Chapter XXXVII: Good-By, Mary Frances. Come Again! 325 (8)

The officer saw what a little shrine poor Nolan had made of his stateroom. Up above were the stars and stripes, and around a portrait of Washington he had painted a majestic eagle, with lightnings blazing from his beak and his foot just clasping the whole globe, which the wings overshadowed. Nolan said, with a sad smile, “Here, you see, I have a country!” Over the foot of the bed was a great map of the United States, drawn from memory, which he had there to look upon as he lay in his berth. Quaint old names were on it, in large letters: Indiana Territory, Mississippi Territory, and Louisiana Territory.

“Danforth,” he said, “I know I am dying. I cannot get home. Surely you will tell me something now? Stop! Stop! Do not speak till I say what I am sure you know, that there is not in this ship, that there is not in America--God bless her!--a more loyal man than I. There cannot be a man who loves the old flag or prays for it as I do. There are thirty-four stars in it now, Danforth. I thank God for that, though I do not know what their names are. There has never been one taken away. I thank God for that. But tell me something--tell me everything, Danforth, before I die!”

Captain Danforth, in writing about it afterwards says: “I felt like a monster that I had not told him everything before. Though obeying orders, who was I that I should have been acting the tyrant all this time over this dear, sainted old man, who had expiated, in his whole manhood’s life, the madness of a boy’s treason.”

“Mr. Nolan,” he said, “I will tell you everything you ask about.”

Then he told him the names of all the new states, and drew them in on the map. He told him of the inventions--the steamboats, the railroads and telegraphs; he tried to tell him all that had happened to the great and growing country in fifty years. He told him about Abraham Lincoln, who was then President--except that he could not wound his friend by mentioning a word about the cruel Civil War which was then raging.

Nolan drank it in and enjoyed it more than we can tell. After that he seemed to grow weary and said he would go to sleep. He bent Danforth down and kissed him, and then said, “Look in my Bible, Captain, when I am gone.”

Danforth went away with no thought that this was the end. But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently, he found Nolan had breathed away his life with a smile.

They looked in his Bible, and there was a slip of paper at the place where he had marked the text:

“They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore God is not
ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a
city.”

On this slip of paper he had written:

“Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But will
not some one set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams or at
Orleans, that my disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear?
Say on it:

‘In Memory of
PHILIP NOLAN
Lieutenant in the Army of the United States.

He loved his country as no other man has loved her;
but no man deserved less at her hands.’”

XXXIII

YOUR FLAG AND MY FLAG

WHEN the story was finished the Story People did not applaud; they felt sorry for poor Philip who had repented so bitterly.

Mary Frances felt sad, and sorry, too; as she did every time she heard the story, for she had often heard it before.

“How Americans love their country!” said the Story King. “They must love it as much as we love our island!”

“Indeed, they do love it,” answered Mary Frances patriotically. “I think it’s the greatest big country in all the world!”

The Story People smiled and clapped their hands at this speech, for they admire loyalty wherever shown.

“Yes, it is,” said the Story Queen, “and we think our island is the greatest little country in all the world.”

“So it is! Indeed, it is! I love it next to my own!” cried Mary Frances; and the Story People applauded again.

“There is a little poem about the Stars and Stripes that is very popular in America,” said the Story Lady, smiling. “Now that the stories are finished for the day, perhaps our guest will recite it for us.”

Mary Frances blushed, and then rose in her place and recited:

Your flag and my flag,
And how it flies to-day
In your land and my land
And half a world away!

Rose-red and blood-red
The stripes forever gleam;
Snow-white and soul-white--
The good forefathers’ dream;
Sky-blue and true-blue, with stars to gleam aright--
The gloried guidon of the day; a shelter through the night.

Your flag and my flag!
And, oh, how much it holds--
Your land and my land--
Secure within its folds!
Your heart and my heart
Beat quicker at the sight;
Sun-kissed and wind-tossed--
Red and blue and white.
The one flag--the great flag--the flag for me and you--
Glorified all else beside--the red and white and blue!

Your flag and my flag!
To every star and stripe
The drums beat as hearts beat,
And fifers shrilly pipe!
Your flag and my flag--
A blessing in the sky;
Your hope and my hope--
It never hid a lie!
Home land and far land and half the world around,
Old Glory hears our glad salute and ripples to the sound.[C]

[C] From the “Trail to Boyland,” by Wilbur D. Nesbit, Copyright 1904. Used by special permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Merrill Company.

As Mary Frances sat down, the Story People clapped their hands enthusiastically; and the Ready Writer handed her her copies of the stories for the day. The copy of the poem which he had made, he kept for themselves.

As Mary Frances and the Story Lady were going out, the Story Queen stopped them and said:

“We shall expect you both to dinner to-night--just a little family party, you know.”

“Oh, thank you, that will be delightful,” both replied.

Mary Frances thought ruefully of her best dress hanging uselessly in the closet at home and wished she had it. “But it’s no use wishing,” she thought. “It’s all so unexpected.”

However, with the help of the Story Lady, she was arrayed for the occasion, and when she saw herself in the mirror she said, “There must be two of us; that doesn’t look like me.”

But it was she. So when they left their apartments and went downstairs into the dining-hall, she was in very high spirits.

Mary Frances had eaten many dinners, but never one like that. Yet, strange to say, she doesn’t remember what she ate. But she does remember how kind and friendly the Story King and Queen were, and how they plied her with questions about her own country. She thinks, perhaps, she bragged a little too much in telling of its wonders, but she excuses herself to herself, thinking, “Well, my country is worth bragging about, I’m sure.” During a lull in the conversation, Mary Frances asked the King, “Won’t you tell me where all the stories come from?”

