Chapter II: Preface (2)

We had, at different times, a variety of pets, of whom Annie did not take much notice. Sometimes we had young partridges, caught by the drummer-boys in trap-cages. The children called them "Bob and Chloe," because the first notes of the male and female sound like those names. One day I brought home an opossum, with her blind bare little young clinging to the droll pouch where their mothers keep them. Sometimes we had pretty green lizards, their color darkening or deepening, like that of chameleons, in light or shade. But the only pets that took Baby's fancy were the kittens. They perfectly delighted her, from the first moment she saw them; they were the only things younger than herself that she had ever beheld, and the only things softer than themselves that her small hands had grasped. It was astonishing to see how much the kittens would endure from her. They could scarcely be touched by any one else without mewing; but when Annie seized one by the head and the other by the tail, and rubbed them violently together, they did not make a sound. I suppose that a baby's grasp is really soft, even if it seems ferocious, and so it gives less pain than one would think. At any rate, the little animals had the best of it very soon; for they entirely outstripped Annie in learning to walk, and they could soon scramble away beyond her reach, while she sat in a sort of dumb despair, unable to comprehend why anything so much smaller than herself should be so much nimbler. Meanwhile, the kittens would sit up and look at her with the most provoking indifference, just out of arm's length, until some of us would take pity on the young lady, and toss her furry playthings back to her again. "Little baby," she learned to call them; and these were the very first words she spoke.

Baby had evidently a natural turn for war, further cultivated by an intimate knowledge of drills and parades. The nearer she came to actual conflict the better she seemed to like it, peaceful as her own little ways might be. Twice, at least, while she was with us on picket, we had alarms from the Rebel troops, who would bring down cannon to the opposite side of the Ferry, about two miles beyond us, and throw shot and shell over upon our side. Then the officer at the Ferry would think that there was to be an attack made, and couriers would be sent, riding to and fro, and the men would all be called to arms in a hurry, and the ladies at head-quarters would all put on their best bonnets, and come down stairs, and the ambulance would be made ready to carry them to a place of safety before the expected fight. On such occasions Baby was in all her glory. She shouted with delight at being suddenly uncribbed and thrust into her little scarlet cloak, and brought down stairs, at an utterly unusual and improper hour, to a piazza with lights and people and horses and general excitement. She crowed and gurgled and made gestures with her little fists, and screamed out what seemed to be her advice on the military situation, as freely as if she had been a newspaper editor. Except that it was rather difficult to understand her precise directions, I do not know but the whole Rebel force might have been captured through her plans. And, at any rate, I should much rather obey her orders than those of some generals whom I have known; for she at least meant no harm, and would lead one into no mischief.

However, at last the danger, such as it was, would be all over, and the ladies would be induced to go peacefully to bed again; and Annie would retreat with them to her ignoble cradle, very much disappointed, and looking vainly back at the more martial scene below. The next morning she would seem to have forgotten all about it, and would spill her bread and milk by the fire as if nothing had happened.

I suppose we hardly knew, at the time, how large a part of the sunshine of our daily lives was contributed by dear little Annie. Yet, when I now look back on that pleasant Southern home, she seems as essential a part of it as the mocking-birds or the magnolias, and I cannot convince myself that, in returning to it, I should not find her there. But Annie went back, with the spring, to her Northern birthplace, and then passed away from this earth before her little feet had fairly learned to tread its paths; and when I meet her next it must be in some world where there is triumph without armies, and where innocence is trained in scenes of peace. I know, however, that her little life, short as it seemed, was a blessing to us all, giving a perpetual image of serenity and sweetness, recalling the lovely atmosphere of far-off homes, and holding us by unsuspected ties to whatsoever things were pure.

_T. W. Higginson._

PRUDY PARLIN.

Prudy Parlin and her sister Susy, three years older, lived in Portland, in the State of Maine.

Susy was more than six years old, and Prudy was between three and four. Susy could sew quite well for a girl of her age, and had a stint every day. Prudy always thought it very fine to do just as Susy did, so she teased her mother to let _her_ have some patchwork too, and Mrs. Parlin gave her a few calico pieces, just to keep her little fingers out of mischief.

But when the squares were basted together, she broke needles, pricked her fingers, and made a great fuss; sometimes crying, and wishing there were no such thing as patchwork.

One morning she sat in her rocking-chair, doing what she thought was a _stint_. She kept running to her mother with every stitch, saying, "Will that do?" Her mother was very busy, and said, "My little daughter must not come to me." So Prudy sat down near the door, and began to sew with all her might; but soon her little baby sister came along looking so cunning that Prudy dropped her needle and went to hugging her.

"O little sister," cried she, "I wouldn't have a horse come and eat you up for anything in the world!"

After this, of course, her mother had to get her another needle, and then thread it for her. She went to sewing again till she pricked her finger, and the sight of the wee drop of blood made her cry.

"O dear! I wish somebody would pity me!" But her mother was so busy frying doughnuts that she could not stop to talk much; and the next thing she saw of Prudy she was at the farther end of the room, while her patchwork lay on the spice-box.

"Prudy, Prudy, what are you up to now?"

"Up to the table," said Prudy. "O mother, I'm so sorry, but I've broke a crack in the pitcher!"

