Chapter V: Part 5

“Did Mrs. Peg get well?” said Carl.

“Yes, long ago, and came down-stairs; but she was no improvement to her family, though her getting well was.”

“I am very sorry that story is done,” said Carl. “I want to hear some more about Roswald Halifax.”

“There is no more to tell,” said the shoe.

If Carl had been puzzled on Friday as to what story he would hear, he was yet more doubtful on Saturday. There lay the pine-cone, the hymn-book, and the stocking, on the old chest, and there sat Carl on the floor beside them,—sometimes pulling his fingers, and sometimes turning over the three remaining story-tellers, by way of helping him to make up his mind. As a last resort he was taking a meditative survey of the ends of his toes, when a little shrill voice from the chest startled him; and the pine-cone began without more ado.

THE STORY OF THE PINE CONE.

“‘Whew!’ said the north wind ‘Whew—r—r—r—r!’

“The fir trees heard him coming, and bowed their tall heads very gracefully, as if to tell the wind he could not do much with them. Only some of the little cones who had never blown about a great deal, felt frightened, and said the wind made their teeth chatter.

“‘Do you think we can stay on?’ asked one little cone; and the others would have said they didn’t know, but the wind gave the tree such another shake that their words were lost.

“‘Whew—r—r—r—r—r!’ said the wind.

“And again the fir trees bowed to let him pass, and swayed from side to side, and the great branches creaked and moaned and flung themselves about in a desperate kind of way; but the leaves played sweet music. It was their fashion whenever the wind blew.

“‘I think we shall have snow,’ said the tallest of the fir trees, looking over the heads of his companions.

“‘The sky is very clear,’ remarked a very small and inexperienced fir, who was so short he could not see much of anything.

“‘Yes,’ said the tall one, ‘so you think; but there is a great deal of sky besides that which is over our heads; and I can see the wind gathering handfuls of snow-clouds, which he will fling about us presently.’

“‘Yes,’—repeated the tall fir, with another graceful bend—‘I see them—they are coming.’

“The evergreens were all sorry to hear this, for nothing depressed them so much as snow; the rain they could generally shake off,—at least if it didn’t freeze too hard.

“As for the beeches, they said if that was the case they must put off their summer clothes directly. And one little beech, with a great effort, did succeed in shaking off half-a-dozen green leaves the next time the wind came that way.

“‘You need not hurry yourselves,’ said the tall fir—‘this is only an early storm—the winter will not come yet. I can still see the sun for a few minutes every day.’

“And that was true. For a few minutes the sun shewed himself above the horizon, and then after making a very small arch in the sky, down he went again. Then came the long afternoon of clear twilight; and the longer night, when the stars threw soft shadows like a young moon, and looked down to see their bright eyes in the deep fiord that lay at the foot of the fir trees. For this was on the north-west side of Norway; and the fir trees grew by one of the many inlets of the sea which run far away for miles into the country, and are called fiords.

“At the mouth the fiord was so narrow, and the overhanging trees so thick, that you might have coasted along, backwards and forwards, without perceiving the entrance; but to the country people it was well known, and unmistakeably marked out by one particular hemlock. Pushing your little boat through its green branches that dipped their fingers in the water, the fiord opened before you. The banks on each side were for the most part very steep, and often wooded to the water’s edge; while sometimes a pitch of bare rocks and a noisy cataract came rough and tumble down together, pouring disturbance into the smooth waters of the fiord.

“The fiord itself was too beautiful to be half described. It wound about from rock to rock, now swashing gently at the base of a high mountain, and then turning and spreading out, bay-like, where the shore was lower and the hills stood aloof; but everywhere overhung or nodded to by the great trees that looked as if they had known it since it was a mere rill,—the beeches and oaks and hemlocks, the tall pines like a ship’s mainmast; and most of all by that glory of those forests—the Norway Spruce fir. These watched the fiord everywhere,—in the regions of perfect solitude, and in the spots where a little clearing—a waft of blue smoke—the plaintive bleat of a goat mounting up in the world, or the hearty bow-wow of some hardy little dog, that was minding his own business and everybody’s else, told of a human habitation. Back of all—beyond cliff and wood and everything but the blue sky, towered up the peaks of perpetual snow—whose bare heads no man had ever seen.

“The fiord could not point heavenward after that fashion. But it reflected every bit of blue that came over it, and even when the skies were dark, and the snow-peaks hid their heads in a cloud, the fiord’s reflections were only grave and thoughtful—never gloomy.

“And the water was so clear!

“Sailing along in a little boat you could look down, down, for twenty fathoms, and see the smooth white sand, with little shells and star-fish; and then the bottom of the fiord rose suddenly up like a rocky mountain—over which the boat passed into a deep gulf on the other side. Then came a plain, and great forests, far down in the water; through which large fishes swam softly about; and then another mountain.

“In one of the narrowest parts of the fiord a little spot of cleared and cultivated land lay like a smile between it and the rough mountain. A mere point of land—a little valley wedged in among the heights that rose cliff beyond cliff towards the blue sky, fringed here and there with fir trees. The valley smiled none the less for all this roughness; and the little dwelling that there found a foothold seemed rather to court the protection of the cliffs, and to nestle under their shelter. The house was such as best suited the place.