“With pleasure,” he replied. “They come from all countries. The world is full of people who are doing brave and noble deeds, and when we hear of such deeds, we have them written down and pass them on.”

“Of course,” he added, “there are other people who are doing cowardly and selfish things, but we don’t bother with them, except to punish them as we did the pirate. We see to it that no good story is ever lost; that is why we were so concerned about the lost story.”

“You can see,” said the Queen, “that it keeps us pretty busy.”

“Indeed, it must,” returned Mary Frances. “I think it’s very kind of you to let me visit you.”

“Dear child,” said the Queen, “we shall make a story about it--several stories----”

“Yes, delightful stories,” interrupted the Story Lady, “and I shall tell them! Oh, yes, I shall tell them!”

THE LAST DAY ON STORY ISLAND

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH, A FAIRY TALE OF HOME.--CHIRP THE
FIRST.--CHIRP THE SECOND.--CHIRP THE THIRD.--THE RETURN HOME.

THE LAST DAY ON STORY ISLAND

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

XXXIV

CHIRP THE FIRST

WHEN the Story People were all assembled, the Story Lady began:

“To-day we have only one story, ‘The Cricket on the Hearth,’ which was first told by one of our greatest story-tellers, Charles Dickens, who wrote ‘The Christmas Carol’ and many other stories that children love to hear.”

_The Peerybingles_

“Heyday! The cricket’s merrier than ever to-night, I think,” said John, stopping, in his slow way, to listen to its musical chirp, chirp, chirp!

“And it’s sure to bring us good fortune, John! It always has done so. To have a cricket on the hearth is the luckiest thing in the world!”

That is what John Peerybingle’s little wife Dot said one stormy night after John had come in from delivering packages and boxes, and she had given him his tea and had put the baby to sleep. For John Peerybingle was a local expressman; or, as they say in England, a carrier.

“The first time I heard its cheerful little note, John,” Dot continued, “was the night you brought me home--when you brought me to my new home here; its little mistress. Nearly a year ago. You recollect, John?”

Oh, yes. John remembered. I should think so!

“Its chirp was such a welcome to me. It seemed so full of promise and encouragement. It seemed to say you would be kind and gentle with me, and would not expect to find an old head on the shoulders of your foolish little wife. I had a fear of that, John, then.”

John thoughtfully patted one of the shoulders, and then the head of his little wife, as though to say, “No, no; he had no such expectation; he had been quite content to take them as they were.”

“The cricket spoke the truth, John, for you have been, I am sure, the most considerate, the most affectionate of husbands. This has been a happy home, John; and I love the cricket for its sake.”

“Why, so do I, then,” said the carrier, “so do I, Dot.”

“I love it for the many times I have heard it,” Dot went on musing, “and the many thoughts its harmless music has given me. Sometimes, in the twilight, when I have felt a little down-hearted, John--before the precious baby came to keep me company and make the house gay--when I have thought how lonely you would be if I should die, or I should be if you should die, its chirp, chirp, chirp, upon the hearth has filled me with new trust and confidence. For you see, John, I was afraid, being so much younger than you, that you might not find me at all suitable as a wife, and that you might find it hard to learn to love me as you would if I were older and had had more experience. I was thinking just before you came in to-night, dear, how the cricket has cheered me at such times; and I love it for their sake.”

“And so do I,” repeated John. “But, Dot! How you talk! I learn to love you? I had learned that long before I brought you here to be the cricket’s little mistress, Dot.”

She laid her hand, an instant, on his arm, and looked up at him as if she would have told him something. Next moment, she was down upon her knees before the basket of packages which John had brought in from his cart. Perhaps some of them would be called for; the others he would deliver in the morning.

“There are not many of them to-night, John. Why, what’s this round box? Heart alive, John, it’s a wedding-cake!”

“Leave a woman to find that out,” said John admiringly. “Now, a man would never have thought of it! But it’s my belief that if you packed a wedding cake in a tea-chest, or in a feather bed, or in salmon-keg, a woman would be sure to find it out directly. Yes, I called for it at the pastry-cook’s.”

“And it weighs, I don’t know what--whole hundred weights!” cried Dot, making a great show of trying to lift it. “Whose is it, John? Where is it going?”

“Read the writing on the other side,” said John.

“Why, John! My goodness, John!” exclaimed Dot.

“Ah! Who’d have thought it!” John returned.

“You never mean to say,” asked Dot, sitting on the floor and shaking her head at him, “that it’s for Gruff and Tackleton, the toy-maker!”

John nodded. Mrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least--in dumb and pitying amazement.

And Tilly Slowboy, the nurse-maid, and helper of all work, began to talk in an undertone to the baby, who had awakened, as she walked to and fro with him in her arms: “Was it for Gruffs and Tackletons, then, and would it call at the pastry-cooks’ for wedding cakes, and did its mothers know the boxes when its fathers brought them home;” and so on.

“And that marriage is really to come about!” said Dot, after seeing that the baby was all right. “Why, she and I were girls at school together, John.”

John might have been thinking of how Dot looked then, but he made no answer.

“And he’s as old! As unlike May! Why, how many years older than you is Gruff and Tackleton, John?”

“How many more cups of tea shall I drink at one sitting than Gruff and Tackleton ever took in four sittings, I wonder!” replied John good-humoredly.

But even this brought no smile to the face of his little wife. The cricket, too, had stopped. Somehow the room was not so cheerful as it had been. Nothing like it.