"What will mamma do with you? You haven't finished your stint: what made you get out of your chair?"

"O, I thought grandma might want me to get her _speckles_. I thought I would go and find Zip too. See, mamma, he's so tickled to see me he shakes all over--every bit of him!"

"Where's your patchwork?"

"I don't know. You've got a double name, haven't you, doggie? It's Zip Coon; but it isn't a _very_ double name,--is it, mother?"

When Mrs. Parlin had finished her doughnuts, she said, "Pussy, you can't keep still two minutes. Now, if you want to sew this patchwork for grandma's quilt, I'll tell you what I shall do. There's an empty hogshead in the back kitchen, and I'll lift you into that, and you can't climb out. I'll lift you out when your stint is done."

"O, what a funny little house!" said Prudy, when she was inside; and as she spoke her voice startled her,--it was so loud and hollow. "I'll talk some more," thought she, "it makes such a queer noise. 'Old Mrs. Hogshead, I thought I'd come and see you, and bring my work. I like your house, ma'am, only I should think you'd want some windows. I s'pose you know who I am, Mrs. Hogshead? My name is Prudy. My mother didn't put me in here because I was a naughty girl, for I haven't done nothing--nor nothing--nor nothing. Do you want to hear some singing?

"'O, come, come away,
From labor now reposin';
Let _busy Caro, wife of Barrow_,
Come, come away!'"

"Prudy, what's the matter?" said mamma, from the next room.

"Didn't you hear somebody singing?" said Prudy; "well, 't was me."

"O, I was afraid you were crying, my dear!"

"Then I'll stop," said the child. "Now, Mrs. Hogshead, you won't hear me singing any more,--it _mortifies_ my mother very much."

So Prudy made her fingers fly, and soon said, "Now, mamma, I've got it done, and I'm ready to be _took out_!"

Just then her father came into the house. "Prudy's in the hogshead," said Mrs. Parlin. "Won't you please lift her out, father? I've got baby in my arms."

Mr. Parlin peeped into the hogshead. "How in this world did you ever get in here, child?" said he. "I think I'll have to take you out with a pair of tongs."

Prudy laughed.

"Give me your hands," said papa. "Up she comes! Now, come sit on my knee," added he, when they had gone into the parlor, "and tell me how you climbed into that hogshead."

"Mother dropped me in, and I'm going to stay there till I make a bedquilt,--only I'm coming out to eat, you know."

Mr. Parlin laughed; but just then the dinner-bell rang, and when they went to the table, Prudy was soon so busy with her roasted chicken and custard pie that she forgot all about the patchwork.

Prudy soon tired of sewing, and her mother said, laughing, "If Grandma Read has to wait for somebody's little fingers before she gets a bedquilt, poor grandma will sleep very cold indeed."

The calico pieces went into the rag-bag, and that was the last of Prudy's patchwork.

One day the children wanted to go and play in the "new house," which was not quite done. Mrs. Parlin was almost afraid little Prudy might get hurt, for there were a great many loose boards and tools lying about, and the carpenters, who were at work on the house, had all gone away to see some soldiers. But at last she said they might go if Susy would be very careful of her little sister.

Susy meant to watch Prudy with great care, but after a while she got to thinking of something else. The little one wanted to play "catch," but Susy saw a great deal more sport in building block houses.

"Now I know ever so much more than you do," said Susy. "I used to wash dishes and scour knives when I was four years old, and that was the time I learned you to walk, Prudy; so you ought to play with me, and be goody."

"Then I will; but them blocks is too big, Susy. If I had _a axe_ I'd chop 'em: I'll go get _a axe_." Little Prudy trotted off, and Susy never looked up from her play, and did not notice that she was gone a long while.

By and by Mrs. Parlin thought she would go and see what the children were doing; so she put on her bonnet and went over to the "new house." Susy was still busy with her blocks, but she looked up at the sound of her mother's footsteps.

"Where is Prudy?" said Mrs. Parlin, glancing around.

"I'm 'most up to heaven," cried a little voice overhead.

They looked, and what did they see? Prudy herself standing on the highest beam of the house! She had climbed three ladders to get there. Her mother had heard her say the day before that "she didn't want to shut up her eyes and die, and be all deaded up,--she meant to have her hands and face clean, and go up to heaven on a ladder."

"O," thought the poor mother, "she is surely on the way to heaven, for she can never get down alive. My darling, my darling!"

Poor Susy's first thought was to call out to Prudy, but her mother gave her one warning glance, and that was enough: Susy neither spoke nor stirred.

Mrs. Parlin stood looking up at her,--stood as white and still as if she had been frozen! Her trembling lips moved a little, but it was in prayer; she knew that only God could save the precious one.

While she was begging him to tell her what to do, a sudden thought flashed across her mind. She dared not speak, lest the sound of her voice should startle the child; but she had a bunch of keys in her pocket, and she jingled the keys, holding them up as high as possible, that Prudy might see what they were.

When the little one heard the jingling, she looked down and smiled. "You goin' to let me have some cake and 'serves in the china-closet,--me and Susy?"

Mrs. Parlin smiled,--such a smile! It was a great deal sadder than tears, though Prudy did not know that,--she only knew that it meant "yes."

