Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

Lulu lifted her head. She knew in a moment that _this_ was real music. Enchanting as were her dreams by both night and day, no one so clear-headed as the little mistress. She had sat and listened too often for coming and going feet, for closing doors, to be mistaken as to the source of any sound. This midnight music came from “Pretty’s” room; and she who loved reed, and pipe, and horn, and string so well, knew that it was the rarest violin-music.

It was entrancingly sweet. Air after air entirely unknown to the little music lover floated out on the still midnight. Poor little Miss Redfern! She buried her face in her pillows and sobbed in an ecstasy of happiness. “Now I know what it is so pure, so high, that I see in my Pretty’s face. It is that which is in the faces of all the artists that come here. My Pretty is no servant. Papa said that she looked as if she could do all these things--papa felt she was an artist. Papa could not help bring her, I could not help keep her,--O, my own Pretty!”

By and by the music ceased; and, listening, Lulu heard the violin deposited in the box.

She looked bright as a bird when her maid came to lift her to the bath, next morning. “Ah, Mees Looloo, I wish you a lofely good morning.”

“It is both lovely and good, dear Pretty,” said the child-mistress, stooping to kiss the long artist fingers busy with her sleeve-buttons. “I understand these fingers now.”

“Haf you not always understood their mooch slow ways, Mees Looloo?”

“Mees Looloo” clasped the two strong, nervous hands close to her breast. “Pretty! I know what they were made for; they are the musician’s hands. I heard you last night. I heard a violin in your room. How could you have it here, Pretty, and not bring it out when I am often so tired and need to be soothed?”

“O, Mees Looloo, I haf not thought. I haf played when I could not haf sleep to mine eyes, and haf thought of Etalee.”

Then Lulu heard the simple story. It was the violin belonging to Felice’s father, and Felice had handled it from her babyhood. She had brought it to America and had carried it from place to place with her. Nobody had cared; nobody had questioned the poor young chambermaid.

But “Mees Looloo” cared. “Pretty” brought the violin as simply as if bidden to bring a flower or a book. It was old, dark, rich--mellow in its hues as in its tones.

“May papa come up?”

“I haf always lofed to please you, mees,” said “Pretty.” “But I haf nevaire learn moosic. I haf none other but vary old moosic.”

There were, indeed, some old, yellow sheets of foreign music lying in the bottom of the case; but Felice did not take them out. “I know in my heart this moosic--father’s lofely moosic.”

She lifted the instrument to her bosom. She laid her clear, dark cheek against it lovingly, in the unconscious fashion of the true lovers of the violin; her fingers, long, supple, dark, sounded the chords; the bow gleamed and glanced as it sought the strings; and, bending over it, “Pretty’s” young face paled and flushed gloriously, as the father’s “lofely moosic” stirred her two listeners to tears.

The child mistress talked to papa in a very excited manner as he bore her away on his shoulder to the breakfast-room. Papa listened, papa thought, and, finally, papa assented.

“I think so, dear. She is worth it! There are only you and I to spend the money, and why shall we not do as we like, birdie?”

So little lame Miss Redfern was to be a Patron of Music. That was almost as good as to be a musician.

“Pretty” could refuse nothing to her dear little mistress. In her loving simplicity she did as she was bidden, even to the trying on of one handsome dress after another when she was taken to the fine shops. And at night, after the hair-dresser was done with the soft curls of her brown hair, and she stood before the mirror in her lace frills and silk dress, she simply said in her soft, limited English, “You have made me mose lofely, Mees Looloo.”

In the evening, when the invited guests--bearded and spectacled men, and fine and gracious women--were gathered down in the gardens below, among the lighted trees and the fountains and the arbors, the tall, simple “Pretty” obeyed her mistress again without a question. Lifting her violin to her bosom, she came out upon the balcony, and played once more the old Italian music. With bared heads and silent lips the company of musicians stood to listen.

Soft bravos, fluttering handkerchiefs, showers of fresh flowers, greeted simple “Pretty.” They thought her some new star, and this her private _début_.

What was their surprise to hear it was the little Miss Redfern’s maid whom they had thus quietly been brought to see and pass judgment upon! But, gracefully, nay generously, they acknowledged her as thoroughly worth the musical education Mr. Redfern and his daughter were planning to bestow.

To simple “Pretty” herself, simple with all the honesty and unconsciousness of true genius, the great plan was not at all too strange, nor too great. If one had offered her beauty or pleasure in another shape, she might have drawn back from the gift--but not from music. It did not seem to surprise her that she was going back to the Old World, and not as a steerage passenger, but dressed in costly robes, and under the care of friends, to study with the great masters of music.

“I will come back, dear Mees Looloo, and sing to you and the kind papa lofelier than you can think, when I sall haf staid long. Some other day you sall haf to be proud of your ‘Pretty.’”

Yes, some day “Pretty” will come back to her little mistress, and to us, with the sweet old Italian violin.

DOLLY’S LAST NIGHT.

BY EMILY HUNTINGTON MILLER.

The clock in the warm, bright kitchen was striking nine; not nine in the morning, but nine in the evening, which is a very different thing, as the old clock seemed to know, for it counted off the chime with a soft, sleepy roll, as if bent upon making the least possible disturbance.