_The Strange Old Gentleman_

“So these are all the parcels, are they, John?” she asked, after a little while; “so these are all the parcels, John?”

“That’s all,” said John. “Why--no--I--I declare--I’ve clean forgotten the old gentleman!”

“The old gentleman?”

“In the cart,” said John. “He was asleep, down in the straw, the last time I saw him. I’ve very nearly remembered him twice since I came in; but he went out of my head again.”

John hastily rose and lighting a candle went out the door. “Halloa! Yahip there! Rouse up! That’s my hearty!” he called as he made his way to the wagon-shed.

Soon the Stranger stood, bareheaded and motionless in the middle of the room. He had long white hair, good features, singularly bold and well-defined for an old man. His eyes were dark and bright and smiling. He saluted the carrier’s wife by gravely bowing.

His clothes were very quaint and old-fashioned, a long, long way behind the time. Their color was brown, all over. In his hand he carried a great brown club or walking-stick. He struck this upon the floor and it fell open and became a chair on which he sat down quite composedly.

“There!” said the carrier, turning to his wife. “That’s the way I found him, sitting by the roadside! Upright as a milestone, and almost as deaf as one!”

“Sitting in the open air, John!”

“In the open air,” replied the carrier, “just at dusk. ‘Will you take me along?’ he asked, and gave me eighteen pence. Then he got into the cart. And here he is.”

“He’s going, John, I think!”

Not at all. He was only going to speak.

“If you please, I was to be left till called for,” said the Stranger, mildly. “Don’t mind me.”

With that he took a pair of spectacles from one of his large pockets, and a book from another, and leisurely began to read. Boxer, the carrier’s big dog, came sniffing at his legs, but he took no more notice of Boxer than if he had been a lamb.

The carrier and his wife glanced at each other in perplexity. The Stranger raised his head; and looking from Dot toward John, said:

“Your daughter, my good friend?”

“Wife,” said John.

“Niece?” asked the Stranger.

“Wife,” roared John.

“Indeed?” observed the Stranger. “Surely--very young!”

Dot took the baby from the couch where Tilly Slowboy had laid him. The Stranger quietly resumed his reading; but before he had read two lines, he interrupted his reading to say to John:

“Baby yours?”

John gave a gigantic nod, equal to an answer given through a speaking trumpet.

“Girl?” asked the Stranger.

“Bo-o-oy!” roared John.

“Also very young, eh?”

Mrs. Peerybingle instantly spoke. “Two months and three da-ays. Vaccinated just six weeks ago-o! Took very fine-ly! Considered by the doctors a remarkably beautiful chi-ild! Equal to the general run of children at five months o-ld! Takes notice of everything. May seem impossible to you, but true.”

Here the breathless little mother, who had been shrieking these short sentences into the old man’s ear until her face was crimson, held the baby up before him to prove her words, while Tilly Slowboy sprang around in cow-like gambols to amuse the infant, uttering words which sounded like “Ketcher! Ketcher!”

“Hark!” said John. “He’s called for, sure enough. There’s some one at the door. Open it, Tilly.”

_Caleb Plummer_

Before she could reach it, however, it was opened from the outside, for it was a primitive sort of door with a latch that any one could lift if he chose. In came a little, meager, thoughtful, dingy-faced man.

He seemed to have made himself a great-coat from the burlap covering of some old box; for, when he turned to shut the door, and keep the weather out, one could read upon the back of the garment the letters “G & T” in large black capitals; also the word “GLASS” in smaller capitals.

“Good-evening, John!” said the little man. “Good-evening, mum. Good-evening, Tilly! Good-evening, unbeknown! How’s baby, mum? Boxer’s pretty well, I hope?”

“All well and thriving, Caleb,” replied Dot. “I am sure you need only look at the dear child, for one, to know that.”

“And I’m sure I only need look at you for another,” said Caleb; “or at John for another; or Tilly, as far as that goes; or certainly at Boxer.”

“Busy just now, Caleb?” asked the carrier.

“Why, pretty busy, John,” he returned. “Pretty much so. There’s a lot of demand for Noah’s Arks at present. I’d like to be able to take more pains in making the families, but I can’t do it at the price. It would be a satisfaction, though, to one’s mind, to make it plain which was Shems and Hams, and which was wives. Ah, well! Have you got anything in the parcel line for me, John?”

The carrier put his hand into the pocket of the coat he had taken off, and brought out a tiny flower-pot, carefully wrapped in moss and tissue paper.

“There it is!” he said, adjusting it with great care. “Not so much as a leaf damaged. Full of buds!”

Caleb’s dull eye brightened as he took it, and thanked him.

“It was expensive, Caleb,” said the carrier. “Very dear at this season.”

“Never mind that. It would be cheap to me, whatever it cost,” returned the little man. “Anything else, John?”

“A small box,” replied the carrier. “Here you are!”

“‘For Caleb Plummer,’” read the old man, spelling out the directions. “‘With Cash!’ With cash, John? I don’t think it’s for me!”

“‘With Care,’” corrected the carrier, looking over his shoulder. “Where do you make out ‘cash’?”

“Oh! To be sure!” said Caleb. “It’s all right. ‘With Care!’ Yes, yes; that’s mine. It might have been ‘With Cash,’ if my dear boy in South America had lived, John. You loved him like a son; didn’t you? You needn’t say you did. I know, of course.”

He read again, “‘Caleb Plummer. With Care.’ Yes, yes; it’s all right. It’s a box of dolls’ eyes for my daughter’s work. I wish it was her own sight in a box, John!”

“I wish it was, or could be,” cried the carrier.