“It was built of great pine logs, roughly squared and laid one upon another, with layers of moss between; while every crevice and crack was well stuffed with the same. The roof was of boards, covered with strips of birch bark; and over all a coating of earth two or three inches deep in which a fine crop of moss had taken root. The windows were large, and well glazed with coarse glass, while very white curtains hung within; and the door was painted in gay colours. Other little huts or houses stood about, forming a sort of square; and furnishing apartments for the pig, the cows, and their winter provision; while one more carefully built than the rest, held all manner of stores for the family. Raised upon posts, that the rats might not enter, the little alpebod kept safe the fish, the venison, the vegetables,—even the cloth, yarn, and sometimes clothing, of its humble owners.

“In sight of the house, a little way down the fiord, was a wild ravine; skirted on one side with a height of thick woods and rocks, while on the other the rocks stood alone—the sharp ridge rising up hundreds of feet to a ledge in some places not a foot wide. On either side the ridge the pitch was very sheer down, the one depth being filled with forest trees which led on to the wooded hill beyond; while the ravine on the other echoed to the voice of a waterfall, that pouring down over a pile of rocks perhaps two hundred feet high, foamed into the fiord; which then came eddying past the little hut, bearing the white flakes yet on its blue water.

“This was all one could see in the valley; but the tall fir trees looked at long ranges of wooded hills and rocky cliffs, with the fiord in its further windings, and beyond all the snow mountains.

“‘How cold you must be up there!’ said a little pine who was nearly as high as the tall fir’s lower branches. But the fir did not hear him, or perhaps did not take notice, for he was looking off at the fine prospect.

“‘Yes, it is cold up here,’ answered one of the fir cones,—‘and windy—and there’s a great deal of sameness about it. It’s just snow and rain, and wind and sunshine, and then snow again.’

“‘That’s what it is everywhere,’ said the wind as he swept by.

“‘I can’t help it,’—said the cone—‘I am tired of it. I want to travel, and see the world, and be of some use to society. What can one do in the top of a fir tree?’

“‘Why, what can a pine cone do anywhere?’ said some of the beech mast.

“‘The end of a pine cone’s existence is not to be eaten up, however,’ retorted the cone, sharply. ‘Neither am I a pine cone—though people will call me so. We firs hold our heads pretty high, I can tell you. But I will throw myself into the fiord some day, and go to sea. I have no doubt I could sail as well as a boat. It would be a fine thing to discover new islands, and take possession.’

“‘It would be very lonely,’ said a squirrel who was gathering beech mast.

“‘Royally so—’ said the pine cone. ‘There one would be king of all the trees.’

“‘The trees never had but one king, and that was a bramble,’ said a reed at the water’s edge who was well versed in history.

“‘What nonsense you are all talking!’ said the tall fir tree at length. ‘My top leaf is at this moment loaded with a snowflake—there is something sensible for you to think of.’

“At this moment the hut door opened and a woman came out.

“She wore a dark stuff petticoat made very short, with warm stockings and thick shoes; a yellow close-fitting bodice was girdled round her waist, and from under it came out a white kerchief and very full white sleeves. On her head she wore a high white cap.

“She looked first at the weather, and then turning towards the fall she watched or listened for a few minutes,—but water and rocks and firs were all that eye or ear could find out. Then going up to a line stretched between two of the fir-trees, she felt of some things that hung there to dry.”

“I s’pose that was her clothes line,” said Carl.

“No it wasn’t,” replied the cone,—“I might rather call it her _bread_ line. The things that hung there were great pieces of the inner bark of the pine tree, and looked very much like sheets of foolscap paper.”

“She didn’t make bread out of _them_, I guess,” said Carl.

“Yes she did,” replied the cone. “She made many a loaf of bark bread, by pounding the dry bark and mixing it with flour. It wasn’t particularly bad bread either. So people say—I never tasted it. But the country folks in Norway use it a great deal in hard seasons; and in those woods you often meet great pine trees that have been stripped of their bark, and that have dried and bleached in the weather till they look as if made of bone or marble.

“Well—the pieces of bark were dry, and Norrska began to take them off the line, for of course the snow would not improve them.”

“Who was Norrska?” interrupted Carl.

“The good woman that came out of the house. She took them down, and when they were all in a heap at the foot of the tree she began to carry them off to the alpebod—that is the little storehouse I spoke of. Then she went back into the hut for a minute, and when she came out again she had on a long-sleeved grey woollen jacket, and her luur in her hand.”

“What’s that?” said Carl.

“The luur is a long trumpet-shaped thing, made of hollow pieces of wood, or pieces of birch bark, tied together, and four or five feet long.”

“What was it for?” said Carl.

“Why you shall hear, if you will have patience,” said the cone. “Norrska raised the luur with one hand, and putting her mouth to the little end there came forth of the other sundry sweet and loud sounds, which echoed back and forth among the rocks till they died away, far up the mountain.”

“But I say,” said Carl, “what for?”

And he took hold of the pine cone and gave it a little pinch; but it was pretty sharp and he let go again.

The pine cone settled himself down on the chest, looking just as stiff as ever, and then went on with his story.