Dolly put the cookies into the deep tin box that had held thousands of such dainties in its day, set the lid a-tilt upon the edge, gave a glance of satisfaction at the great loaves peeping out from the white cloth that covered them, the row of pies on the shelf below, and the plump chickens trussed up sociably on the platter, and then came out from the pantry, and shut the door upon the savory smells. Dolly was not a beauty, but she had a clear, fresh face, and was full of health and vigor and content. She was a model housekeeper, too, as the old clock could have testified, and this was the first time it had been called upon to countenance such irregular doings as the turning of night into day. But this was the night before Thanksgiving, and when one is cook, chambermaid, housekeeper, and mistress of the manse, she certainly has a right to regulate her own days in spite of the almanac-man.

Yes, and nurse besides; for on the lounge lay Dolly’s mother, not exactly sick, but weak from a long fever that had left her ankles so swollen and painful that she could not walk a step without assistance. Bess and Johnny had been away through it all, but now their father had gone for them, and early in the morning they would reach home,--the pleasant prairie home, with its broad, boundless fields, from which they expected some day to reap a fortune.

The lounge was in the kitchen, for the Marshalls cared a great deal more for comfort than ceremony, and Dolly’s kitchen, with its clean yellow floor, bright rugs, white table, and window full of growing plants, was a famous place for comfort.

“I hope you are through at last,” said Mrs. Marshall, looking up sleepily at Dolly.

“All but the candy, and that’ll not take long,” said Dolly cheerily.

“For pity’s sake, do let the candy go; the children are just as well off without it.”

“Oh, but I promised Johnny I’d have some for him, and it wouldn’t seem like Thanksgiving without it. The nuts are all cracked, and I’ll sit here and pick out the goodies while the molasses boils,” and Dolly whisked out the clean iron skillet, and poured the molasses in so quickly her mother could only say: “You’ll kill yourself working so hard, and what good do you think that will do the children?”

“Choog! choog!” said the molasses in its hurry to get out of the jug, and Dolly smiled as she coaxed it to make less haste and more speed.

“I’m tough as a pine knot,” she said, merrily; “but if I were really going to die I should like to have the children say, ‘She always tried to help us have good times, and the very last night she was here she made us some candy.’”

There was a foolish little moisture in Dolly’s eyes as she dropped into the low-cushioned chair, the same old creaky chair in which her mother had rocked her when she was a baby, and in which she herself had rocked Bess and Johnny scores of times. She was very tired, now that she came to sit down and think about it, and her little speech wakened a sort of pathetic pity for herself. She even began to fancy what they would all do without her, but just at that point the molasses made a sudden rush for the top of the skillet, and put an end to her musing.

Mrs. Marshall roused up a little also.

“It seems so strange to have Thanksgiving come without a flake of snow! Joel says it is as dry as midsummer, too. I never feel easy about the stacks until there’s a good fall of snow.”

“Joel is very careful,” suggested Dolly, “and father plowed a good strip around the stacks before he went away.”

“Yes, I know. But what good would a few furrows do against a prairie fire such a time as this?”

“Then we’ll hope the Lord’ll not let a fire start in such a time as this,” and Dolly seized her boiling syrup at the precise moment of crispiness, poured it over the plump white kernels spread thickly in the shallow pans, and set the whole to cool in the back kitchen.

When everything was tidy, and Dolly was ready to help her mother to bed, the old clock ventured to remark, in the same soft purr as before, that it only lacked two hours to midnight; to which Dolly smilingly answered that Thanksgiving only came once a year.

“How the colts stamp,” said Dolly. “I wonder if Joel could have forgotten to water them before he went home.”

“Joel ought not to have gone home,” said her mother. “It isn’t right for two lone women to be left with no neighbors within a mile. Are you sure the fire is all right, Dolly? seems to me there’s a smoky smell in here.”

“It’s the molasses, I dropped a little on the stove; but I’ll go out and see that all is right after you are in bed, and then we shall both feel better.”

Dolly went without her lamp, and as she passed the hall window she caught sight of a dull red glow, down against the dark horizon. In another instant she stood outside, her rosy color all blanched at sight of the fire sweeping down the prairie on those swift, terrible wings of the west wind. For an instant she was dizzy and confused with terror at the thought of her utter helplessness, then, as if a voice had repeated it to her, she recalled the verse she had read that morning, “_What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee_,” and, with a silent prayer for help, she went back to her mother.

“The prairie is on fire,” she said, trying to speak quietly.

Her mother sprang from the bed, and sank down, almost fainting, from pain.

“O Dolly!” she gasped, “we shall die here all alone.”

“I’ll make a good fight, first,” said Dolly, bravely. “I must go and do what I can, and you must wait here and _pray_. Only perhaps you had better get your clothes on again, in case of the worst.”

Dolly threw some heavy shawls upon the bed, placed her mother’s clothes within reach, hugged her once, and rushed away. In two minutes more she had put on Joel’s boots, tied up her curly head in an old comforter, and buttoned herself into her father’s coat. She was ready to fight fire, and she knew just how to do it. But first the colts must be taken from the low thatched stable that would be sure to blaze at the first spark. Already they were growing restless with the strong smell of smoke, and that strange intuition of danger which horses seem to possess. Dolly had some difficulty in leading them out, and then she hardly knew what to do with them, for she knew well enough they would go scouring off when the fire came near. She was a quick-witted little woman, however, and she soon had the colts in the back kitchen, tied fast to the old carpet loom. Then she filled the tubs and pails with water, and set them along the line of the buildings, cut some heavy branches of hemlock, and brought out the horse-blankets and dipped them in water.