“Thankee,” said the little man. “You speak very hearty. To think that she should never see the dolls--and them a staring at her so bold, all day long! That’s where it cuts. What’s the cost, John,--what’s the damage?”

“I’ll damage you,” said John, “if you ask.”

“Well, it’s like you to say that,” observed the little man. “It’s your kind way. Let me see. I think that’s all.”

“I think not,” said the carrier. “Try again.”

“Something for our governor, eh?” asked Caleb after thinking a little while. “To be sure. That’s what I came for; but my head’s so full of them Noah’s Arks and things! He hasn’t been here, has he?”

“Not he,” returned the carrier. “He’s too busy, courting.”

“He’s coming, though,” said Caleb; “for he told me to keep on the near side of the road going home, and it was ten to one he’d take me up. I’d better go, by-the-way.”

He turned to Dot. “You couldn’t have the goodness to let me pinch Boxer’s tail, mum, for half a moment, could you?”

“Why, Caleb! What a question!”

“Oh, never mind, mum,” said the little man. “He mightn’t like it, perhaps. There’s a small order come in for toys--dogs that will bark; and I wish to go as close to nature as possible for a sixpence. That’s all. Never mind, mum.”

It happened that Boxer just at that moment began to bark with zeal. But, as this bark meant the approach of some new visitor, Caleb, postponing his study of dogs’ barks, shouldered the big round box of wedding cake and said good-by. He might have spared himself the trouble, however, for he met his employer upon the threshold.

_Tackleton_

“Oh! You are here, are you? Wait a bit. I’ll take you home!”

He turned to John. “John Peerybingle, my service to you. More of my service to your pretty wife. Handsomer every day--and younger!”

“I should be astonished at your paying compliments, Mr. Tackleton,” said Dot, not altogether pleasantly, “but for what I have just heard about you--being engaged to be married.”

“You know all about it, then?”

“I have gotten myself to believe it somehow,” said Dot.

“After a hard struggle, I suppose?”

“Very.”

Tackleton, the toy merchant, was well known in the neighborhood. Many people called him Gruff and Tackleton, the name of the firm when Gruff was Tackleton’s partner. Although Tackleton had bought out Gruff’s interest years before, the name still remained.

It was odd that such a man should have been a toy-maker, for he had no interest in toys whatever. He despised them, and wouldn’t have bought one for the world. The only toys in his shop which he could abide were the ugly ones. Hideous, red-eyed Jacks-in-Boxes, vampire kites, and fiery dragons really did give him some pleasure, for he saw that they scared little children. A very pleasant person, Tackleton! Not the kind of person you would think was going to be married, and to a young wife, too--a beautiful young wife.

He didn’t look much like a bridegroom as he stood in the carrier’s kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked down into the bottom of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic, ill-conditioned, self--peering out of one little corner of one little eye, like the concentrated essence of any number of ravens. But a bridegroom he was designed to be.

“In three days’ time--next Thursday--the last day of the first month of the year--is my wedding day,” said Tackleton.

Did I mention that he had always one eye wide open and one eye nearly shut; and the eye nearly shut was always the expressive eye? I don’t think I did.

“That’s my wedding-day!” said Tackleton, rattling his money in his pocket.

“Why, that’s the anniversary of our wedding, too!” exclaimed the carrier.

“Ha, ha!” laughed Tackleton. “Odd! You’re just such another couple as we will be! Just!”

At this speech, Dot was most indignant. What next would the man say? As though her John resembled Tackleton in any particular!

“I say! A word with you,” murmured Tackleton, nudging the carrier with his elbow, and taking him off a little way. “You’ll come to the wedding, won’t you? We’re in the same boat, you know.”

“How in the same boat?” asked John.

“Why, you’re not so youthful as your wife, yourself,” said Tackleton, with another nudge. “Come and spend an evening with us beforehand.”

“Why?” demanded John, astonished at this hospitality.

“Why?” returned the other. “That’s a new way to receive an invitation. Why--for pleasure--to be sociable, you know, and all that.”

“I thought you were never sociable,” said John, in his plain way.

“As you like; what does it matter? Your company will produce a favorable impression on Mrs. Tackleton that-will-be. You’ll say you’ll come?”

“We have arranged to keep our wedding day at home,” said John. “We think, you see, that home----”

“Bah! What’s home?” cried Tackleton. “Four walls and a ceiling! Why don’t you kill that cricket? I would! I always do! I hate their noise! You’ll say you’ll come, to-morrow evening?”

“You kill the crickets, eh?” said John.

“Scrunch ’em, sir,” returned the other, setting his heel heavily on the floor. “Then you won’t give us to-morrow evening? Well! Next day you go out visiting, I know. I’ll meet you there, and bring my wife that-is-to-be. It’ll do her good. You’re agreeable? Thankee. What’s that?”

_Dot is Upset_

It was a loud cry from the carrier’s wife; a loud, sharp, sudden cry, that made the room ring like a glass bell that was struck. She had risen from her seat and stood like one transfixed by terror and surprise. The Stranger had gone toward the fire to warm himself, but he was quite still.

“Dot!” cried the carrier, “Darling Dot! What’s the matter?”

They were all about her in a moment. Caleb, who had been dozing on the cake-box, in the first start, seized Tilly Slowboy by the hair, but immediately apologized.

“Mary!” exclaimed the carrier, for Dot’s real name was Mary, Dot being only a pet name of her husband’s. “Mary dear, are you ill? What is it? Tell me, dear.”