“Norrska sounded her luur twice or thrice, and presently the head and horns of a red cow shewed themselves high up among the rocks. Then came in sight her shoulders and fore feet, and her hind feet and tail; and the whole cow began to descend into the valley, while a dun cow’s head shewed itself in just the same place and fashion. But when Norrska had once seen that they were coming she ceased to watch them, and turned to the fall again.

“Its white foam looked whiter than ever in the gathering dusk. The grey clouds which were fast closing in overhead sent down a cold grey light, and the water before it broke no longer sparkled with the sun’s gay beams, but looked leaden and cold and deep. Then breasted with snow like the stormy petrel, it came flying down the precipice, to plunge into the deep fiord below. Its very voice seem changed; for the wind had died away, and the steady roar of the water was the only sound that broke the hush.

“There was no living creature in sight,—unless a little lemming peeped out of his hole, or an eagle soared across the sky, a mere speck upon its clouds. The cows had reached the valley and now stood quietly chewing the cud, having had the precaution to turn their backs to the wind; and now Norrska fetched the milkpails, and drove the red cow up to the milking-corner. And as she went, a snowflake fell on her forehead and another fell on top of her head; and the fir trees sighed, and bowed their heads to what they couldn’t help. Norrska sighed too.

“‘The winter is coming,’ she said, ‘and the snow; and truly the alpebod is but poorly filled. And Sneeflocken sick—and Laaft not home from Lofoden!—And Kline—what can keep him?’ And again she looked towards the fall.

“Kline was there now—she could see him plain enough, though he was but a little spot on that sharp ridge by the waterfall. The path itself was hard to find, as it wound about over and under and around the points of rock that met on the ledge. A stranger could scarce have climbed it but on hands and knees. Yet down there came Kline, sure-footed as a chamois—swiftly down; and singing praises of the rocks and streams and woods and snow as he came. But before he reached the foot of the hill Kline’s song stopped,—with the first look at the hut his thoughts had outrun his feet; and with a quieter step now he came down into the valley and up to where his mother sat milking the red cow. In one hand was a gun, in the other a string of golden plovers.

“‘How late, Kline!’ said Norrska.

“‘Yes mother—I tried to get shot at a reindeer. How is she?’

“Norrska silently pointed to a snowflake, which falling on her hand as she talked, had lain for a moment in all its pure beauty, but was now melting fast away. She watched till it disappeared, and then bending her head lower than ever, she resumed her work.

“Kline stood silent and thoughtful.

“‘May be not, mother,’ he said at length. ‘Her appetite has been better lately. See—I have these plovers for her to-night, and to-morrow I will have the deer. Think of my finding one in these parts!’

“But his mother said no more, and when the pails were full Kline took them from her and carried them into one of the little huts; and then returning he drove the cows into their little log dwelling, and taking up his birds and gun he walked slowly to the house. But the gayly-painted door was out of tune with his mood, and he turned and went round the back way.

“Leaving both gun and birds in the kitchen, Kline opened softly a door leading to one of the bedrooms and went in.

“The corners of this room and the sides of the windows were boarded, and the floor was strewed with fresh twigs of the juniper tree; which gave a sweet smell through the room, and made it look pretty too. Of the three windows two looked towards the fiord and one to the mountain and over the little clearing. The bed stood in a recess that had doors like one of your cupboards; but these now were open, and by the bedside stood a little white pine table, and upon it a wooden bowl and spoon—all prettily carved.”

“How were they carved?” said Carl.

“The bowl had carved upon it a spray of the wild bramble—twining round with its leaves and berries; and the handle of the spoon was like a wild duck’s head; and the feet of the table were like bear’s feet. Kline had done it all, for in Norway the men and boys carve a great deal, and very beautifully; and this bowl and spoon had been made for his little sister as he sat by her bedside, and Kline was very proud of them. The feathers on the duck’s head were beautifully done, and the bramble-berries looked pretty enough to eat. But Kline did not once look at them now, for something far prettier lay on the bed, and that was little Sneeflocken.”

“What did they call her that for?” said Carl.

“Because that is the name of the snowflakes. And she was just as pure and fresh as they, and had never had the least bit of colour in her cheeks from the time she was a baby. You could scarcely have distinguished them from the pillow, but for the fair hair that came between. She was covered with a quilt made of down; for Kline had risked his life almost in climbing to the high difficult places where the eider ducks build their nests, that he might get the soft down which the mother duck plucks from her own breast to keep her eggs and nestlings warm. And Norrska had made it into a quilt, the warmest thing that could be—while the weight of it was almost nothing.

“And beneath this soft quilt Sneeflocken lay, with her eyes closed, and singing softly to herself in the Norse language a hymn, which was something like this:—

‘O little child, lie still and sleep!—
Jesus is near,
Thou need’st not fear;—
No one need fear, whom God doth keep
By day or night.
Then lay thee down in slumber deep
Till morning light.

O little child, thou need’st not wake;—
Though bears should prowl,
And wolfish howl
And watch-dog’s bark the silence break.
Jesus is strong,—
And angels watch thee for his sake,
The whole night long.

O little child, lie still and rest,—
He sweetly sleeps
Whom Jesus keeps,—
And in the morning wake, so blest,
_His_ child to be.
Love every one, but love him best,—
He first loved thee.