The house, behind its clump of evergreens, might possibly escape, but there seemed little chance for the low barn, the granary, and the immense stacks of hay, yet in them lay their hopes for a year, and Dolly determined not to give them up without a desperate struggle. She scarcely dared look at the fire, but she saw once how a brighter light leaped up as the flames caught a barn or a stack of hay in the distance. As rapidly as possible she broadened the circle about the line of buildings, lighting the thick grass with one hand, and dashing out the flame with the other, when it threatened to go beyond her control. She felt almost guilty as she saw the blaze she had kindled go sweeping away towards the east, carrying the same terror to others which was rapidly coming down upon her, but it was her only chance of escape, and there was not another house between them and the river. She worked on in desperation as the air grew thick with smoke, and at last she could hear the roar and crackle when the flames swept the great corn-field, fairly leaping along the rows of dry stalks. It was almost upon her, and she ran back within her burned circle, and waited for doom.

Her hands were blistered, her eye-lashes were burned off, but she did not know it. She only watched, with every nerve tense and throbbing, to see if the fire would leap the line. It died down a little in spots, crept sullenly along the edge, as if loth to go by, flamed up here and there at a bunch of tall weeds, then, with a sudden puff, the wind lodged a whirling handful of cinders at the foot of the great straw stack!

Dolly sprang at it like a tiger, tearing away the burning straw, and striking right and left with the wet blanket. Then a little blaze crept under the fence, and she beat the life out of it in a breath. Another whirl of cinders upon the roof of the stable, but they fell black and harmless. Then another blaze running along the edge of the shed, but the water was ready for it; and Dolly, with eyes everywhere, ran, and beat, and trampled, until at last the fire veered away to the south, and left the little homestead safe in the midst of a blackened waste.

Dolly walked back and forth, around the stacks and the buildings, whipping out the smallest sparks, and then turned towards the house in a stupor of exhaustion. She wanted to lie right down on the warm ground by the side of the straw pile, and go to sleep, but she had enough sense left to reach the house, and make her way to her mother’s room.

“We’re all right, mother,” she said in a husky voice, “the fire has gone by;” and dropping upon the bed, smoke, dirt, boots, and all, she sank into a heavy sleep. Her mother tried in vain to rouse her, so she dragged the shawls over her, and watched anxiously for morning. But as the gray light began to reveal Dolly’s face, she was terrified at its ghastly whiteness, intensified by the soot and smoke which begrimed it. She tried again to rouse her, but Dolly lay in a stupor, and she could only clasp her hands and pray for help. She crept painfully from the bed, and was trying to drag herself to the door, when Joel rode up on horseback, with his wife behind him. She was a stout, red-cheeked young woman, and, springing off without waiting for help, ran to the back kitchen, where there were sounds of some one stirring.

“Miss Dolly splittin’ kindlin’s, I’ll be bound! Joel’s jest that shiftless not to think on’t. My gracious Peter!” she exclaimed, as she suddenly opened the door, and found herself confronted by one of the colts.

She left Joel to settle matters with the colts, and made her way to Mrs. Marshall and Dolly, carrying the poor lady back to bed in her strong arms, as if she had been a baby.

“Don’t you worry about Dolly, ma’am,” she said, confidently, “she’ll sleep it off, and come out all right, and I’ll just take off my things and do for you. I can stop as well as not; our house was burned up, and we just managed to save ourselves, so you see I ain’t got a smitch o’ work to do for myself.”

“Your house burned! Oh, Sarah, how hard that is for you and Joel,” said Mrs. Marshall.

“Yes’m, it’s a kind of a pity, and I’d got the nicest kind of a chicken pie ready for Thanksgivin’. We never see the fire till it was jest ketchin’ holt of us, and then we got on the colt and raced it down the gully to Dickerman’s pond ahead of the fire. We just made a go of it, and set there till mornin’. Says I, ‘Joel, it’s Thanksgivin’ day; be ye right down thankful?’ And Joel he looked at me and says, kind o’ solemn like, ‘_Yes, I be!_’ And so be I, ’cause we might ’a been burned in our bed, leastways I might, if Dolly hadn’t been so considerin’ as to let Joel come home.”

Sarah had been all the time tugging at Dolly, pulling off boots and coat, and undoing her scorched hair. She bathed her face and hands, and lifted her upon the pillow, but Mrs. Marshall’s terror only increased at seeing Dolly remain perfectly passive, never opening her eyes, and allowing Sarah to lift her as if she were dead. Hour after hour she slept on, only when Sarah raised her on her vigorous arm, and fed her with chicken broth, forcing it patiently into the closed mouth, until at last a little color crept into the pallid face, and the sleep was not so death-like. But even at nine o’clock, when the travelers arrived, Dolly gave them a doubtful recognition. She smiled faintly at the children’s kisses, stared for an instant at her father’s anxious face, and then went on dozing and muttering. Bess stole in and out on tiptoe, the tears dropping down on her pet kitten, and Johnny blundered about with his mouth full of delicious candy his very heart dissolving with grief and gratitude.

Dolly talked about the candy, and Johnny was impressed with the idea that she wanted some, and actually made an attempt to administer a small chunk, but he was not very successful, and Dolly kept on muttering: “The very last night she was here she made them some candy; the very last night; the very last night; but they couldn’t find it; they never could find it; the fire came and burnt them all up; the very last night; the--very--last--night.”