But at first she could not answer. She wept bitterly, and covered her face with her apron; then burst into a wild fit of laughter, and then started crying again. At length she let John lead her to the fire, where she sat down. The old man was standing there as before.

“I’m better, John,” she said. “I’m quite well. It was only a fancy, something coming before my eyes. It’s gone, quite gone now.”

“But why did she look at the old gentleman, as if addressing him?” thought John. “Was her mind wandering?”

“I’m glad it’s gone,” muttered Tackleton, turning the expressive eye around the room. “I wonder where it’s gone, and what it was. Humph, Caleb, come here! Who’s that man with the gray hair?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Caleb answered in a whisper. “Never saw him before in all my life. He’d make a beautiful figure for a nut-cracker; quite a new model.”

“Not ugly enough!” said Tackleton.

“Or a match-safe,” Caleb continued. “What a model! Unscrew his head to put the matches in. Let them fall down to his neck, and take out.”

“Not half ugly enough,” said Tackleton. “Nothing in him at all. Come! Bring that box! All right now, I hope, Mrs. Peerybingle?”

“Oh, quite right! Quite right!” said the little woman, waving him hurriedly away. “Good-night!”

“Good-night,” said Tackleton. “Good-night, John Peerybingle! Take care how you carry that box, Caleb. Let it fall and I’ll murder you! Dark as pitch, and weather worse than ever, eh? Good-night!”

So, with another sharp look round the room, he went out the door, followed by Caleb with the wedding cake on his head.

The carrier had been so much astonished by his little wife, and so busily trying to sooth her that he had scarcely been conscious of the Stranger’s presence until now, when he looked up and saw him standing there, their only guest!

“He don’t belong to them, you see,” said John. “I must give him a hint to go.”

Just at that moment the old gentleman came toward him, saying, “I beg your pardon, friend, but since my attendant has not come and the weather is so bad, can you, in your kindness, let me rent a bed here?”

“Yes, yes!” cried Dot. “Yes! Certainly!”

“Oh!” exclaimed the carrier, surprised by the quickness of her consent. “Well, I don’t object; still I’m not quite sure--”

“Hush!” she interrupted. “Dear John, please.”

“Why, he’s stone deaf,” urged John.

“I know, but--” She turned to the Stranger. “Yes, sir, certainly. Yes! Certainly!” Then to John. “I’ll make him up a bed directly, John.”

As she hurried off to do it, the fluttering way she did it was so strange that the carrier looked after her, quite dumfounded.

“Did its mothers make up a beds then?” cried Tilly Slowboy to the baby; “and did its hair grow brown and curly when its caps was lifted off, and frighten it, as precious pets, a-sitting by the fire?”

“What frightened Dot, I wonder?” thought the carrier, pacing to and fro, and half listening to Tilly’s silly chatter.

The bed was soon made ready, and the Stranger, who would not take anything but a cup of tea, retired.

After Dot put the baby to bed, she arranged the great comfortable fireside chair for the carrier, and filled his pipe for him. Then she brought her little stool and, placing it beside his knee, sat down for a cozy chat.

But the carrier fell to dreaming, and Boxer, who was stretched at his feet, I am quite ashamed to say, snored aloud. Just then the cricket began its song, and Dot, too, fell a-dreaming.

* * * * *

But what was that young figure of a man which remained there, singly and alone? Why did it linger still, so near her with its arm upon the chimney-piece, ever repeating in a whisper, “Married! and not to me!”

XXXV

CHIRP THE SECOND

_Bertha, the Blind Girl, and Her Father_

CALEB PLUMMER, the toy-maker, and his blind daughter lived all alone by themselves, as the Story Books say, in a little cracked nutshell of a wooden house, close to the big establishment of Gruff and Tackleton, the toy merchants.

I have said that Caleb and his poor blind daughter lived here. I should have said that Caleb lived here, and his poor blind daughter lived somewhere else--in a sort of enchanted fairyland, where no shabbiness or poverty or trouble ever entered; for Caleb, in the magic of his devoted, deathless love for his daughter, played a little game of “Pretend” which made the blind girl think their home beautiful, her father rich and handsome, and that nothing was lacking which they needed.

The blind girl never knew that the ceilings were broken and the walls blotched, and bare of plaster here and there, the beams warped and bending because of age. The blind girl never knew that the woodwork was rotting and the paper peeling off the walls, and the little building withering away.

The blind girl never knew that the dishes were ugly and cracked, and the carpets threadbare; that sorrow and faint-heartedness were in the house; that Caleb’s scanty hairs were turning grayer, and more gray, before her sightless face.

The blind girl never knew that they had a master, cold, exacting, and not caring how they got along--never knew that Tackleton was Tackleton, in fact. For Caleb led her to think his rough words were meant for jokes; that he was very good to them, and had a peculiarity in that he could not bear to be thanked for any favor he had done.

You know why he did this. It was because he felt so sorry for poor blind Bertha that he deceived her into thinking everything lovely and fair in order that she might be happier. He, too, had had a cricket singing on the hearth when his motherless girl was very young, and when he listened to its music, he made up his mind to cheer the little one’s dark way by every means he could devise.

Caleb and his daughter were at work together in their usual working room, which served them for their ordinary living room as well; and a strange place it was.

There were houses in it, furnished and unfurnished, for dolls of all stations in life. Nice houses for dolls of moderate means; smaller houses for dolls not so well off; fine town residences for dolls of high estate. Some of the houses were already furnished with a view to the conveniences of dolls of limited income; others could be furnished on notice from the shelves nearby which were full of chairs and tables, sofas, bedsteads, and other articles of furniture.

Then there were many dolls themselves of all kinds and from all stations in life.