"O, then I'm coming right down, 'cause I like cake and 'serves. I won't go up to heaven till _bime-by_!"

Then she walked along the beam, and turned about to come down the ladders. Mrs. Parlin held her breath, and shut her eyes. She dared not look up, for she knew that if Prudy should take one false step, she must fall and be dashed in pieces!

But Prudy was not wise enough to fear anything. O no. She was only thinking very eagerly about crimson jellies and fruit-cake. She crept down the ladders without a thought of danger,--no more afraid than a fly that creeps down the window-pane.

The air was so still that the sound of every step was plainly heard, as her little feet went pat,--pat,--on the ladder rounds. God was taking care of her,--yes, at length the last round was reached,--she had got down,--she was safe!

"Thank God!" cried Mrs. Parlin, as she held little Prudy close to her heart; while Susy jumped for joy, exclaiming, "We've got her! we've got her! O, ain't you so happy, mamma?"

"O mamma, what you crying for?" said little Prudy, clinging about her neck. "Ain't I your little comfort?--there, now, you know what you _speaked_ about! You said you'd get some cake and verserves for me and Susy."

"_Sophie May._"

MRS. WALKER'S BETSEY.

It is now ten years since I spent a summer in the little village of Cliff Spring, as teacher in one of the public schools.

The village itself had no pretensions to beauty, natural or architectural; but all its surroundings were romantic and lovely. On one side was a winding river, bordered with beautiful willows; and on the other a lofty hill, thickly wooded. These woods, in spring and summer, were full of flowers and wild vines; and a clear, cold stream, that had its birth in a cavernous recess among the ledges, dashed over the rocks, and after many windings and plungings found its way to the river.

At the foot of the hill wound the railroad track, at some points nearly filling the space between the brook and the rocks, in others almost overhung by the latter. Some of the most delightful walks I ever knew were in this vicinity, and here the whole school would often come in the warm weather, for the Saturday's ramble.

It was on one of these summer rambles I first made the acquaintance of Mrs. Walker's Betsey. Not that her unenviable reputation had been concealed from my knowledge, by any means; but as she was not a member of my department, and was a very irregular attendant of any class, she had never yet come under my observation. I gathered that her parents had but lately come to live in Cliff Spring; that they were both ignorant and vicious; and that the girl was a sort of goblin sprite,--such a compound of mischief and malice as was never known before since the days of witchcraft. Was there an ugly profile drawn upon the anteroom wall, a green pumpkin found in the principal's hat, or an ink-bottle upset in the water-bucket? Mrs. Walker's Betsey was the first and constant object of suspicion. Did a teacher find a pair of tongs astride her chair, her shawl extra-bordered with burdocks, her gloves filled with some ill-scented weed, or her india-rubbers cunningly nailed to the floor? half a hundred juvenile tongues were ready to proclaim poor Betsey as the undoubted delinquent; and this in spite of the fact that very few of these misdemeanors were actually proved against her. But whether proved or not, she accepted their sponsorship all the same, and laughed at or defied her accusers, as her mood might be.

That the girl was a character in her way, shrewd and sensible, though wholly uncultured, I was well satisfied, from all I heard; that she was sly, intractable, and revengeful I believed, I am sorry to say, upon very insufficient evidence.

One warm afternoon in July, the sun, which at morning had been clouded, blazed out fiercely at the hour of dismissal. Shrinking from the prospect of an unsheltered walk, I looked around the shelves of the anteroom for my sunshade, but it was nowhere to be found. I did not recollect having it with me in the morning, and believed it had been left at the school-house over night. The girls of my class constituted themselves a committee of search and inquiry, but to no purpose. The article was not in the house or yard, and then my committee resolved themselves into a jury, and, without a dissenting voice, pronounced Mrs. Walker's Betsey guilty of cribbing my little, old-fashioned, but vastly useful sunshade. She had been seen loitering in the anteroom, and afterward running away in great haste. The charge seemed reasonable enough, but as I could not learn that Betsey had ever been caught in a theft, or convicted of one, I requested the girls to keep the matter quiet, for a few days at least: to which they unwillingly consented.

"Remember, Miss Burke," said Alice Way, as we parted at her father's gate, "you promised us a nice walk after tea, to the place in the wood where you found the beautiful phlox yesterday. We want you to guide us straight to the spot, please."

"Yes," added Mary Graham, "and we will take our Botanies in our baskets, and be prepared to analyze the flowers, you know."

My assent was not reluctantly given; and when the sun was low in the west we set forth, walking nearly the whole distance in the shade of the hill. We climbed the ridge, rested a few moments, and then started in search of the beautiful patch of Lichnidia--white, pink, and purple--that I had found the afternoon previous in taking a "short cut" over the hill to the house of a friend I was wont to visit.

"Stop, Miss Burke!" came in suppressed tones from half my little group, as, emerging from a thicket, we came in sight of a queer object perched upon a little mound, among dead stick and leaves. It was a diminutive child, who, judging from her face alone, might be ten or eleven years of age. A little brown, weird face it was, with keen eyes peering out from a stringy mass of hair, that straggled about distractedly from the confinement of an old comb.