If there had been a doctor at hand, Sarah would have given up her patient to a course of brain fever, with proper deference; but as there was none within twenty miles she was compelled to persevere with her sensible applications of water, friction, and chicken broth, and in a couple of days she had the satisfaction of seeing Dolly laugh in quite a natural fashion at Joel’s story of the gray colt, which was taken from the kitchen with one foot firmly bedded in a pan of molasses candy.

“’Twasn’t all stepped on,” said Johnny, “and I saved you a chunk. I’m awful glad you made it, ’cause nobody ’tended to Thanksgiving very much.”

“I’m glad I made it,” said Dolly, “for I should not have seen the fire in time if I had gone to bed earlier. I remember something foolish about its being my last night,” and Dolly smiled doubtfully at her mother, not feeling quite sure what she had said, and what she had only thought.

“It was not foolish at all, dear,” said her mother, kissing the scorched fingers. “Nothing better could be said of any life, than that it was a sacrifice for others.”

“Shet yer eyes, Dolly, and never mind about yer last days,” said Sarah, decidedly; “you won’t see ’em this fifty year, if things is managed anyway reasonable.”

NIB AND MEG.

BY ELLA FARMAN.

And who do you suppose rang at the Doll Doctor’s door one Saturday.

Two noticeable personages, I assure you.

Three or four lovely phaetons were drawn up before the house; the drawing-room was open; and pretty faces, set in brown, and black, and yellow hair, and crowned with flowery hats, were looking out until every one of Miss Chatty’s windows seemed like a painting thronged with cherubs; small ladies, gloved and parasolled, and draped _à la mode_, were coming and going up and down the front steps; and Miss Teresa Drew was just stepping from the beautiful family carriage, that had its coachman, and its footmen, and its crested panels, and her tall French maid was behind her with a doll and a doll’s maid in her arms--but all the gay show didn’t begin to attract the attention that was universally bestowed, the moment they appeared in sight, upon the two queer little beings who came across the street, unattended and on foot, right up to Miss Chatty’s gate.

But, you see, _they_ were gotten up in their very, very best. I am not a fashion writer, my dears, and I couldn’t begin to tell you, so that you would have a clear idea, how Miss Teresa Drew was dressed; but I must try to give you the _tout ensemble_ of these two new children. “_Tout ensemble_,” my Wide Awakes, is one of those French phrases that mean so much, and are so handy, but which take so many of our English words in the translation; a little miss of my acquaintance renders it as “the _all-over-ness_ of a person.” The costume of these children had a peculiar _all-over-ness_. Their shawls, a pair of ragged and worn broches, enveloped them to the throat and dragged after them; and the effect over short dresses and bare legs was striking; and the shawls, in both cases, were surmounted by old straw hats which looked, for all the world, like two much-battered toadstools.

Miss Chatty happened to see them coming up to the door, all her richly-dressed little people drawing aside to let them pass; and she dropped her order-book and made her way through her _à-la-mode_ cherubs, and answered the door-bell herself.

“Be you the Doll Doctor, mem?” asked the elder of the children.

Miss Chatty intimated that she was.

“They told us as wot you lived here, mem, and as how you could put the wust cases together.” Opening her shawl, she drew forth a bundle, and, dropping upon one knee, undid it deftly. She was self-possessed in spite of her bare feet; but Miss Chatty was much embarrassed. The children, evidently, were street Arabs, and she hesitated, from various reasons, to ask them in among her little girls; but neither had she the heart to dismiss them; besides, she was, withal, considerably curious and amused. The hands busy with the bundle were very hard, and very tanned; the face, all intent upon the knot of the string, was strangely quaint and mature,--indeed, the utter absence of childish timidity and embarrassment was perhaps the chief reason why Miss Chatty hesitated, with such a dear, funny, soft-hearted manner, in her treatment of these new patrons.

Finally the knot was untied. A couple of dolls’ heads were displayed, very much curtailed as to nose, badly rubbed as to their black china curls, and sadly crackled as to their cheeks, as cheeks will after long painting.

“There, mem, Nib and me, us found these in an ash bar’l one day,” said the girl. “But jest heads hain’t much to hug; and Nib and me’s got nither time nor patterns for bodies; and wen us heard as wot there was a Doll Doctor, us done ’thout a breckfus mornin’s, and saved up fer ter buy ther cloth an’ ther waddink. Ther cloth is ter cut out ther bodies, and ther waddink is ter stuff ’em--Nib an’ me don’t like sawdust--waddink won’t go ter run out ’f ther’s a rip. An’, mem, Nib an’ me, us hopes as they’ll be done a-Saturdy. An’ here, mem, is wot us hopes’ll make a dress for ’em both. An’ here, mem, is ther thread ter sew it. An’ this here, mem, in this little paper, is some adgink for ter trim ther things. An’ us is werry pertic’ler ’bout its bein’ a-Saturdy, mem, as Sundy gits ter be a-lonesum with nothink ter do. Hain’t Sundy a-lonesum, Nib?”

“You bet!” affirmed Nib.

All the cherubs, haloed with the pretty hair and crowned with the flowery hats, and Miss Chatty, too, would, doubtless, have been very much shocked had Nib’s voice not been like a little flute, and the eyes she lifted, like two great big violets, and the teeth she showed, beautifully white. But when lips and lids closed again, she was as homely as the other; and then everybody _was_ shocked at what they had heard, the cherubs looking at each other, and the Doll Doctor’s face becoming much suffused as she received the young rag-pickers’ spoils. But she could not send them away. She shuddered at the old calico. Still she respectfully took it.