There were various other samples of his handicraft besides dolls and dolls’ houses in Caleb Plummer’s room. There were Noah’s Arks in which the birds and beasts were an uncommonly tight fit, I assure you. There were scores of little carts, which, when the wheels went round, performed most doleful music. There were small fiddles and drums, and no end of cannon, shields and spears.

There were little fellows in red breeches who would tumble down head first along a piece of tape. There were old gentlemen dolls who would fly over trapeze bars when pressed in the right place. There were beasts of all sorts; horses, in particular, of every breed, from the little spotted gray on four legs, to the thoroughbred rocked on his highest mettle.

There were dozens and dozens of other little toys, but you already can imagine how the room looked.

In the midst of all these objects, Caleb and his daughter sat at work; the blind girl busy as a doll’s dressmaker; Caleb painting a desirable doll’s family mansion.

“So you were out in the rain last night, Father, in your beautiful new great-coat,” said Caleb’s daughter.

“In my beautiful new great-coat,” answered Caleb, glancing toward a clothes-rack in the room on which the burlap garment was carefully hung to dry.

“How glad I am you bought it, Father! And such a stylish tailor!”

“It’s too good for me,” said Caleb.

The blind girl rested from her work and laughed with delight. “Too good, Father! What can be too good for you?”

“I’m half ashamed to wear it, though,” said Caleb, watching the effect of what he said on her brightening face, “upon my word! When I hear the boys and people say behind me, ‘Hallo! Here’s a swell!’ I don’t know which way to look. And when the beggar wouldn’t go away last night; and when I said I am a very common man, said, ‘No, Your Honor! Bless Your Honor, don’t say that!’ I was quite ashamed. I really felt as if I hadn’t a right to wear it.”

Happy blind girl! How merry she was with the idea!

“I see you, Father,” she said, clasping her hands, “as plainly as if I had the eyes I never want when you are with me. A blue coat----”

“Bright blue,” said Caleb.

“Yes, yes! Bright blue!” exclaimed the girl, turning up her radiant face; “the color I can just remember in the blessed sky! You told me it was blue before. A bright blue coat----”

“Made loose to the figure,” suggested Caleb.

“Yes! loose to the figure!” cried the blind girl, laughing heartily; “and in it, you, dear Father, with your merry eye, your smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair--looking so young and handsome!”

“There! There!” said Caleb, “I shall be vain presently.”

“I think you are already!” cried the blind girl, pointing at him in her glee. “I know you, Father! Ha, ha, ha! I’ve found you out, you see!”

How different the picture in her mind from Caleb as he sat observing her. She had spoken of his free step. She was right in that. For years and years he had never once crossed their threshold with his own slow pace, but with a footfall free and sprightly, for her to hear; and never, even when his heart was heaviest, had he forgotten the light tread that was to render her own so cheerful and courageous.

“There we are,” said Caleb, falling back a step or two to better judge his work. “It’s a pity the whole front of this doll’s house opens at once! If there was only a staircase in it, now, and regular doors to go in at! But that’s the worst of my work, I’m always trying to make believe!”

“You are speaking quite softly. Are you tired, Father?”

“Tired?” echoed Caleb with a great burst of enthusiasm. “What should tire me, Bertha? I was never tired. What does it mean?”

To give greater force to his words, he checked himself in the middle of a yawn, and began to hum a song. He sang it with a pretended care-free manner that made his face look a thousand times more meagre and more thoughtful than before.

_Tackleton Comes In_

Just then Tackleton put his head in at the door. “What! You’re singing, are you?” he thundered. “Go it! I can’t sing!”

Nobody would have suspected that he could. He hadn’t a singing face by any means.

“I can’t afford to sing,” said Tackleton. “I’m glad you can. I hope you can afford to work, too. Hardly time for both, I should think.”

Caleb turned toward his daughter, and said in a low tone, “If you could only see him, Bertha, how he’s winking at me. Such a man to joke! You’d think, if you didn’t know him, he was in earnest--wouldn’t you now?”

The blind girl smiled and nodded.

“The bird that can sing and won’t sing, must be made to sing,” grumbled Tackleton. “What about the owl that can’t sing, and oughtn’t to sing, and will sing. Is there anything that he should be made to do?”

“The way he’s winking at me this moment!” whispered Caleb to his daughter. “Oh, my gracious!”

“Always merry and light-hearted with us!” cried the smiling Bertha.

“Oh, you’re there, are you?” answered Tackleton. “Poor idiot!”

He really did believe she was an idiot; and, strange to say, he thought her an idiot because she was fond of him.

“Well! being there, how are you?” said Tackleton, in his grudging way.

“Oh, well; quite well. And as happy as even you could wish me to be--as happy as you would make the whole world, if you could.”

“Poor idiot!” muttered Tackleton. “No gleam of reason! Not a gleam!”

The blind girl took his hand, and held it a moment in her own two hands, and laid her cheek against it tenderly, before releasing it. There was so much affectionate gratitude in the act, that Tackleton himself was moved to say, in a milder growl than usual:

“What’s the matter now?”

“I stood the little plant beside my pillow when I went to sleep last night, and remembered it in my dreams. When the day came, and the glorious red sun--the red sun, Father?”

“Red in the mornings and in the evenings, Bertha,” said poor Caleb, with a woeful glance at his employer.

“When it rose, and bright light came into the room, I turned the little tree towards it, and blessed Heaven for making such precious things, and blessed you for sending it to cheer me.”

“Whew!” said Tackleton under his breath, “we’re getting on! The next thing will be the padded cell.”