O little child! when thou must die,
Fear nothing then,—
But say Amen
To God’s command; and quiet lie
In his kind hand,
Till he shall say, ‘Dear child, come, fly
To heaven’s bright land.’

Then with thy angel-wings quick grown,
Shalt thou ascend,
To meet thy Friend,—
Jesus the little child will own—
Safe, at his side!
And thou shalt live before the throne
Because he died!’

“Kline had to step back into the shadow of the door of the recess, to wipe the tears off his face, before he could venture to speak to his little sister. But she spoke first.

“‘Kline!’

“‘What, dear?’ said her brother, coming forward.

“‘I thought I heard your step,’ said Sneeflocken with a smile, and putting up her lips to kiss him. ‘Where have you been all day?’

“‘O—over the mountains—hunting,’ said Kline as cheerfully as he could. ‘I saw a great big reindeer, Flocken; and I mean to go and find him to-morrow. That would fill the alpebod finely, and you would like some venison—wouldn’t you dear?’

“‘O yes,’ said Flocken—with a little smile—‘but _I_ wouldn’t kill the deer for that.’

“‘I would,’ said Kline. ‘And it would help mother, too.’

“‘I should like to help mother, if I could,’ said Sneeflocken, putting her little thin hands together. ‘But Jesus will—I have asked him.’

“‘Why you help us all,’ said Kline; ‘just as the birds do when they sing, or the sun when it shines.’

“‘Maybe I shall by and by,’ said the child, smiling again in that grave, quiet way.

“‘Yes, by and by,—when you grow up to be a strong woman,’ said Kline.

“‘No, Kline,’ said Sneeflocken stroking his face—‘No, dear Kline—but by and by when I go to heaven. Maybe God will let me help take care of her then, and of you too, Kline. But you will not know that it is your little Sneeflocken.’

“And Kline could only sit and hold her in his arms, and say nothing.

“The snow fell all that night, and the winter set in early; and the waterfall scattered icicles upon every branch and rock in its way, and then built for itself an ice trough through which it poured down as noisily as ever. Then the sun never shewed his face but for a few minutes, and the rest of the day was twilight. And at night the moon shone splendidly, and the Northern Lights showed peaks of fire in the heavens,—or sometimes there were only the stars, burning clear in the high lift, and twinkling down in the dark fiord between the shadows of the fir trees. Now and then a bear would come out, and prowl about the little dwelling,—or a wolf gave a concert with the waterfall; but cows and pigs were safe shut up; and Foss, the little dog, shewed so much disapprobation at the concert, that often the wolves did not have one for nights together. Laaft, the father of Kline, got home from Lofoden with his stock of dried fish; and Kline himself had shot his reindeer; and both meat and fish were safely stowed in the alpebod. Didn’t the wolves know that! and didn’t their mouths water sometimes at night till they were fringed with icicles! But they never tried to break in, for the alpebod was strong; and little Foss knew as well as the wolves what good things were there; and scolded terribly if every body and every thing did not keep at a respectful distance. And besides all that, the wolves were afraid of the light that always shone from one room of the little cottage.

“‘This is a very quiet way of life—ours,’ said the fir trees nodding to each other.

“‘I’m very tired of it,’ said one of the cones. ‘It’s very cold up here, and really in the dark one cannot see to do much.’

“‘A fir glories in the frost and the cold and the snow,’ said the tall tree proudly. ‘We are not called upon to do anything but to make sweet music to the wind, and to keep it from blowing too fiercely upon the little hut, and to shew our fine heads against the sky. The snow-birds are warm in our arms during the long night, for _we_ have plenty of good clothes all the year round.’

“The beeches heard this speech, but were too frost-bound to make any answer.”

“What became of the discontented pine cone?” said Carl. “Did he throw himself into the fiord?”

“Yes,” said the cone,—“at least one night he tried to. But he fell on the shore instead—just dropped down at the foot of the fir tree; and there Kline found him one day, and picked him up and carried him into the house to show Flocken—he was such a large one.

“Every night through the winter was that light burning in the same room of the hut; and every day did Kline come out with his gun and spend what daylight there was in hunting. Sometimes he brought home a hare or a ptarmigan, or a partridge that he had snared, or a wild duck; while his father was cutting wood, or away in his boat to catch fish.

“‘I could get only one partridge to-day, dear Flocken,’ Kline would say upon his return home; ‘but maybe I shall find something better to-morrow.’

“‘O Kline,’ said his little sister, ‘how good you are to take so much trouble for me! But it’s a pity to kill the birds,—they can’t make me live, so we might let them.’

“‘Wasn’t that a good one you had yesterday?’ said Kline.

“‘O yes—’ said Flocken,—‘it was delicious. I think everything is good that you get for me and that mother cooks. But then you know I can’t eat much.’

“If you had seen her as she lay there—so thin, so white,—you might as soon have suspected a very snowflake of eating much.

“‘So it don’t make much difference,’ repeated little Sneeflocken, ‘what I have; only I do believe, Kline, that I like to have you take so much trouble, and go away up in the snow to get things for me.’ And she put her arms round his neck, and laying her white face against his coarse grey jacket, she stroked and caressed him until Kline thought his heart would burst beneath the weight of that little snowflake.