“Us want’s ’em as tall as this, jest about,” continued Meg, showing Miss Chatty a strip of paper. “Us thinks that’s the purtiest size for a doll.”

Miss Chatty was scarce able to speak even now; for the audacity, the simplicity, and the perfect good faith of the rag-baby “order” was as paralyzing as it was funny. She was a dear, honest Christian, but she couldn’t think quite what to do with her new customers much more readily than would Sexton Brown had Nib and Meg gone into Grace Church on Sunday. It was well for Sexton Brown that Nib and Meg had never heard that God the Father was preached at Grace Church, or they might have gone in.

Meg, at last, seemed struck by the silence of the Doll Doctor. “Mem,” said she, hastily, “don’t you go fer ter be afeard us won’t pay. Us has got ther money saved up--hain’t us, Nib?”

“I’m not afraid, not at all,” said Miss Chatty. “And they will be done on Friday. Come for them on that day. I am always extremely busy on Saturday.”

At that Meg looked much pleased. “Mem, ’f you do do us a nice job, an’ so prompt-like, ther’s lots of girls us knows as’ll get you ter fix ther dolls. Us girls thet sells things hain’t got no time fer nothink, and us couldn’t go fer ter sew and cut out if us had!”

Evidently not. Nib and Meg, under the shawls, were picturesque with tatters.

“Us wants our dolls tidy and lovesome, mem,” she added, caressingly touching the white cotton in Miss Chatty’s hand, and feasting her eyes upon its whiteness perceptibly. Miss Chatty saw it; and she saw something else at the same moment,--direful gaps and rents about the childish waist betraying that there was sad lack of “whiteness” for little Meg’s own wear,--poor Meg! that wanted her dolly “tidy and lovesome,” feasting upon the one shred of wholesome white cloth,--Miss Chatty knew the little girl’s soul to be clean by that token; and if she had halted in her treatment before, she took the little ones right into her heart now, which was a much lovelier place than her parlor.

“Don’t you think, mem, as ther’s likely to be adgink for all ther underclothes, cos us’d get more ef ther wasn’t.”

Miss Chatty was sure there would be plenty; and Nib and Meg went down the steps and away, at their leisure. “My! wasn’t them thar swell girls!” said little Nib, all aloud. “But I didn’t care; did you, Meg? An’ I seed derlicious dolls in ther,--I’ll bet ourn’ll have flouncers, or sumthink.”

Miss Chatty, hearing, resolved there should, at least, be “sumthink.”

Her little ladies all were looking at her as she re-entered the drawing-room. They were ready to burst forth into a breeze of fun and ridicule, or to be very sorry,--just which way their dear Doll Doctor gave the cue. She laid the bundle on the shelf, the pink calico by itself in a bit of paper, and wrote down the order. “Poor little waifs,” she sighed. “Think of it, children, how hard they try to be like other folks, and how much they seem to wish for something to love!”

There was a little hush, until Teresa Drew spoke. “I never thought of it, but I wonder what street-children do do for dolls!”

“Madame ought not to have to touch objects from the barrel of the ashes; it is very mooch disgoosted,” said Teresa’s French maid. She stooped and whispered to her little mistress. The child directly took out her purse, and laid a shining half eagle on the table by Miss Chatty’s hand.

“Please buy them both a nice, well-dressed doll, with plenty of ’adgink’ on the clothes. Who would think they could care for lace! We must tell mamma that, Hortense.”

Miss Chatty kissed her kind little customer. All her little ladies were pleased if she shook hands when they came, and very happy indeed if she twined a curl over her finger, or re-tied a sash,--for she had the dearest and daintiest of mother-ways. “My dear,” she said, “I think the little girls would feel tenderest toward the very dollies they have worked so hard to get. But I should like to buy clothing for the children themselves with your gold piece.”

The idea roused a creditable little _furore_ of benevolence among the children. Every tiny pocket-book came open, and although there was no more gold, Miss Chatty soon became the treasurer of a respectable fund for the benefit of Meg and Nib, whom several now remembered to have seen as rag-pickers and match-girls.

Indeed, there was so much generous talk about Meg and Nib that when Miss Chatty went to bed she dreamed a very long and very nice dream.

In this dream all the pavements in the city were fringed with toadstools, and the stems were little girls, each with a doll in her arms, and they were all on their way to her house to be mended. When all had arrived, a tall, white angel came, and stood in the door and looked in. And she said, “Behold, I am she that weepeth over the woes of children. I sit upon a cloud over this city. To-night, on the evening air, I listened for the noise of crying and quarreling, and, instead, I heard laughter, and playing, and lullabies. The thanks of one that weeps are sweeter than all others. Take my blessing, O giver of dolls, because you have learned that a little girl, to be good, must have something to love.”

Then the children sang “bye-low-baby-bye” in soft tones; and after they were through singing, they sat and nodded deliciously,--children, dolls, and she, too; and all this while the Angel of the Children’s Woes sat in their midst on a canopied coach that had a coachman, and a footman, and a French maid, and rested from her tearful labors--indeed her eyes grew every moment of a most bright and smiling azure; and while she was resting, on a loom of silver she wove edging until there was a great plenty to have trimmed all the dolls in the world.

It was quite a pleasant dream, in fact; and Miss Chatty woke with her heart all soft, and young, and warm, and it staid so all day Sunday.

After breakfast, Monday morning, she put on her holland gloves and went out to dig around her roses. She desired the circle of dark loam about her trees to be exactly and truly round. So she found it necessary to do her own digging.

