Sol, — he gave us his pie,” said Tina. “I love
Sol, though he is a funny-looking man. You ought to see Sol's
hand, it 's so big! And his feet, — why, one of his shoes would
make a good boat for me! But he 's a queer old dear, though,
and I love him.”
“What shall we eat first?” said the boy, — “the bread and
butter, or the cookies, or the doughnuts, or the pie?”
“Let 's try a little of all of them,” said young madam.
“You know, Tina,” said the boy, in a slow, considerate way,
“that we must take care of this, because we don't know when
we 'll get any more. There 's got to be a dinner and a supper
got out of this at any rate.”
“O, well, Hensel, you do just as you please with it, then; only
let 's begin with Sol's pie and some of that nice cheese, for I am
so hungry! And then, when we have had our breakfast, I mean
to lie down in the sun, and have a nap on this pretty white moss.
O Harry, how pretty this moss is! There are bright little red
things in it, as bright as mother's scarlet cloak. But, O Harry,
look, quick! don't say a word! There 's a squirrel! How
bright his little eyes are! Let 's give him some of our breakfast.”
Harry broke off a crumb of cake and threw it to the little
striped-backed stranger.
“Why, he 's gone like a wink,” said the girl. “Come back,
little fellow; we sha' n't hurt you.”
“O, hush, Tina, he 's coming! I see his bright eyes. He 's
watching that bit of cake.”
“There, he 's got it and is off!” said Tina, with a shriek of
delight. “See him race up that tree with it!”
“He 's going to take it home to his wife.”
“His wife!” said Tina, laughing so hard at Harry's wit that
she was obliged to lay down her pie. “Has he got a wife?”
“Why, of course he has,” said Harry, with superior wisdom.
“I 'm your wife, ain't I?” said Tina, contentedly.
“No. You 're my little sister, and I take care of you,” said
the boy. “But people can't have their sisters for wives; the
Bible says so.”
“Well, I can be just like your wife; and I 'll mend your clothes
and knit your stockings when I get bigger.”
To which practical view of matrimonial duties Harry gave a
grave assent.
Not a striped-backed squirrel, or a bobolink, or a cat-bird, in the
whole pasture-lot, had better spirits than our two little travellers.
birds were singing; and as for the future, it was with them as
with the birds. The boy, to be sure, had a share of forethought
and care, and deemed himself a grown man acting with
most serious responsibility for his light-headed little sister; but
even in him this was only a half-awakening from the dream-land
of childhood.
When they had finished their breakfast, he bethought him of
his morning prayers, and made Tina kneel down beside him
while he repeated psalm and hymn and prayer, in which she
joined with a very proper degree of attention. When he had
finished, she said, “Do you know, Hensel, I have n't said my
prayers a single once since I 've been at Miss Asphyxia's?”
“Why, Tina!”
“Well, you see, there was n't anybody to say them to, now
mother is gone; and you were not there.”
“But you say them to God, Tina.”
“O, he 's so far off, and I 'm so little, I can't say them to him.
I must say them to somebody I can see. Harry, where is mother
gone?”
“She is gone to heaven, Tina.”
“Where is heaven?”
“It 's up in the sky, Tina,” said the boy, looking up into the
deep, cloudless blue of an October sky, which, to say the truth,
is about as celestial a thing as a mortal child can look into;
and as he looked, his great blue eyes grew large and serious
with thoughts of his mother's last wonderful words.
“If it 's up in the sky, why did they dig down into the ground,
and put her in that hole?” said the little sceptic.
“It is her soul that went up. Her body is planted like a beautiful
flower. She will come up by and by; and we shall see her
again, if we are good children.”
Tina lay back on the white moss, with only a fringy bough of
white-pine between her and the deep, eternal blue, where the
thinnest films of white clouds were slowly sailing to and fro.
Her spiritual musings grew, to say the truth, rather confused.
She was now very tired with her night tramp; and the long
she was soon asleep.
The boy sat watching her awhile, feeling soothed by the calm,
soft sunshine, and listening to the thousand sweet lullaby-notes
which Nature is humming to herself, while about her great world-housework,
in a calm October morning. The locusts and katydids
grated a drowsy, continuous note to each other from every tree
and bush; and from a neighboring thicket a lively-minded cat-bird
was giving original variations and imitations of all sorts of
bird voices and warblings; while from behind the tangled thicket
which fringed its banks came the prattle of a hidden river,
whose bright brown waters were gossiping, in a pleasant, constant
chatter, with the many-colored stones on the bottom; and
when the light breezes wandered hither and thither, as your idle
breezes always will be doing, they made little tides and swishes
of sound among the pine-trees, like the rising and falling of
sunny waters on the sea-shore.
Altogether, it was not long before Harry's upright watch over
his sister subsided into a droop upon one elbow, and finally the
little curly head went suddenly down on to his sister's shoulder;
and then they were fast asleep, — as nice a little pair of babes in
the wood as ever the robins could cover up. They did not awake
till it was almost noon. The sun was shining warm and cloudless,
and every bit of dew had long been dried; and Tina, in
refreshed spirits, proposed that they should explore the wonders
of the pasture-lot, — especially that they should find out where
the river was whose waters they heard gurgling behind the leafy
wall of wild vines.