“‘When the spring comes,’ he said, ‘we will go up the mountain and look for flowers; and I will make you a wreath of violets and fringed pinks, little Flocken.’

“Sneeflocken stroked his face and smiled, and then she looked grave again.

“‘And forget-me-nots, Kline,’ she said softly,—‘you will want them too. The little blue forget-me-nots—they are so like the sky-colour. You will think about me, Kline, whenever you see them, for I shall know what the sky is made of then.—Where’s mother?’

“‘She is cooking your partridge,’ said Kline. ‘Don’t you smell it?’

“‘O yes,’ said the child smiling, ‘and I guess the wolves smell it too. How loud they howl!’

“‘You are not afraid of them?’ said her brother tenderly.

“‘No—’ said Sneeflocken with a strange look of weakness and trust upon her little face. ‘No—I am not afraid of them, for the Good Shepherd is very strong. I should be, if it wasn’t for that. How kind he is, Kline, to think about such poor little children as we are! And it’s kind of him to take me away, too, for I’m not very strong—I don’t think I could ever be of much use.’

“‘You are of too much use, my little Sneeflocken,’ said Kline, sadly, ‘because we shouldn’t know what to do without you.’

“‘Why you will have me then,’ said the child looking up in his face. ‘Just as you have the flowers now, Kline. And you can think about me, and say that some day you will go up and up to find me.’

“‘Up to find you!’ said Laaft, who with Norrska had just entered the room. ‘Are you going to play hide-and-seek with Kline upon the mountains, my little dear?’

“But Norrska asked no such questions, for she knew what Sneeflocken meant well enough; but she brought the roast partridge to the bedside, on a little wooden platter that had a row of pine cones carved all round the edge; and sitting down on the bed she watched the child eat her scanty supper when Kline had lifted her up and wrapped an old cloak about her.

“Little Foss had followed them in, and now he sat wagging his tail and beating the floor with it, just because he felt uncomfortable and didn’t know what to do with himself—not at all because he smelt the partridge. For he knew perfectly well that Sneeflocken was sick; and when she had finished her supper, and called ‘Foss! Foss!’—the little dog ran to the bed, and, standing as high as he could on his hind legs thrust his cold nose into her hand, and whined and whimpered with joy and sorrow. Then in a tumult of excitement, he dashed out of the house to bark at the wolves again.

“They watched her so, by day and by night, through the long winter; but before the first spring days came, the little snowflake had melted away and sunk down into the brown earth.

“They made her grave within the little clearing, just between the house windows and the mountain; where the fir tree shadows could just touch it sometimes, but where the sunlight came as well. And within the little white railing that enclosed the grave they placed an upright slab of wood, upon which Kline had carved these words as Norrska desired him:—

“‘SAY UNTO HER,—IS IT WELL WITH THEE? IS IT WELL WITH THY HUSBAND? IS IT WELL WITH THE CHILD? AND SHE ANSWERED, IT IS WELL.’

“The grass grew green and fresh there, and the little blue forget-me-nots that Kline had planted about the grave soon covered it with their flowers. And sometimes when Kline stood there leaning over the paling, he almost fancied that it was as she said,—that God had sent her to take care of them; and that it was not the soft spring wind which stroked his face, but the hand of his little Sneeflocken.

“He thanked God that she was safe in the arms of the Good Shepherd, and for the hope that when his time came to go, he should find her in heaven.”

“Were you that discontented pine cone?” said Carl, when he had sat for some time thinking over the story.

“Yes,” said the cone, “and I was carried into the house as I told you. And then because Sneeflocken had once held me in her little hand, Kline said he would keep me always.”

“But I say!” said Carl, knitting his brows and looking very eager; “how did you get _here_?”

“Because other people were as foolish as I was, and didn’t know when they were well off,” said the cone. “For Kline was your mother’s grandfather; and when he died, and she left her home to follow the fortunes of John Krinken, she brought the old pine cone along; to remember the tall fir trees that waved above the old hut in Norway, and to remind her of little Foss, and Kline, and Sneeflocken.”

THE STORY OF THE HYMN BOOK.

“‘Clary! Clary!—wake up! you’ll be late. See how late it’s getting.’

“‘Well mother—but I’m so tired! What’s the good of living so, mother?’

“‘One must live somehow, child—till one’s time comes to die.’

“Clary did not say, but she thought, as she raised herself slowly from the hard little straw bed, that it did not matter how soon that time came for her. Work! work!—living to work and working to live. Working hard, too, and for what a pittance of life! Was it _living_ to sleep half as much as she wanted, and then to get up in the cold grey dawn of a winter’s morning, get three or four dirty children out of bed and into such clothes as they had; and then after as much breakfast as she had had sleep, to take that long cold walk in her old straw bonnet and thin cotton shawl to the printing-office,—there to stand all day supplying the busy iron fingers of the press? How thin and blue her own were!