As she set her foot on the spade, a little voice she knew called from the bottom of the garden. “Please, Miss Chatty, were there a great many nice dolls brought Saturday?”

And another little voice continued, “May we go and see them?”

It was Sylvey Morgan and Teddy. They were looking over the broken paling of the garden fence, their little faces twinkling with smiles and sunshine.

“Yes, birdies. You may go up through the basement, and I will step over and see Mintie.”

The children flew to the gate and up to the house, for you must know that it was very nice, indeed, to go up to Miss Chatty’s parlors and look at the beautiful dolls all by themselves. They well knew they “mustn’t touch;” and Miss Chatty was well assured they wouldn’t.

She picked some clove pinks and went over to the house of the children. It was a small cottage in vines fronting a back street. She went around to the sitting-room, where, by the window, sat a young girl with a poor little pinched-up face. A cane, gayly painted, and adorned with a flowing ribbon bow, leaned against the window, and told the girl’s story.

The room was very plain only about this corner. This nook had a bird cage and a hanging basket of ivy in the window; Mintie’s chair, with its gay cushion, stood on a Persian mat; there was a little window garden growing on the ledge; and on the elbow stand was a globe with gold fish, while opposite hung some pretty water colors. Mintie’s hair was tied back with a rose-pink bow, and her wrapper was a marvelous web of roses and posies. Altogether the endeavor to surround poor Mintie Morgan with brightness and beauty was very evident.

But Mintie herself looked peevish, and as if never anything in the world had been done for her. It was plain she was no nice, ideal invalid, but a girl whom to take care of would be a great trial.

She did smile, however, as she took Miss Chatty’s clove pinks. “You always bring enough, and plenty of grass and leaves, so that there is a chance to try a bouquet. I believe you do it that I may fuss with them half the forenoon if I like.”

Miss Chatty colored a trifle at being detected. “Well, that is nothing against me, I hope, Mintie. How do you feel to-day?”

“O, good-for-nothing, and all tired out just to think it is Monday morning instead of Saturday night.”

“I do wish you had something pleasant to occupy yourself with,” said Miss Chatty, sympathetically, instead of whipping out the little sermon on contentment. She had always thought she wouldn’t thank anybody to preach contentment to her, had she been broken-backed and with no feet to speak of, like Mintie.

“Isn’t there anything you can do?”

“Of course there isn’t,” said Mintie. “I want something pretty if I have anything, work which will make me forget I am in this chair. I won’t sew the children’s clothes. Father and mother should contrive that I was amused. And if you felt so very bad for me, Miss Chatty, I guess you would have offered to let me dress some of them dolls before now!”

“So I might, I should think myself,” said Miss Chatty, startled into saying a very unwise thing; for, of course, a ten-dollar doll wasn’t to be put in careless fingers.

“But, of course,” continued Mintie, fretfully, “you don’t have more than you can do yourself.”

“No,” said Miss Chatty, much relieved, “I don’t. But, poor little Mintie, you ought to have something nice to do!”

“Well, you need all the money, and I shouldn’t like to work, even at anything pretty, unless I was paid. I don’t wish to talk about work at all unless that is understood. You needn’t ever bring anything here to do just to amuse me.” And Mintie looked,--only think of a young girl looking as ugly as pictures of misers that you have seen!

As for Miss Chatty, she blushed clear up to her eyes. “My dear child!” she exclaimed. “How could you think I should be unjust!”

And then she went and stood in the door. The dear little old maid was dreadfully ashamed, and a trifle indignant, too, over Mintie’s bad manners and selfishness. But after a moment she reflected that probably the poor girl had no pocket-money at all, and couldn’t get any either; and she recollected also that it had been said that physical deformity often produced spiritual crookedness and halting. She tried to think of some way to help her. She thought of offering Nib’s and Meg’s dolls to make and clothe; but no, Mintie wished to handle only beautiful things.

All at once her dream came up before her, as pleasant as in her sleep, and it seemed to turn inside out and reveal its meaning.

She went back and kissed Mintie. Then she went home and kissed Sylvey and Teddy and sent them away. After that she made herself ready, and went upon another eccentric little journey among her wealthy friends.

It is said that Miss Chatty talked a deal of beautiful and flowery nonsense at every house where she called, all about the influence upon poor children of a flower to watch, or a bird to tend, or a lovely doll to love. She told everybody that she was going to send a missionary in the shape of a pretty doll to every ragged and dirty child in the city.

They laughed at the idea of the doll-mission; but as she begged at most places for nothing more than “pieces,”--bits of silk and bright woolens, remnants of ribbons and laces, the natural leavings of dressmaking, of which there is always plenty at every house,--Miss Chatty did not render herself very obnoxious.

But at three or four houses there was far more weighty talk; and from them Miss Chatty took away considerable money. Then she went down upon Vesey Street, and one of her friends among the merchants gave her a roll of bleached muslin, and the same good man also gave her a card of edging in the name of his little daughter. She then went down farther still, to Bleecker Street, where a jolly young importer of cheap toys sold her a gross of china dolls at cost.

Tuesday, all day, she cut patterns of skirts, and polonaises, and basques, and fichus, and walking jackets, all as fanciful as possible, bearing in mind the temper of her seamstress.

On Wednesday she went over to Mintie, carrying the bundles and her own walnut cutting board.