Meanwhile Caleb looked as if he were uncertain whether Tackleton had done anything deserving of praise or not. Yet he knew that with his own hands he had brought the little rose tree home for her so carefully, and that with his own lips he had made her believe that it was a gift from Tackleton, in order to keep her from suspecting how much he every day denied himself to save the money it cost--that she might be the happier.

“Bertha!” said Tackleton, with for once a show of cordiality, “Come here.”

“Oh, I can come straight to you. You needn’t guide me!”

“Shall I tell you a secret, Bertha?”

“If you will,” she answered eagerly.

How bright the darkened face looked! How anxious the listening head!

“This is the day on which that spoiled child, John Peerybingle’s wife, pays her regular visit to you--makes what she calls her ‘picnic’ here, ain’t it?” said Tackleton, with a look of distaste for the affair.

“Yes,” replied Bertha, “this is the day.”

“I thought so,” said Tackleton. “I should like to join the party.”

“Do you hear that, Father?” cried Bertha in delight.

“Yes, yes, I heard it,” murmured Caleb, with the look somewhat of a sleepwalker, “but I don’t believe it.”

“You see,” said Tackleton, “I--I want to bring the Peerybingles a little more into the company of May Fielding, for I am going to be married to May.”

“Married!” cried the blind girl, starting from him.

“Oh! She’s such a confounded idiot,” muttered Tackleton, “that I was afraid she’d never comprehend. Ah, yes, Bertha! Married! Church, parson, clerk, bells, satin, veils, and all the rest of the tomfoolery. A wedding, you know; a wedding. Don’t you know what a wedding is?”

“I know,” replied the blind girl gently. “I understand.”

“Do you?” muttered Tackleton. “It’s more than I expected.” Then aloud: “Well, on that account I want to join the party, and bring May and her mother. I’ll send in a little something or other before the afternoon--a cold leg of mutton, or some comfortable trifle of that sort. You’ll expect me?”

“Yes,” she answered, turning away.

“I don’t think you will,” muttered Tackleton, looking at her; “for you seem to have forgotten all about it already. Caleb!”

“I may venture to say I’m here, I suppose,” thought Caleb. “Sir?”

“Take care she don’t forget what I’ve been saying to her.”

“She never forgets,” returned Caleb; “it’s one of the few things she ain’t clever in.”

“‘Every man thinks his geese swans’,” observed the toy merchant, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Poor idiot!”

Having delivered this remark with much contempt, old Gruff and Tackleton went out.

_Bertha’s Eyes_

Bertha remained where he had left her, lost in thought. The gayety had vanished from her face, and it was very sad. Three or four times she shook her head as if bewailing some loss.

It was not until Caleb had been busy for some time in yoking a team of wooden horses to the tongue of a little wooden wagon by the simple means of nails, driven through the vital parts of their bodies, that she drew near his work-bench, and, sitting down beside him, said: “Father, I am lonely. I want to borrow your eyes.”

“Here they are,” said Caleb. “Always ready. They are more yours than mine, Bertha, any hour in the four-and-twenty. What shall your eyes do for you, dear?”

“My patient, willing eyes!” the blind girl said. “Will they look around the room, Father?”

“All right, no sooner said than done, Bertha.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s much the same as usual,” said Caleb. “Homely, but snug. The gay colors on the walls; the bright flowers on the plates and other dishes; the shining wood, where there are no panels; the general cheerfulness and neatness of the building; all make it very pretty.”

Cheerful and neat it was, wherever Bertha’s hands could busy themselves, but nowhere else were cheerfulness and neatness possible in the old crazy shed which Caleb’s fancy painted with such pleasant description.

“You have your working clothes on, and are not so gallant as when you wear the handsome coat?” said Bertha, touching him.

“Not quite so gallant,” answered Caleb. “Pretty lively, though.”

“Father,” said the blind girl, drawing close to his side, and putting one arm around his neck, “tell me something about May. Is she very pretty?”

“She is indeed,” said Caleb. And she was indeed. It was quite a rare thing for Caleb not to draw upon his imagination.

“I can imagine her,” said Bertha. “Her hair is dark, darker than mine. Her voice is sweet and musical, I know. I have often loved to hear it. Her form----”

“There’s not a doll in all the room can compare with her,” said Caleb. “And her eyes!”

He stopped; for Bertha’s arm around his neck had given a sudden pressure. He coughed a moment; hammered a moment; then began to sing the gay song about the sparkling bowl, a thing he always did when in such difficulties.

“Now, about your friend, our benefactor, Mr. Tackleton--I am never tired, you know, of hearing about him. Now, was I ever?” she said hastily.

“Of course not!” answered Caleb. “And with reason.”

“Ah, with much reason!” cried the blind girl so fervently that Caleb began to doubt if he had been wise in deceiving her.

“Tell me about him, dear father,” said Bertha. “Many times again! His face is kind and tender, honest and true, I am sure it is! The goodness in his heart shines out in his countenance.”

“And makes it noble,” added Caleb, who was rather desperate by now.

“And makes it noble!” cried the blind girl. “He is older than May, Father?”

“Yes, quite a little older; but that don’t signify,” said Caleb.

“Oh, no, Father! Just to think, she can do so much for him when he grows old and infirm, and can nurse him if he gets ill, and help him in every way. Will she do all this, Father?”

“No doubt of it,” said Caleb.

“I love her for that, Father. I love her with all my heart,” exclaimed the blind girl.

_The Carrier’s Cart_

In the meantime there had been a lively scene at John Peerybingle’s, for little Mrs. Peerybingle naturally couldn’t think of going anywhere without the baby; and to get the baby ready took time.