"_There_," whispered Matty Holmes, "there's Mrs. Walker's Betsey, I do declare! She often goes home from school this way, which is shorter; and now she is playing truant. She'll get a whipping if her mother finds it out."

"Miss Burke, Miss Burke!" cried Alice, "see what she has in her hand!" I looked, and there, to be sure, was my lost parasol.

"There, now! Didn't we say so!" "Don't she look guilty?" "Weren't we right?" "Impudent thing!" were the whispered ejaculations of my vigilance committee; but in truth the girl's appearance was unconcerned and innocent enough. She sat there, swaying herself about, opening and shutting the wonderful "instrument," holding it between her eyes and the light to ascertain the quality of the silk, and sticking a pin in the handle to try if it were real ivory or mere painted wood.

"Let's dash in upon her and see her scamper," was the next benevolent suggestion whispered in my ear.

"No," I said. "I wish to speak to her alone, first. All of you stay here, out of sight, and I will return presently." They fell back, dissatisfied, and contented themselves with peeping and listening, while I advanced toward the forlorn child. She started a little as I approached, thrust the parasol behind her, and then pleasantly made room for me on the little hillock where she sat.

"Well, this _is_ a nice place for a lounge," said I, dropping down beside her; "just large enough for two, and softer than any _tête-à-tête_ in Mrs. Graham's parlor. Now I should like to know your name?"--for I thought it best to feign ignorance of her antecedents.

"Bets," was the ready reply.

"Betsey what?"

"Bets Walker, mother says, but I say Hamlin. That was father's name. 'T ain't no difference, though; it's Bets any way."

"Well, Betsey, what do you suppose made this little mound we are sitting upon?" I asked, merely to gain time to think how best to approach the other topic.

"I don' know," she answered, looking up at me keenly. "Maybe a rock got covered up and growed over, ever so far down. Maybe an Injun's buried there."

I told her I had seen larger mounds that contained Indian remains, but none so small as this.

"It might 'a' ben a baby, though," she returned, digging her brown toes among the leaves and winking her eyelids roguishly. "A papoose, you know; a real little Injun! I wish it had 'a' ben me, and I'd 'a' ben buried here; I'd 'a' liked it first-rate! Only I wouldn't 'a' wanted the girls should come and set over me. If I didn't want so bad to get to read the books father left, I'd never go to school another day." And her brow darkened again with evil passions.

"Did your own father leave you books?"

"Yes, real good ones; only they're old, and tore some. Mother couldn't sell 'em for nothin', so she lets me keep 'em. She sold everything else." Then suddenly changing her tone, she asked, slyly, "You hain't lost anything,--have you?"

"Yes," I answered; "I see you have my sunshade."

She held it up, laughing with boisterous triumph. "You left it hanging in that tree yonder," she said, pointing to a low-branching beech at a little distance. "It was kind o' careless, I think. S'posing it had rained!"

Astonishment kept me silent. How could I have forgotten, what I now so clearly recalled, my hanging the shade upon a tree, the previous afternoon, while I descended a ravine for flowers? I felt humiliated in the presence of the poor little wronged and neglected child.

For many days after this the girl did not come to school, nor did I once see her, though I thought of her daily with increasing interest.

During this time the principal of the school planned an excursion by railroad to a station ten miles distant, to be succeeded by a picnic on the lake shore. Great was the delight of the little ones, grown weary of their unvaried routine through the exhausting heats of July. Many were the councils called among the boys, many the enthusiastic discussions held among the girls, and seldom did they break up without leaving one or more subjects of controversy unsettled. But upon one point perfect harmony of opinion prevailed, and it was the only one against which I felt bound strongly to protest: this was the decision that Mrs. Walker's Betsey was quite unnecessary to the party, and consequently was to receive no notice.

"Why, Miss Burke! that _looking_ girl!" cried Amy Pease, as I remonstrated. "She hasn't a thing fit to wear,--if there were no other reason!" I reminded her that Betsey had a very decent basque, given her by the minister's wife, and that an old lawn skirt of mine could be tucked for her with very little trouble. "But she is such an awkward, uncouth creature! She would mortify us to death!" interposed Hattie Dale.

"She could carry no biscuits, nor cake, for she has no one to bake them for her," said another. "She would eat enormously, and make herself sick," objected little Nellie Day, a noted glutton.

In vain I combated these arguments, offering to take crackers and lemons enough for her share, and even urging the humanity of allowing her to make herself sick upon good things for once in her poverty-stricken life. Some other teachers joined me; but when the question was put to vote among the scholars, it received a hurried negative, as unanimous as it was noisy.

"And now I think of it," added Mattie Price, the principal's daughter, "the Walkers are out of the corporation, and so Betsey has no real right among us at all." This ended the matter.

All the night previous to the great excursion, I suffered severely from headache, which grew no better upon rising, and, as usual, increased in violence as the sun mounted higher upon its cloudless course. At half past nine, as the long train with its freight of smiling and expectant little ones moved from the depot, I was lying in a darkened room, with ice-bandages about my forehead, and my feverish pillow saturated with camphor and hartshorn.