“Poor Clary!—In truth she did not know what it was to _live_, in the real sense of the word—her mind looked back to no happier time than the present; for though she could well remember being a dirty little child like her brothers and sisters, with nothing to do but play or quarrel as she felt inclined, yet she by no means wished the time back again. The death of her father, and the consequent absence of his bottle and his wild fits of intoxication, had left the family in a peaceful state compared with those days; and since Clary had been at the printing-office she had learned to love the sight of decently-dressed people—had begun to take more pains to look nice herself; and above all, had begun to feel that she would like to be happy and well-dressed and respectable, if she only knew how. But they were very, very poor, and there were a cluster of little mouths to fill,—as clamorous and wide open as a nest of young swallows,—and never saying ‘enough.’ So though she kept her face cleaner and her hair smoother, and, when she could get them sewed hooks and eyes on her dress,—the march of improvement rested there; and her face was as hopeless, her eye as dull, as ever. For nobody had ever taught Clary about that ‘one thing needful’ which can make up for the want of all others. She had never been to church, she had never read the Bible—and indeed had none to read. She thought that nothing but money could make them happy,—she thought nobody could want anything but money; and was really not much surprised that people were so loath to part with it. They must be that, she thought, or the poor press-tenders could not be so very far removed from the heads of the concern, in comfortable appearance.

“There were many of the women indeed that spent more upon their dress than she did. A tawdry silk jacket worked all day at her right hand, and a pair of earrings dangled all day before her; while her own dress was but the coarsest calico; but Clary had somehow begun to wish for neatness and comfort,—of course finery was forgotten.

“Never had she been much inclined to envy anybody, till one day the head printer brought his two little children to the office; and Clary’s heart beat quick time to her sorrowful thoughts all the hours after. O to see those children at home with clean faces, and smooth hair, and whole frocks and trousers! And now there were rags and dirt and tangled locks, and no time to mend matters; and small stock of soap and combs and needles to mend with. Clary went straight to bed when she got home that night; and it was on the next morning that she awoke with the question,

“‘Mother, what’s the use of living so?’

“But as her mother had said, she must live somehow; and getting wearily out of bed, hastily too, for it was indeed late, Clary easily found her way into such clothes as she had; and then, having with some difficulty fastened the children into theirs, she seated them at the table where her mother had by this time placed the breakfast; and herself stood by, drinking a cup of the miserable coffee and tying on her bonnet at the same time.

“‘Going to wash to-day, mother?’

“‘Yes.’

“‘Then I’ll take some bread and not try to come home for dinner.’

“This was the ordinary course of things. Clary at the printing-press, and her mother doing days’ work for people well off in the world; while the younger children were locked in or locked out, as the case might be.

“It was a foggy December morning,—not very cold, but with a drizzling mist that was more chilling than snow; and by the time Clary reached the office she felt as moody and uncomfortable as the weather. It was warm enough in the office, but not very cheering she thought; though some of the men looked as if they enjoyed life sufficiently well, as with sleeves rolled up they whistled softly over their work, keeping time with their heads if the tune were a particularly lively one.

“Clary put her bonnet and shawl in their place, and went to the press she always tended. It was motionless now, and a man was just putting in a new set of plates. Clary hardly noticed what he was doing—it mattered so little to her what words were printed on those great sheets of paper that she handled every day; though she could read, and very well; but stood listlessly.

“‘What’s the matter, Clary?’ said the man. ‘You look dumpish this morning. I’ve fixed you a new piece of work here that’ll be good for that—they say poetry’s firstrate for the spirits.’

“Something good for her! She knew the man spoke jestingly, and yet as he walked off Clary thought she would look and see what it was that he was talking about. She had seen type enough to be able to spell it out backwards, and bending over the plates she read at the corner next her,—

‘_O how happy_’—

“And then the machine was suddenly put in motion; and not faster could she supply the sheets than the press drew them in, printed them, and tossed them out in a nice pile at one end.

“Clary could not stop for one instant. But she had something to think about. Again and again she repeated those three words to herself, and wondered of whom they spoke, and what could be the rest of the sentence. She could guess,—it must mean the people who were rich, and had plenty of clothes, and plenty to eat, and time to sleep and to walk about in the sunshine. The people who bought the meats that she saw hanging up in the butchers’ shops, which she hardly knew by name and much less by taste,—the beautiful ladies that she sometimes saw in Broadway when she happened to get through work a little earlier than usual—wrapped up in furs and velvets and looking as if they wouldn’t know calico when they saw it,—the children that she had seen looking out of carriage windows with little white lap-dogs; the curling ears on the head of the dog and the curling feathers on the head of the child seeming to Clary almost equally beautiful. Yes, those must be the happy people; but then she would very much like to know more about them—to read all those stories which the press was no doubt printing off, of these same happy people—who never were poor and who had no little ragged brothers and sisters. For the first time in her life Clary wished the press would get out of order, for some other reason than because she was tired. Her mind worked and worked upon those three words till she was almost wild with the desire to read more. Perhaps it told the way to be rich and happy,—and that cruel press kept moving just as fast as it could. Not till twelve o’clock did it make a pause. But at twelve o’clock there was a sudden hush; and hardly had the rollers stopped their rolling, before Clary had left her place and gone to that corner of the pile of printed sheets where she knew the words must be. Yes, they were there—she found them easy enough; but what were they?

‘O how happy are they
_Who the Saviour obey,
And have laid up their treasure above_.’