“We can leave our basket here in our little house, Hensel.
See, I set it in here, way, way in among the pine-trees; and
that 's my little green closet.”
So the children began picking their way through the thicket,
guided by the sound of the water.
“O Tina!” said the boy; “look there, over your head!”
The object pointed out was a bough of a wild grape-vine,
heavily laden with ripe purple grapes.
“O, wild grapes!” said Tina. “Harry, do get them!”
Harry soon pulled the bough down within reach, and the children
began helping themselves.
“I 'm going to take an apronful up to the tree, and put into
our closet,” said Tina; “and we shall have a nice store there.”
“But, Tina, we can't live there on the rock,” said the boy;
“we must walk on and get to Oldtown some time.”
“O, well, we have the whole long, long day for it,” said the
girl, “and we may as well have a good time now; so, when I 've
put up these grapes, we 'll see where the river is.”
A little scrambling and tearing through vines soon brought the
children down to the banks of a broad, rather shallow river,
whose waters were of that lustrous yellow-brown which makes
every stone gleam up from the bottom in mellow colors, like the
tints through the varnish of an old picture. The banks were a
rampart of shrubbery and trees hung with drapery of wild vines,
now in the brilliancy of autumnal coloring. It is not wonderful
that exclamations of delight and wonder burst from both
children. An old hemlock that hung slantwise over the water
opposite was garlanded and interwoven, through all its dusky
foliage, with wreaths and pendants of the Virginia creeper, now
burning in the brilliant carmine and scarlet hues of autumn.
Great, soft, powdery clumps of golden-rod projected their heads
from the closely interwoven thicket, and leaned lovingly over the
stream, while the royal purple of tall asters was displayed in
bending plumage at their side. Here and there, a swamp-maple
seemed all one crimson flame; while greener shrubbery and
trees, yet untouched by frosts, rose up around it, as if purposely
to give background and relief to so much color. The rippling
surface of the waters, as they dashed here and there over the
stones, gave back colored flashes from the red, yellow, crimson,
purple, and green of the banks; while ever and anon little
bright leaves came sailing down the stream, all moist and brilliant,
like so many floating gems. The children clapped their
hands, and began, with sticks, fishing them towards the shore.
“These are our little boats,” they said. So they were, — fairy
boats, coming from the land of nowhere, and going on to oblivion,
shining and fanciful, like the little ones that played with them.
“I declare,” said Tina, “I mean to take off my shoes and
stockings, and wade out to that little island where those pretty
white stones are. You go with me.”
“Well, Tina, wait till I can hold you.”
And soon both the little pairs of white feet were slipping and
spattering among the pebbles at the bottom. On the way,
Tina made many efforts to entrap the bright rings of sunlight on
the bottom, regardless of the logic with which Harry undertook
to prove to her that it was nothing but the light, and that she
could not catch it; and when they came to the little white gravelly
bank, they sat down and looked around them with great content.
“We 're on a desolate island, are n't we, Hensel?” said Tina.
“I like desolate islands,” she added, looking around her, with the
air of one who had had a wide experience of the article. “The
banks here are so high, and the bushes so thick, that Miss Asphyxia
could not find us if she were to try. We 'll make our
home here.”
“Well, I think, Tina, darling, that it won't do for us to stay
here very long,” said Harry. “We must try to get to some
place where I can find something to do, and some good, kind
woman to take care of you.”
“O Harry, what 's the use of thinking of that, — it 's so bright
and pleasant, and it 's so long since I 've had you to play with!
Do let 's have one good, pleasant day alone among the flowers!
See how beautiful everything is!” she added, “and it 's so warm
and quiet and still, and all the birds and squirrels and butterflies
are having such a good time. I don't want anything better than
to play about out in the woods with you.”
“But where shall we sleep nights, Tina?”
“O, it was so pleasant last night, and the moon shone so bright,
I would not be afraid to cuddle down under a bush with you,
Harry.”
“Ah, Tina! you don't know what may come. The moon don't
shine all night, and there may be cold and wind and rain, and
then where would we be? Come, darling, let 's go on; we can
walk in the fields by the river, and so get down to the place Sol
told us about.”
So at last the little fanciful body was persuaded to wade back
from her desolate island, and to set out once more on her pilgrimage.
But even an older head than hers might have been turned
by the delights of that glorious October day, and gone off into a
vague trance of bliss, in which the only good of life seemed to be
in luxurious lounging and dreamy enjoyment of the passing hour.
Nature in New England is, for the most part, a sharp, determined
matron, of the Miss Asphyxia school. She is shrewd, keen, relentless,
energetic. She runs through the seasons a merciless
express-train, on which you may jump if you can, at her hours,
but which knocks you down remorselessly if you come in her
way, and leaves you hopelessly behind if you are late. Only for
a few brief weeks in the autumn does this grim, belligerent female
condescend to be charming; but when she does set about it, the
veriest Circe of enchanted isles could not do it better. Airs
more dreamy, more hazy, more full of purple light and lustre,
never lay over Cyprus or Capri than those which each October
overshadow the granite rocks and prickly chestnuts of New England.