The disappointment in itself was not much. I needed rest, and the utter stillness was very grateful to my overtasked nerves. Besides, the slight put upon poor Betsey had destroyed much of the pleasure of anticipation. I lay patiently until two o'clock, when, as I expected, the pain abated. At five, I was entirely free, and feeling much in need of a walk in the fresh air, which a slight shower had cooled and purified.

Choosing the shaded route, I walked out upon the hill, ascending by a gentle slope, and, book in hand, sat down under a tree, alternately reading and gazing upon the sweet rural picture that lay before me. Soon a pleasant languor crept over me. Dense wood and craggy hill, green valley and gushing brook, faded from sight and hearing, and I was asleep!

Probably half an hour elapsed before I opened my eyes and saw sitting beside me the same elfish little figure I had once before encountered in the wood. The same stringy hair, the same sunburned forehead and neck, the same tattered dress, the same wild, weird-looking eyes. In one hand she held my parasol, opened in a position to shade my face from a slanting sunbeam; with a small bush in the other she was protecting me from mosquitoes and other insect dangers.

"Well done, little Genius of the Wood; am I to be always indebted to you for finding what I lose!" I said, jumping up and shaking my dress free from leaves.

She laughed immoderately. "First you lose your shade in the woods, and now you've gone and lost yourself! I guess you'll have to keep me always," she giggled, trotting along beside me. "I was mighty scared when I see you lying there, and the sun creeping round through the trees, like a great red lion, going to spring at you and eat you up. I thought you'd gone to the ride."

I explained the cause of my detention, and saw that she looked rather pleased; for, as I soon drew from her, she had been bitterly disappointed in the affair, and felt her rejection very keenly. She had come to this spot now for the sole purpose of peeping from behind some rock or tree at the return of the merry company, which would be at six o'clock.

"I coaxed old Walker and his wife to let me have some green corn and cucumbers, and I put on my best spencer and went to the depot this morning, but none of 'em asked me to get in. Hal Price kicked my basket over, too! I s'pose I wasn't dressed fine enough. They all wore their Sunday things. I wish 't would rain and spile 'em. I do--_so_!"

I tried to console her, but she refused to listen, and went on with a fierce tirade, enumerating sundry disastrous events which she "wished would happen: she did _so_!" and giving vent to many very unchristian but very childlike denunciations.

All on a sudden she stopped, and we simultaneously raised our heads and listened. It was a deep, grinding, crashing sound, as of rocks sliding over and past each other; then a crackling, as of roots and branches twisted and wrenched from their places; then a jar, heavy and terrible, that reverberated through the forest, making the earth quake beneath our feet, and all the leafy branches tremble above us. We knew it instantly; there had been a heavy fall of rock not far from us; and with one exclamation, we started in the direction of the sound.

The place was reached in a moment; an enormous mass of rock and earth, in which many small trees were growing, had fallen directly upon the railroad track, and that too at a point where the stream wound nearest, and its bank made a steep descent upon the other side.

Dreadful as the spectacle was to me through apprehension for the coming train, I could only notice at that moment the wonderful change in Mrs. Walker's Betsey. She leaped about among the rocks, shrieking and wringing her hands; she grasped the uprooted trees, tugging wildly at them till the veins swelled purple in her forehead, and her flying hair looked as if every separate fibre writhed with horror. I had imagined before what the aspect of that strange little face might be in terror; now I saw it, and knew what a powerful nature lay hidden in that cramped, undeveloped form.

This lasted but a moment, however. Then came to both the soberer thought, What is to be done? It appeared that we were sole witnesses of the accident; and though the crash might have been heard at the village, who would think of a land slide? and upon the railroad!

Ten minutes must have elapsed before we could give the alarm, and in less time than that the cars were due. In that speechless breathless moment, before my duller ear perceived it, Betsey caught the sound of the approaching train, deadened as it was by the hill that lay between us. It was advancing at great speed; rushing on,--all that freight of joyous human life,--rushing on to certain destruction, into the very jaws of Death!

I was utterly paralyzed! Not so Mrs. Walker's Betsey.

"I'm agoin' to run and _yell_," she said, and was off upon the instant. Screaming at the top of her voice, keeping near the edge of the bank, where she could be soonest seen from the approaching train, plunging through the underbrush, leaping over rocks, she dashed on to meet the cars. "Fire! Fire! Murder! Stop thieves! Hollo the house! Thieves! Mad dogs! Get out of the way, Old Dan Tucker!" were only a few of the variations of her warning voice.

I followed as I could, seemingly in a sort of nightmare; wondering why I did not scream, yet incapable of making a sound; expecting every moment to fall upon the rocks, yet taking my steps with a sureness and rapidity that astonished me even then.

Betsey's next move was to run back to me and tear my shawl from my shoulders,--a light crape of a bright crimson color. Then bending down a small sapling by throwing her whole weight upon it, she spread the shawl upon its top and allowed it to rebound. She called me to shake the tree, which I did vigorously. It stood at an angle of the road, upon a bank which commanded a long view, and was a most appropriate place to erect a signal. Then leaping upon the track, she bounded on like a deer, shouting and gesticulating with redoubled energy now that the train appeared in sight.