“Poor Clary! she could almost have cried over her disappointment; for if the words had been Greek she could hardly have been more puzzled as to their meaning. As I have said, she had never been to church—she had never read the Bible;—and if ever she had heard the Saviour’s name, it was from those who spoke it with neither love nor reverence. Her father had been a drunkard,—her mother was a hard-working, well-meaning woman, but as ignorant as Clary herself. No preacher of the gospel had ever set foot in their house,—and ‘how should they believe on him of whom they had not heard?’

“So Clary puzzled over the lines and could make nothing of them. The word _treasure_ she did indeed understand; but where it was to be laid up, and how, were as far from her as ever. And constantly her mind went back to that second line—‘_Who the Saviour obey_.’

“‘I wonder if I couldn’t do that?’ she thought to herself,—‘if I only knew how. Mother always said I was good about minding. It must be so pleasant to be happy.—It doesn’t say that nobody can do it but rich people, either,’—and again she read the words. They were at the bottom of the sheet, and the next might not come to her press at all, or not for some days. She looked over the rest of the sheet. A great many of the hymns she could make nothing of at all,—the very words—‘missionary,’ and ‘convert,’ and ‘ransom,’ were strange to her. Then this hymn caught her eye, and she read,—

“Come to the mercy-seat,—
“Come to the place of prayer;
“Come, little children, to his feet,
“In whom ye live and are.

“Come to your God in prayer—
“Come to your Saviour now—
“While youthful skies are bright and fair,
“And health is on your brow.”

“Clary read no further. That did not suit her, she thought—there was nothing bright about her way of life or herself. It seemed the old thing again—the happy rich people. She went back and read the first one over,—that did not seem so, and she sought further; wearily glancing from hymn to hymn, but with a longing that not even the hard words could check. At last she saw one verse, the first word of which she knew well enough,—

“Poor, weak, and worthless, though I am,
“I have a rich almighty Friend,—
“Jesus the Saviour is his name,—
“He freely loves, and without end.”

“The words went right to the sore spot in Clary’s heart—the spot which had ached for many a long day. Somebody to love her,—a rich friend;—if she had written down her own wishes, they could hardly have been more perfectly expressed; and the tears came so fast, that she had to move away lest they should blot the paper. Bitter tears they were, yet not such as she had often shed; for, she knew not how, those words seemed to carry a possible hope of fulfilment—a half-promise—which her own imaginations had never done. And the first line suited her so exactly,—

‘Poor, weak, and worthless.’

“‘I am all that,’ thought Clary, ‘but if this rich friend loves one poor person he might another. ‘Jesus, the Saviour’—that must be the same that the other verse speaks of. ‘_How happy are they who the Saviour obey_—’ O I wish I knew how—I would do anything in the world to be happy! And I suppose all these rich people know all about him, and obey him, and that makes them so happy; for if he loves poor people he must love the rich a great deal more.’

“One o’clock!

“The great clock struck, and the people came tramping back to their work, or rose up from the corners where they had been eating such dinner as they had brought. Clary had forgotten all about hers—certainly it was an easy dinner to forget—but all the afternoon as the press kept on its busy way, she lived upon those two verses which she had learned by heart.

“She had no chance to read more when they left off work at night; but all the way home she scarce saw either rich or poor for the intentness with which her mind studied those words, and the hope and determination with which she resolved to find out of whom they spoke. She almost felt as if she had found him already—it seemed as if she was less friendless than she had been in the morning; and though once and again the remembered words filled her eyes with tears, any one who knew Clary would have wondered at the step with which she went home.”

“Where did she read those words?” said Carl, who had listened with deep attention.

“On my 272d page,” replied the hymn book. “For it so happened that I was printing that very day.”

Carl turned to the 272d page and read the words, and then shutting the hymn book desired him to go on with his story.

“‘What made you so early, Clary?’ said her mother, who had got home first.

“‘Early is it?’ said Clary, when she could get breath to speak—for she had run up all the three pair of stairs to their little room. ‘It’s the same time as always, mother—only maybe I walked fast. O mother! I’ve had such a happy day!’

“‘A happy day!’ said her mother, looking up in amazement at the life of her voice and face that were wont to be so dull and listless. ‘Well child—I’m glad on’t,—you never had many.’

“‘Such a happy day!’ repeated Clary. ‘O mother—I read such beautiful words at the printing-office!’

“‘Did you fetch the soap I wanted?’ inquired her mother.

“No—Clary had forgotten it.

“‘Well don’t be so happy to-morrow that you’ll forget it,’ said her mother. ‘Every living child here’s as dirty as a pig, and no way of making ’em cleaner. Tidy up the room a little, can’t you, Clary?—I’ve stood up on my two feet all day.’

“So had Clary, and some nights she would have said as much; but now that new half hope of being happy—that new desire of doing all that anybody could want her to do (she didn’t know why), gave her two feet new strength; and she not only ‘tidied up’ the room, but even found a little end of soap to tidy up the children withal; and then gave them their supper and put them to bed with far less noise and confusion than usual.

“Her mother was already seated by the one tallow candle, making coarse shirts and overalls for a wholesale dealer; and Clary having at last found her thimble in the pocket of the smallest pair of trousers, sat down to work too. Never had her fingers moved so fast.