The trees seem to run no longer sap, but some strange
liquid glow; the colors of the flowers flame up, from the cold,
pallid delicacy of spring, into royal tints wrought of the very fire
of the sun and the hues of evening clouds. The humblest weed,
which we trod under our foot unnoticed in summer, changes with
the first frost into some colored marvel, and lifts itself up into a
study for a painter, — just as the touch of death or adversity often
strikes out in a rough nature traits of nobleness and delicacy before
wholly undreamed of.
The children travelled onward along the winding course of the
river, through a prairie-land of wild-flowers. The whole tribe
of asters — white, lilac, pale blue, and royal purple — were rolling
in perfect billows of blossoms around them, and the sprays
of golden-rod often rose above their heads, as they crackled their
way through the many-colored thickets. The children were both
endowed with an organization exquisitely susceptible to beauty,
and the flowers seemed to intoxicate them with their variety and
brilliancy. They kept gathering from right to left without any
other object than the possession of a newer and fairer spray, till
to select from the mass the choicest, which awhile after would be
again thrown by for newer and fairer treasures. Their motion
through the bushes often disturbed clouds of yellow butterflies,
which had been hanging on the fringes of the tall purple asters,
and which rose toying with each other, and fluttering in ethereal
dances against the blue sky, looking like whirls and eddies of
air-flowers. One of the most brilliant incidents in the many-colored
pictures of October days is given by these fluttering
caprices of the butterflies. Never in any other part of the season
are these airy tribes so many and so brilliant. There are, in particular,
whole armies of small, bright yellow ones, which seem
born for no other purpose than to make effective and brilliant
contrasts with those royal-purple tints of asters, and they hang
upon them as if drawn to them by some law of affinity in their
contrasting colors.
Tina was peculiarly enchanted with the fanciful fellowship of
these butterflies. They realized exactly her ideal of existence,
and she pointed them out to Harry as proof positive that her own
notion of living on sunshine and flowers was not a bad one. She
was quite sure that they could sleep out all night if the butterflies
could, and seemed not to doubt that they would fancy her as a
bedfellow.
Towards sundown, when the children were somewhat weary
of wandering, and had consumed most of the provisions in their
basket, they came suddenly on a little tent pitched in the field,
at the door of which sat an old Indian woman weaving baskets.
Two or three red-skinned children, of about the same age as our
wanderers, were tumbling and kicking about on the ground,
in high frolic, with about as many young puppies, who were
scratching, rolling, and biting, with their human companions, in
admirable spirits. There was a fire before the door, over which
a pot was swung from a frame of crossed sticks, the odor of which
steamed up, suggestive of good cheer.
The old Indian woman received the children with a broad,
hearty grin, while Harry inquired of her how far it was to Oldtown.
The old squaw gave it as her opinion, in very Indian
that he had best stay with her that night and go on to-morrow.
“There, Harry,” said Tina, “now you see just how it is. This
is a nice little house for us to sleep in, and oh! I see such pretty
baskets in it.”
The old woman drew out a stock of her wares, from which she
selected a small, gayly-painted one, which she gave to the children;
in short, it was very soon arranged that they were to stop
to supper and spend the night with her. The little Indians
gathered around them and surveyed them with grins of delight;
and the puppies, being in that state of ceaseless effervescence of
animal spirits which marks the indiscreet era of puppyhood, soon
had the whole little circle in a state of uproarious laughter.
By and by, the old woman poured the contents of the pot
into a wooden trough, and disclosed a smoking mess of the Indian
dish denominated succotash, — to wit, a soup of corn and
beans, with a generous allowance of salt pork. Offering a large,
clean clam-shell to each of the children, she invited them to help
themselves.
Whether it was the exhilarating effect of a whole day spent
on foot in the open air, or whether it was owing to the absolute
perfection of the cookery, we cannot pretend to say, but certain
it is that the children thought they had never tasted anything better;
and Tina's spirits became so very airy and effervescent, that
she laughed perpetually, — a state which set the young barbarians
to laughing for sympathy; and this caused all the puppies
to bark at once, which made more fun; so that, on the whole,
a jollier supper company could nowhere be found.
After sundown, when the whole party had sufficiently fatigued
themselves with play and laughing, the old woman spread a skin
inside the tent, where Tina lay down contentedly between Harry
and one of the puppies, which she insisted upon having as her
own particular bedfellow. Harry kneeled down to his prayers
outside the tent, which being observed by the Indian woman, she
clasped her hands, and seemed to listen with great devotion;
and when he had finished, she said, “Me praying Indian; me
much love Jesus.”
The words were said with a tender gleam over the rough, hard,
swarthy features; and the child felt comforted by them as he
nestled down to his repose.
“Harry,” said Tina, decisively, “let 's we live here. I like to
play with the puppies, and the old woman is good to us.”
“We 'll see, Tina,” said wise little Harry.
| CHAPTER XIV.
THE DAY IN FAIRY-LAND. Oldtown folks | |