It was soon evident that the engineer was neither blind nor deaf, for the brakes were speedily applied, and the engine was reversed. Still it dashed on at fearful velocity, and Betsey turned and ran back toward the obstructed place in an agony of excitement. Gradually the speed lessened, the wheels obeyed their checks, and when at last they came to a full stop the cow-catcher was within four feet of the rock.

Many, seeing the danger, had already leaped off; many more, terrified, and scarcely conscious of the real nature of the danger, crowded the platforms, and pushed off those before them. It was a scene of wildest confusion, in the midst of which my heart sent up only the quivering cry of joy, "Saved, saved!" Betsey had climbed half-way up the bank, and thrown herself exhausted upon the loose gravel, with her apron drawn over her head. I picked my way down to the train to assist the frightened children. Mr. Price, the principal, was handing out his own three children, and teachers and pupils followed in swarms.

"Now, Miss Burke," said the principal, in a voice that grew strangely tremulous as he looked at the frightful mass before him, "I want to hear who it was that gave the alarm, and saved us from this hideous fate. Was it you?" I believe I never felt a glow of truer pleasure than then, as I answered quickly: "I had nothing to do with saving you, Mr. Price. I take no credit in the matter. The person to whom your thanks are due sits on the bank yonder,--Mrs. Walker's Betsey!"

Every eye wandered toward the crouching figure, who, with head closely covered, appeared indifferent to everything. Mr. Price opened his portemonnaie. "Here are ten dollars," he said, "which I wish you to give the girl for myself and children. Tell her that, as a school, she will hear from us again."

I went to Betsey's side, put the money in her hand, and tried to make her uncover her face. But she resolutely refused to do more than peep through one of the rents in her apron, as the whole school slowly and singly defiled past her in the narrow space between the train and the bank. A more crestfallen multitude I never saw, and the eyes that ventured to look upon the prostrate figure as they passed within a few feet of her had shame and contrition in their glances. Once only she whispered, as a haughty-looking boy went past, "That's the boy that kicked over my basket. I wish I'd 'a' let him gone to smash! I do--_so_!"

The children climbed over the rocks and went to their homes sadder and wiser for their lesson, and in twenty-four hours the track was again free from all obstruction.

The principal, though a man but little inclined to look for the angel side of such unprepossessing humanity as Mrs. Walker's Betsey, had too strong a sense of justice, and too much gratitude for his children's spared lives, not to make a very affecting appeal to the assembled school on the day following. A vote to consider her a member of the school, and entitled to all its privileges, met with no opposition; and a card of thanks, drawn up in feeling terms, received the signature of every pupil and teacher. A purse was next made up for her by voluntary contributions, amounting to twenty dollars; and to this were added a new suit, a quantity of books, and a handsome red shawl, in which her brunette skin and nicely combed jetty hair appeared to great advantage.

Betsey bore her honors meekly, and, no longer feeling that she was regarded as an intruder, came regularly to school, learned rapidly, and in her neat dress and improved manners gradually became an attractive, as she certainly was a most intelligent child.

In less than a year her mother died, and her drunken step-father removed to the far West, leaving her as a domestic in a worthy and wealthy family in Cliff Spring.

The privileges of school were still granted her, and amid the surroundings of comfort and refinement the change from Mrs. Walker's Betsey to Lizzie Hamlin became still more apparent. She rapidly rose from one class to another, and is now employed in the very school, and teaches the youngest brothers and sisters of the very scholars who, ten years ago, voted her a "nuisance" and a plague.

There is truth in the old rhyme,--

"It isn't all in bringing up,
Let men say what they will;
Neglect may dim a silver cup,--
It will be silver still!"

_Helen B. Bostwick._

THE RAINBOW-PILGRIMAGE.

One summer afternoon, when I was about eight years of age, I was standing at an eastern window, looking at a beautiful rainbow that, bending from the sky, seemed to be losing itself in a thick, swampy wood about a quarter of a mile distant. We had just had a thunder-storm; but now the dark heavens had cleared up, a fresh breeze was blowing from the south, the rose-bushes by the window were dashing rain-drops against the panes, the robins were singing merrily from the cherry-trees, and all was brighter and pleasanter than ever. It happened that no one was in the room with me, then, but my brother Rufus, who was just recovering from a severe illness, and was sitting, propped up with pillows, in an easy-chair, looking out, with me, at the rainbow.

"See, brother," I said, "it drops right down among the cedars, where we go in the spring to find wintergreens!"

"Do you know, Gracie," said my brother, with a very serious face, "that, if you should go to the end of the rainbow, you would find there purses filled with money, and great pots of gold and silver?"

"Is it truly so?" I asked.

"Truly so," answered my brother, with a smile. Now, I was a simple-hearted child who believed everything that was told me, although I was again and again imposed upon; so, without another word, I darted out of the door and set forth toward the wood. My brother called after me as loudly as he was able, but I did not heed him. I cared nothing for the wet grass, which was sadly drabbling my clean frock; on and on I ran; I was so sure that I knew just where that rainbow ended. I remember how glad and proud I was in my thoughts, and what fine presents I promised to all my friends out of my great riches.