And when Mintie had looked at the great army of curly-pated dolls, with their naked little kid bodies, every one of them wearing the same rosy smile, and had laid all the lustrous silky velvets to her cheek, and had sheened the silks over her knee, and had delighted with the laces and the iris ribbons, she did smile, the first sunny smile of her blighted life, I do believe; and she said she should be very, very happy, and that she should dress no two dolls alike; and she never mentioned her wages at all.

But after Miss Chatty had unfolded her plan, and told her how well she was to be paid, Mintie became cross again. She said after the dolls were done it was a shame for ragged children to have them, and they would have to be taken from her house to be distributed, for she couldn’t, and wouldn’t, bear the sight of such creatures!

But in what manner the Doll Mission was organized, and how the lovely missionaries did their work, and whether the Angel really stopped weeping, will make another long story; and it will be still more beautiful than this and the other.

THE LITTLE PARSNIP-MAN.

BY E. F.

One year Mrs. Dumpling was ill all the summer, and there was nobody much to tend the kitchen garden, except Dimple.

Dimple was extremely sturdy, but being shorter than the spade, he could not use the spade at all; and he was so very much shorter than a hoe, that the hoe kicked, and generally hit Dimple on the nose; and before summer was out he was so much shorter than the weeds, that when he went to pull them, the weeds felt quite at liberty to turn about and pull him; they’d hang back and pull, and pull, until they got Dimple all excited and puffing, and then they’d suddenly let go his little hands, and down would go Dimple on the ground, over on his back, pulled right off his little roots,--his little feet, I mean,--while the weeds would just swing, and nod, and shake with laughter, and then they would grow--oh, _how_ they would grow! A little rough pulling at one, if you don’t get pulled clear off your feet and out of your place, is so very good for anybody.

Dimple finally gave up the weeds, and tended the vegetables only. He cultivated them with a stick, scratching along the roots, and making the soil black and loose. One day he sat under a shady row of tall mustard-weeds, and scratched along a line of some feathery green stuff his mamma had sowed. He sat poking the dirt, and thinking what a pretty green plants turned as the dirt was stirred, when suddenly, poking away a big stone, he saw something white, and round, and wrinkled, just like a head,--an old man’s bald head!

“Why,” said Dimple, “who’s here?”

He dug a little, and he came to some sleepy old eyes, all shut, and wrinkled, and peevish.

“Why-ee!” said Dimple. “It _is_ somebody!”

He dug and dug, and he came to a nose,--an awful big nose.

“Why-ee!” said Dimple. “It’s a Roman nose. I fink it is a grandpa.”

He dug a little mite more, and there were some moustaches growing right out of the big nose. He pulled and pulled with his two forefingers, and loosened them up, and all at once they flopped out of the dirt; and they were two long waxed moustaches.

Dimple was so surprised he said nothing this time, but dug away, almost scared. Pretty soon he found a mouth, a large funny mouth, close up under the nose, and the mouth was dreadful live and quirky.

“Why-ee-ee!” said Dimple. “I fink it _is_ somebody, and he’s waking up!”

For now the eyes did seem to twinkle, and the little bare skull to wink and move its wrinkles up and down.

Dimple dug away again, and found a chin and some straggling beard.

“I fink what it is now,” said Dimple. “Mamma readed about him yes’day. He lives down in the mines. He’s a Kobold, and he wants to get out.”

It was so bad to be stuck fast in the dirt, Dimple dug now just as hard as he could. The little old man himself didn’t help at all to loosen up his two long, slim legs. Finally Dimple, with a mighty effort, and by shutting both eyes hard, pulled them out, and he tumbled over on his back, and the little old man tumbled over on _his_ back, and lay like one dead.

Then Dimple saw he had no arms. “Dee-me!” said he. “I be’eve he started to bring up some gold, and the other Kobolds ran after him and cut off his arms. Dee-me! I fink what if he has got up so far and beed-ed to deff!”

Dimple scampered in, and his face was so white, and his story so wild, that Mrs. Dumpling managed to walk up into the garden.

Dimple took her to the place; the little old man was there, sure enough. Mrs. Dumpling saw him herself, in a glimmering dazed kind of way, for just one moment,--his twinkling eyes, his bald skull, his Roman nose, his long moustaches, and his straggling beard.

Then she sat down on the grass and laughed.

She picked him up; and the moment she touched him there was an awful transformation. Even Dimple saw it was only a parsnip,--a pronged, ill-shaped, tough old parsnip.

But that night something happened which Dimple never forgot. The old Parsnip-Man came to his bed and spoke to him. But I regret to say that he used many large words which Dimple could not understand.

“Kind sir,” said he, “naturally we are a fine and shapely race,--we, and our cousins the Beets and the Carrots and the Salsify. If we are brought up, as every new generation ought to be, with tender surroundings, and kept out of the company of stones and clods and weeds, we have a dear promise that many of us shall be placed on the dinner-table when children eat, and be changed into rosy cheeks, and white arms, and handsome young bodies, and live a long, merry life above ground in the sunshine. But if we are neglected by those upon whom we are dependent, we are changed underground, and become horrid old fellows, with ugly faces; and when we are pulled up, we are carted away and fed to cattle.

“_Do you know what it must be to be fed to cattle?_” he roared.

And then, after a moment, he smiled mournfully. “A word to the wise,” he said. The low, pleading tone floated all about Dimple like a cool, green leaf. When he looked up to ask what the “Word” was, the Parsnip-Man had disappeared.

Dimple told his mamma in the morning. Mamma knew the “Word” very well. She said it was too bad, and she would have the parsnip-bed hoed that very day.