“‘Mother,’ she said, after a while, ‘did you ever hear anybody talk about the Saviour?’

“Her mother stared.

“‘What on earth, child!’ she said. ‘Where have you been, and who’s been putting notions in your head?’

“‘Nobody,’ said Clary—‘and I’ve been nowhere,—only to the office, the same as usual. But I read some beautiful verses there, mother—at dinner-time—that they were printing off on my press; and they made me feel so—I can’t tell you how. But oh mother, they told about some great rich friend of poor people—poor people like us, mother—worth nothing at all, they said; and that everybody who obeyed him was happy.’

“‘You’d better not plague your head with such stuff,’ said her mother. ‘Nobody cares about poor folks like us. Why child, rich people wouldn’t touch us with a pair of tongs! Haven’t I seen ’em draw up their frocks as I went by—because mine was calico, and maybe not over clean because I couldn’t buy soap and bread both? I tell you Clary, rich folks thinks the poor has no right to breathe in the same world with ’em. I don’t want to long, for one.’

“‘I didn’t say rich _people_,’ said Clary thoughtfully, but only this one:—

‘Poor, weak, and worthless, though I am,
I have a rich almighty Friend.’

O mother! I wish I had!’

“‘Come child, shut up!’ said her mother, but not unkindly, for something in Clary’s look and tone had stirred the long deadened feeling within her. ‘I tell you child we must eat, and how is your work to get done if you sit there crying in that fashion? The candle’s ’most burnt out, too, and not another scrap in the house.’

“Clary dried her tears and went on with the overalls until the candle had flickered its last; and then groped her way in the dark to the little bed she and her mother occupied by that of the five children. For sleeping all together thus, the coverings went further. Dark and miserable it was; and yet when Clary laid herself down, overtaken at last by the sleep which had pursued her all the evening; the last thought in the poor child’s mind was of those hymns,—the word on which her heart went to sleep was that ‘name which is above every name.’

‘How sweet the name of Jesus sounds
In a believer’s ear!’

“To Clary’s great sorrow and disappointment, when she went next day to the printing-office, the pile of printed paper had been removed; and not only so, but a new set of plates given her instead of those of the hymn book. Clary’s only comfort was to repeat over and over to herself the words she had already learned, and to try to get at their meaning. Sometimes she thought she would ask the foreman, who was very pleasant and good-natured—but that was only while he was at some other press,—whenever he came near hers, Clary was frightened and held her head down lest he should guess what she was thinking of. And as week after week passed on, she grew very weary and discouraged; yet still clinging to those words as the last hope she had. If she could possibly have forgotten them, she would have been almost desperate.

“The winter passed, and the spring came; and it was pleasanter now to go down to the printing-office in the early morning, and to walk home at night; and she could hear other people’s canaries sing, and see the green grass and flowers in other people’s courtyards; and on Sunday as she had no work she could sit out on the doorstep—if there weren’t too many children about—or walk away from that miserable street into some pleasanter one.

“She had walked about for a long time one Sunday, watching the people that were coming from afternoon church; and now the sun was leaving the street and she turned to leave it too,—taking a little cross street which she had never been in before.

“It hardly deserved the name of street, for a single block was all its length. The houses were not of the largest, but they looked neat and comfortable, with their green blinds and gay curtains; and Spring was there in her earliest dress—a green ground, well spotted with hyacinths, snowdrops, and crocuses. It was very quiet, too, cut short as it was at both ends; and the Sabbath of the great city seemed to have quitted Broadway and established itself here.

“Upon one of the low flights of steps, Clary saw as she approached it, sat a little girl having a book in her hand. With a dress after the very pattern of Spring’s, a little warm shawl over her shoulders, and a little chair that was just big enough, she sat there in the warm sunshine which streamed down through a gap in the houses, turning over the leaves of her book. If you had guessed the child’s name from her looks, you would have called her ‘Sweet Content.’

“Clary stopped a little way off to look at her; thinking bitterly of the five children she had left playing in the dirt at home; and as she stopped, the little girl began to sing,—

‘O how happy are they
Who the Saviour obey,
And have laid up their treasure above.’

“The little voice had no more than brought these words to Clary’s ear, when a carriage came rolling by and the rest of the verse was lost; but in an instant Clary was at the house, and feeling as if this were the only chance she ever should have, she opened the little gate and went in.

“The child ceased singing and looked up at her in some surprise.

“‘I want to know——,’ said Clary,—and then suddenly recollecting her own poor dress, and comparing it with the little picture before her, she stopped short. But the words must come—they were spoken almost before Clary herself was aware.

“‘Will you please to tell me who the Saviour is?’

“And then blushing and frightened she could almost have run away, but something held her fast.

“The child’s eyes grew more and more wondering.

“‘Come in,’ she said gravely, getting up from her chair, and with some difficulty keeping the book and the little shawl in their places.

“But Clary drew back.

“‘O yes—come in,’ said the child, tucking the little book under her arm, and holding out her hand to Clary. ‘Please come in—mother will tell you.’

“And following her little conductor, Clary found herself the next minute in a pleasant, plain, and very neat room.