So thinking, and laying delightful plans, almost before I knew it I had reached the cedar-grove, and the end of the rainbow was not there! But I saw it shining down among the trees a little farther off; so on and on I struggled, through the thick bushes and over logs, till I came within the sound of a stream which ran through the swamp. Then I thought, "What if the rainbow should come down right into the middle of that deep, muddy brook!" Ah! but I was frightened for my heavy pots of gold and silver, and my purses of money. How should I ever find them there? and what a time I should have getting them out! I reached the bank of the stream, and "the end was not yet." But I could see it a little way off on the other side. I crossed the creek on a fallen tree, and still ran on, though my limbs seemed to give way, and my side ached with fatigue. The woods grew thicker and darker, the ground more wet and swampy, and I found, as many grown people had found before me, that there was rather hard travelling in a journey after riches. Suddenly I met in my way a large porcupine, who made himself still larger when he saw me, as a cross cat raises its back and makes tails at a dog. Fearing that he would shoot his sharp quills at me, and hit me all over, I ran from him as fast as my tired feet would carry me.

In my fright and hurry I forgot to keep my eye on the rainbow, as I had done before; and when, at last, I remembered and looked for it, it was nowhere in sight! It had quite faded away. When I saw that it was indeed gone, I burst into tears; for I had lost all my treasures, and had nothing to show for my pilgrimage but muddy feet and a wet and torn frock. So I set out for home.

But I soon found that my troubles had only begun; I could not find my way; I was lost. I could not tell which was east or west, north or south, but wandered about here and there, crying and calling, though I knew that no one could hear me.

All at once I heard voices shouting and hallooing; but, instead of being rejoiced at this, I was frightened, fearing that the Indians were upon me! I crawled under some bushes, by the side of a large log, and lay perfectly still. I was wet, cold, scared,--altogether very miserable indeed; yet, when the voices came near, I did not start up and show myself.

At last I heard my own name called; but I remembered that Indians were very cunning, and thought they might have found it out some way; so I did not answer. Then came a voice near me, that sounded like that of my eldest brother, who lived away from home, and whom I had not seen for many months; but I dared not believe the voice was his. Soon some one sprang up on to the log by which I lay, and stood there calling. I could not see his face; I could only see the tips of his toes, but by them I saw that he wore a nice pair of boots, and not moccasins. Yet I remembered that some Indians dressed like white folks. I knew a young chief who was quite a dandy; who not only

"Got him a coat and breeches,
And looked like a Christian man,"

but actually wore a fine ruffled shirt _outside of all_. So I still kept quiet, till I heard shouted over me a pet name, which this brother had given me. It was the funniest name in the world.

I knew that no Indian knew of the name, as it was a little family secret; so I sprang up, and caught my brother about the ankles. I hardly think that an Onondaga could have given a louder yell than he gave then; and he jumped so that he fell off the log down by my side. But nobody was hurt; and, after kissing me till he had kissed away all my tears, he hoisted me on to his shoulder, called my other brothers, who were hunting in different directions, and we all set out for home.

I had been gone nearly three hours, and had wandered a number of miles. My brother Joseph's coming and asking for me had first set them to inquiring and searching me out.

When I went into the room where my brother Rufus sat, he said, "Why, my poor little sister! I did not mean to send you off on such a wild-goose chase to the end of the rainbow. I thought you would know I was only quizzing you."

Then my eldest brother took me on his knee, and told me what the rainbow really was: that it was only painted air, and did not rest on the earth, so nobody could ever find the end; and that God had set it in the cloud to remind him and us of his promise never again to drown the world with a flood.

"O, I think _God's promise_ would be a beautiful name for the rainbow!" I said.

"Yes," replied my mother, "but it tells us something more than that he will not send great floods upon the earth,--it tells us of his beautiful love always bending over us from the skies. And I trust that when my little girl sets forth on a pilgrimage to find God's love, she will be led by the rainbow of his promise through all the dark places of this world to 'treasures laid up in heaven,' better, far better, than silver or gold."

_Grace Greenwood._

ON WHITE ISLAND.

I well remember my first sight of White Island, where we took up our abode on leaving the mainland. I was scarcely five years old; but from the upper windows of our dwelling in Portsmouth I had been shown the clustered masts of ships lying at the wharves along the Piscataqua River, faintly outlined against the sky, and, baby as I was, even then I was drawn with a vague longing seaward. How delightful was that long, first sail to the Isles of Shoals! How pleasant the unaccustomed sound of the incessant ripple against the boat-side, the sight of the wide water and limitless sky, the warmth of the broad sunshine that made us blink like young sandpipers as we sat in triumph, perched among the household goods with which the little craft was laden! It was at sunset that we were set ashore on that loneliest, lovely rock, where the lighthouse looked down on us like some tall, black-capped giant, and filled me with awe and wonder. At its base a few goats were grouped on the rock, standing out dark against the red sky as I looked up at them. The stars were beginning to twinkle; the wind blew cold, charged with the sea's sweetness; the sound of many waters half bewildered me. Some one began to light the lamps in the tower. Rich red and golden, they swung round in mid-air; everything was strange and fascinating and new. We entered the quaint little old stone cottage that was for six years our home. How curious it seemed, with its low, whitewashed ceiling, and deep window-seats, showing the great thickness of the walls made to withstand the breakers, with whose force we soon grew acquainted! A blissful home the little house became to the children who entered it that quiet evening and slept for the first time lulled by the murmur of the encircling sea. I do not think a happier triad ever existed than we were, living in that profound isolation. It takes so little to make a healthy child happy; and we never wearied of our few resources. True, the winters seemed as long as a whole year to our little minds, but they were pleasant, nevertheless. Into the deep window-seats we climbed, and with pennies (for which we had no other use) made round holes in the thick frost, breathing on them till they were warm, and peeped out at the bright, fierce, windy weather, watching the vessels scudding over the intensely dark blue sea, all feather-white where the short waves broke hissing in the cold, and the sea-fowl soaring aloft or tossing on the water; or, in calmer days, we saw how the stealthy Star-Islander paddled among the ledges, or lay for hours stretched on the wet sea-weed, watching for wild-fowl with his gun. Sometimes the round head of a seal moved about among the kelp covered rocks.