Not that there was so much of the baby, but there was so much to do about it, and it all had to be done by easy stages. For instance, when the baby was got, by hook or by crook, to a certain point in dressing, and you might have supposed that another touch or two would finish him off, and turn him out a tiptop baby, he was unexpectedly extinguished in a warm nightgown, and hustled off to bed; where he simmered, so to speak, between sheets and blankets, for the best part of an hour.

From this place of inaction, he was recalled, shining very much, and roaring violently, to partake of his luncheon. After which, he went to sleep again.

Then Mrs. Peerybingle took the opportunity to make herself look as fine as possible, and Miss Slowboy put on her best bib-and-tucker.

By this time, the baby, being all alive again, was dressed by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss Slowboy, and put into his cream-colored coat and flannel cap; and so, in course of time, they all three got to the door, where John’s old horse stood tearing up the road with impatient autographs, and from where Boxer might be seen a little distance down the road, looking back, tempting the horse to come on without orders.

If you think that Mrs. Peerybingle needed a chair or anything of that kind to help her climb into the cart, you are mistaken, or you don’t know John Peerybingle, for before you could have seen him, he lifted her from the ground; and there she was in place, fresh and rosy, saying, “Oh, John, how can you!”

“All ready?” asked John, starting off, after Miss Slowboy and the baby were in place.

“John, you’ve got the basket with the veal-and-ham-pie and other things?” asked Dot. “If you haven’t, you must turn around again this very minute.”

“You’re a nice little article,” replied the carrier, “to be talking about turning round after keeping me a full quarter of an hour behind my time.”

“I am sorry for it, John,” said Dot, “but I really could not think of going to Bertha’s--I would not do it, John, on any account--without the veal-and-ham-pie and things. Whoa!” This last word was addressed to the horse, who didn’t mind at all.

“Oh, do turn round, John,” begged Mrs. Peerybingle. “Please!”

“It’ll be time enough to do that,” said John, “when I begin to leave things behind me. The basket’s here safe enough.”

“What a hard-hearted monster you must be, John, not to have said so at once, and saved me such a turn! I declare I wouldn’t go to Bertha’s without the veal-and-ham-pie and things for any money. Regularly, once a fortnight, ever since we have been married we have had our little picnic. If anything were to go wrong with it, I should almost think we were never to be lucky again.”

“It was a kind thought in the first place,” said the carrier, “and I honor you for it, little woman.”

“My dear John,” replied Dot, turning very red, “don’t talk about honoring me. Good gracious!”

“By-the-bye--” observed the carrier, “that old gentleman----”

Dot looked embarrassed.

“He’s an odd fish,” said the carrier. “I can’t make him out. I don’t believe there’s any harm in him, though.”

“None at all. I’m--I’m sure there’s none at all.”

“Yes?” said the carrier, with his eyes attracted to her face because she had spoken so earnestly. “Well, I am glad you feel so certain about it, because it makes me feel surer. It’s curious he should have taken it into his head to ask us for lodgings, ain’t it? Things come about so strangely.”

“So very strangely,” she rejoined in a low voice, scarcely audible.

“However, he’s a good-natured old gentleman,” said John, “and pays as a gentleman, and I think his word is to be relied upon, like a gentleman’s. I had quite a long talk with him this morning. He can hear me better already he says, as he gets more used to my voice. He told me a great deal about himself, and I told him a good deal about myself; and a rare lot of questions he asked me. I told him about having two routes, you know, in my business; one day going to the right from our house and back again, another day going left from our house and back again (for he’s a stranger, and don’t know the names of the places about here); and he seemed quite pleased. ‘Why,’ he says, ‘then I shall be returning your way to-night. I thought I’d be coming in exactly the opposite direction. That’s capital! I may trouble you for another lift, perhaps, but I’ll promise not to fall asleep again.’ He was sound asleep surely! Dot, what are you thinking of?”

“Thinking of, John? I--I was listening to you.”

“Oh! that’s all right!” said the carrier. “I was afraid, from the look of your face, that I had gone rambling on so long as to set you thinking of something else. I was very near it, I’ll be bound.”

Dot making no reply, they jogged on for some time in silence. But it was not very easy to remain silent long in John Peerybingle’s cart, for everybody on the road had something to say, though it might only be, “How are you?” and indeed it was very often nothing else. Sometimes passengers on foot or on horseback plodded on a little way beside the cart just for the pleasure of having a chat.

Then, too, everybody knew Boxer, all along the road--especially the fowls and pigs, who, when they saw him coming, running with his body all on one side and his ears pricked up inquisitively, would make tracks and not wait for any nearer acquaintance. Wherever he went, somebody or other might cry, “Hello! Here’s Boxer!” and with that, out came at least two or three other somebodies to bid John Peerybingle and his pretty wife good-day.

The packages and parcels to be delivered were as numerous as usual, and it required many stops to give them out. This was not the worst part of the journey by any means. Some people were so full of wonder about their parcels, and other people so full of directions about the parcels they were sending off by John, and John took so keen an interest in all the parcels, that it was as good as a play, and Dot thoroughly enjoyed it, as she looked on from her seat in the cart.

The trip was a little foggy, to be sure, in the January weather; and was raw and cold. But who cared for such trifles? Not Dot, decidedly. Not Tilly Slowboy, for she deemed sitting in a cart, on any terms, the highest point of human joys. Not the baby, I’ll be bound; for it’s not in baby nature to be warmer or more sound asleep than the blessed young Peerybingle was, all the way.