HOW DORR FOUGHT.

BY SALOME.

Little Dorr Eastman always wore his sword--in the daytime, I mean. He would have liked to wear it at night--indeed, he tried it once; but as the belt was indispensable, and that was exceedingly rasping and uncomfortable with a night-gown, and as he often rolled upon the sword itself, and the sword, being hard, hurt his soft, plump side, and his soft, plump limbs, he gave it up, regretfully, since it was Dorr’s belief that “real truly” soldiers always slept with their “arms” on. And Dorr “knew”--for was not his brother Dick a colonel, and his father a general, and his grandfather a general?

But, then, they had been at West Point, and got toughened. After he grew up and had been at West Point, and had undergone discipline, doubtless a belt would not be uncomfortable in bed, and a sword could be worn with a night-gown!

The fancy-store in the village where Dorr’s papa owned a summer mansion, drove a flourishing trade during the season in gilt papers, and mill-boards, and tinsels; for, once a week, at least, the young soldier fashioned new stripes and epaulets; one day being a sergeant, on the next a major; and then, for days together, commander-in-chief U. S. A., during which space mamma, and Trudie, and Soph addressed him as His Excellency. Every stick which he could hew into the shape of a horse’s head, became a gallant charger, until mamma’s hall was one long, vast stable; mamma blew a whistle for _reveillé_; and the embryo cadet thought nothing of turning out at five in the morning, and splashing into a cold tub, especially on picnic mornings. But Dorr said he was hardening for West Point and glorious campaigns.

His greatest anxiety was concerning these campaigns. “Mamma,” he said to her one day, “I fears there’s no use in me growing up!”

“Why, Your Excellency? It grieves me to hear that,” said mamma.

“’Cause everybody will be fighted out before that, mamma. Colonel Dick says they settle things now, and not fight.”

“Well, my little son, there will always be men who must wear swords, to make people afraid, so that they will think it is the safer way to settle without a war. My little Dorr shall be one of those men, and a great share of the time he will be home on furlough and stay with mamma. Won’t he like that?”

“No, he wouldn’t!” cried Dorr, stoutly, swelling up after the manner of colonels and generals. After a turn or two across the room, he came back to his mamma’s knee. “It’s likely, though, there’ll be Injuns. There always was Injuns in this land, Trudie says, and if they’s lasted s’long, it’s likely they’ll last s’long as I live; and Dick says there’ll be always war s’long as there’s Injuns!”

“O! my little blue-eyed Dorr,” said mamma, “wouldn’t you care to be scalped?”

“Why’d I care?” answered Dorr. “Wouldn’t my ‘feet be to the foe’?”

Mamma could not but laugh at her stern little man; and then she thought he had better go with the girls in the garden.

And there he was not a moment too soon. The sacred inclosure was already invaded by a ruthless hand--a fat, yellowish-black little hand, which was thrust through the paling, evidently after one of Soph’s treasures--the beautiful rose-pink dwarf dahlia.

Dorr saw it. “Soph! Soph! he’s breaking off your new Mex’can Lilliput dahlia!” and headlong went Sergeant Dorr toward the fence; but, half way there, he tripped in the tall asters, and crushed dozens of mamma’s choice autumn blooms as he fell.

Soph and Trudie both came running down the gravel. The boy behind the paling also ran, or would, had not the fat arm been thrust in too far; for, turning it in haste, it stuck fast, and now held him Sergeant Dorr’s prisoner.

His fall had made Sergeant Dorr very mad; and, picking himself up, he drove toward the paling in hot haste. “You flower-thief! them’s Soph’s flowers! You clear out of this, or I’ll shoot you with my sword!”

And the sword was brandished; and as Roly-poly couldn’t “clear out,” much as he wished, he staid, his hand still clasping the stalk of the “Mex’can Lilliput,” which he seemed unable to let go. Seeing that, down came Dorr’s wooden sword upon the arm! It was a sturdy stroke, too, so sturdy that the sword bounded and flew over on the other side, where an angry little bare black foot kicked it far out into the road, while the owner of the foot howled with pain.

“Dorr Eastman!” cried Trudie.

“You cruel, cruel boy!” cried Soph.

“He no bus’ness with your flowers, then!” said Dorr, crowding back an angry whimper.

“I’ve a mind to shake you!” said Trudie. But, instead, she went to the fence where the little bow-legged mulatto, still howling, was trying to get free.

“Little boy,” said she, “I’m sorry; but it is wrong to steal!”

“But we done got no flowers of our own,” said he; “and besides, I hain’t broke it. O, dear, where’s mammy? I hain’t gooine to stay hyer--don’t! don’t!” He howled louder than ever as Trudie took his arm.

“Hush up, simpleton! I’m only going to get you out.” With a firm grasp she turned his arm where he might draw it back. “There, I’ll let you out now, if you will stand still a moment after I let go.”

The boy sobbed mightily, but stood still. “Stand there till I tell you to go,” commanded Trudie. Then she broke one of her own flowers for him, and also went into her pocket. “Hold your hand, now,” said she.

Sobbing, and with hidden face, the small ragamuffin held up his hand, and Trudie poured into it a stream of pennies and candies. “The flower,” said she, “is because you like pretty things. The rest is to pay you for being struck.”

The tawny little hand dashed the “pay” to the ground. “I can’t be paid for being struck!” he cried, baring his tearful eyes, and gleaming with them at the “sergeant.”