In the long, covered walk that bridged the gorge between the lighthouse and the house we played in stormy days, and every evening it was a fresh excitement to watch the lighting of the lamps, and think how far the lighthouse sent its rays, and how many hearts it gladdened with assurance of safety. As I grew older, I was allowed to kindle the lamps sometimes myself. That was indeed a pleasure. So little a creature as I might do that much for the great world! We waited for the spring with an eager longing; the advent of the growing grass, the birds and flowers and insect life, the soft skies and softer winds, the everlasting beauty of the thousand tender tints that clothed the world,--these things brought us unspeakable bliss. To the heart of Nature one must needs be drawn in such a life; and very soon I learned how richly she repays in deep refreshment the reverent love of her worshipper. With the first warm days we built our little mountains of wet gravel on the beach, and danced after the sandpipers at the edge of the foam, shouted to the gossiping kittiwakes that fluttered above, or watched the pranks of the burgomaster gull, or cried to the crying loons. The gannet's long white wings stretched overhead, perhaps, or the dusky shag made a sudden shadow in mid-air, or we startled on some lonely ledge the great blue heron that flew off, trailing legs and wings, stork-like, against the clouds. Or, in the sunshine on the bare rocks, we cut from the broad, brown leaves of the slippery, varnished kelps, grotesque shapes of man and bird and beast, that withered in the wind and blew away; or we fashioned rude boats from bits of driftwood, manned them with a weird crew of kelpies, and set them adrift on the great deep, to float we cared not whither.

We played with the empty limpet-shells; they were mottled gray and brown, like the song-sparrow's breast. We launched fleets of purple mussel shells on the still pools in the rocks, left by the tide,--pools that were like bits of fallen rainbow with the wealth of the sea, with tints of delicate sea-weed, crimson and green and ruddy brown and violet; where wandered the pearly eolis with rosy spines and fairy horns, and the large round sea-urchins, like a boss upon a shield, were fastened here and there on the rock at the bottom, putting out from their green, prickly spikes transparent tentacles to seek their invisible food. Rosy and lilac star-fish clung to the sides; in some dark nook perhaps a holothuria unfolded its perfect ferns, a lovely, warm buff color, delicate as frost-work; little forests of coralline moss grew up in stillness, gold-colored shells crept about, and now and then flashed the silver-darting fins of slender minnows. The dimmest recesses were haunts of sea-anemones that opened wide their starry flowers to the flowing tide, or drew themselves together, and hung in large, half-transparent drops, like clusters of some strange, amber-colored fruit, along the crevices as the water ebbed away. Sometimes we were cruel enough to capture a female lobster hiding in a deep cleft, with her millions of mottled eggs; or we laughed to see the hermit-crabs challenge each other, and come out and fight a deadly battle till the stronger overcame, and, turning the weaker topsy-turvy, possessed himself of his ampler cockle-shell, and scuttled off with it triumphant.

I remember in the spring kneeling on the ground to seek the first blades of grass that pricked through the soil, and bringing them into the house to study and wonder over. Better than a shop full of toys they were to me! Whence came their color? How did they draw their sweet, refreshing tint from the brown earth, or the limpid air, or the white light? Chemistry was not at hand to answer me, and all her wisdom would not have dispelled the wonder. Later the little scarlet pimpernel charmed me. It seemed more than a flower; it was like a human thing. I knew it by its homely name of poor-man's weather-glass. It was so much wiser than I, for when the sky was yet without a cloud, softly it clasped its little red petals together, folding its golden heart in safety from the shower that was sure to come! How could it know so much? Here is a question science cannot answer. The pimpernel grows everywhere about the islands, in every cleft and cranny where a suspicion of sustenance for its slender root can lodge; and it is one of the most exquisite of flowers, so rich in color, so quaint and dainty in its method of growth. I never knew its silent warning fail. I wondered much how every flower knew what to do and to be: why the morning-glory didn't forget sometimes, and bear a cluster of elder-bloom, or the elder hang out pennons of gold and purple like the iris, or the golden-rod suddenly blaze out a scarlet plume, the color of the pimpernel, was a mystery to my childish thought. And why did the sweet wild primrose wait till after sunset to unclose its pale yellow buds; why did it unlock its treasure of rich perfume to the night alone?