Christmas gold, p.456
Christmas Gold, page 456
The arms that held him were pressing for an answer. "Tell me how it happened, dear."
Between gulps it came.
"Benjy said for me to come on—and go to the grocery with him! And I said—that my—my mother—didn't want me to!"
"Yes," encouragingly, as he choked and stopped. He had never called her that before.
"And Benjy said like he always does, that you w-wasn't my m-m-mother anyhow. And I said you was! If he didn't take it back I—I'd beat him up!"
Libby was crying too, now, from sympathy. He'd been told so many times he must not fight that she was afraid he would have to be punished for such a bad fight as this. To be punished on Christmas eve was just too awful! She stole an anxious glance towards the chimney, then toward her mother.
But her mother was hugging him tight and kissing him wherever she could find a place on his poor little face that wasn't scratched or swollen, and she was saying in a voice that made a lump come into Libby's throat, it was so loving and tender,
"My dear little boy, if that's why you fought him I'm glad you did it, for you've proved now that you are my little son, my very own!"
Then she laughed, although she had tears in her eyes herself, and said, "That poor little cheek shows just what fierce nettles and briars you've been through for me, but you brought it, didn't you! The most precious star-flower in all the world to me!"
The surprise of it stopped his tears. She understood! He could not yet stop the sobbing. That kept on, doing itself. But a feeling, warm and tender that he could not explain, seemed to cover him "from wing-tip to wing-tip!" A bloody little hand stole up around her neck and held her tight. She was his mother, because she understood! It was all right between them now. It would always be all right, no matter what Benjy and the rest of the world might say. He'd beat up anybody that dared to say they didn't belong to each other, and she wanted him to do it!
Presently she led him up-stairs to put some healing lotion on his face, and wash away the blood of Benjy.
Libby, in the deep calm that followed the excitement of so many conflicting emotions, sat down in the big rocking chair to wait for her father. Her fear for Will'm had been so strong, her relief at the happy outcome so great, that she felt all shaken up. A long, long time she sat there, thinking. There was only one more thing needed to make her happiness complete, and that was to have Miss Santa Claus know that the charm had worked out true at last. She felt that they owed her that much—to let her know. Presently she slipped out of the chair and knelt in front of the fire so close that it almost singed her.
"Are you listening up there?" she called softly. "'Cause if you are, please tell Miss Santa Claus that everything turned out just as she said it would. I'll be so much obliged."
Then she scudded back to her chair to listen for her father's latchkey in the door, and her mother's and Will'm's voices coming down the stairs, a happier sound than even the sound of the silver bells, that by and by would come jingling down the Sky Road.
The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe
(Amanda M. Douglas)
Table of Contents
1. Joe's Grand Discovery
2. Planning in the Twilight
3. A Chance for Flossy
4. The Identical Shoe
5. Good Luck for Joe
6. Fortunes and Misfortunes
7. The Old Tumbler, After All
8. Florence in State
9. Fourth of July
10. Which Should She Choose?
11. Out of the Old Home-Nest
12. Joe's Fortune
13. From Gray Skies to Blue
14. A Flower-Garden in Doors
15. How Charlie Ran Away
16. Almost Discouraged
17. Lost at Sea
18. A Song in the Night
19. In the Old Home-Nest Again
20. Wherein the Old Shoe Becomes Crowded
21. How the Dreams Came True
22. Christmastide
In Remembrance
OF
MANY PLEASANT HOURS SPENT AT WOODSIDE,
This Story
OF LOVE AND FAITH, OF WORK AND WAITING, AND THE GENTLE
VIRTUES THAT ARE NONE THE LESS HEROIC FOR
BLOOMING IN THE CENTRE OF THE HOME CIRCLE,
IS DEDICATED TO THE HAPPY HOUSEHOLD
OF
MR. and MRS. A. C. NEUMANN.
Chapter I.
Joe's Grand Discovery
Table of Contents
Hal sat trotting Dot on his knee,—poor little weazen-faced Dot, who was just getting over the dregs of the measles, and cross accordingly. By way of accompaniment he sang all the Mother Goose melodies that he could remember. At last he came to,—
"There was an old woman who lived in a shoe:
She had so many children she didn't know what to do;
To some she gave broth without any bread,"—
and Harry stopped to catch his breath, for the trotting was of the vigorous order.
"And a thrashing all round, and sent them to bed!"
finished Joe, thrusting his shaggy head in at the window after the fashion of a great Newfoundland dog.
Dot answered with a piteous cry,—a sort of prolonged wail, heart-rending indeed.
"Serve you right," said Joe, going through an imaginary performance with remarkably forcible gestures.
"For shame, Joe! You were little once yourself, and I dare say cried when you were sick. I always thought it very cruel, that, after being deprived of their supper, they should be"—
"Thrashed! Give us good strong Saxon for once, Flossy!"
Flossy was of the ambitious, correct, and sentimental order. She had lovely light curls, and soft white hands when she did not have to work too hard, which she never did of her own free will. She thought it dreadful to be so poor, and aspired to a rather aristocratic ladyhood.
"I am sorry you were not among them," she replied indignantly. "You're a hard-hearted, cruel boy!"
"When the thrashings went round? You're a c-r-u-e-l girl!" with a prodigious length of accent. "Why, I get plenty of 'em at school."
"'Trot, trot, trot. There was an old woman'—what are you laughing at, Joe?" and Hal turned red in the face.
"I've just made a brilliant discovery. O my poor buttons! remember Flossy's hard labor and many troubles, and do not bust! Why, we're the very children!"
At this, Joe gave a sudden lurch: you saw his head, and then you saw his heels, and the patch on the knee of his trousers, ripped partly off by an unlucky nail, flapped in the breeze; and he was seated on the window-sill right side up with care, drumming both bare heels into the broken wall. He gave a prolonged whistle of satisfaction, made big eyes at Dot, and then said again,—
"Yes, we are the very children!"
"What children? Joe, you are the noisiest boy in Christendom!"
"Flossy, the old woman who lived in a shoe is Granny, and no mistake! I can prove it logically. Look at this old tumble-down rookery: it is just the shape of a huge shoe, sloping gradually to the toe, which is the shed-end here. It's brown and rusty and cracked and patched: it wants heeling and toeing, and to be half-soled, greased to keep the water out, and blacked to make it shine. It was a famous seven-leaguer in its day; but, when it had lost its virtue, the giant who used to wear it kicked it off by the roadside, little dreaming that it would be transformed into a cabin for the aforesaid old woman. And here we all are sure enough! Sometimes we get broth, and sometimes we don't."
Dot looked up in amazement at this harangue, and thrust her thumbs in her mouth. Hal laughed out-right,—a soft little sound like the rippling of falling water.
"Yes, a grand discovery! Ladies and gentlemen of the nineteenth century, I rise to get up, to speak what I am about to say; and I hope you will treasure the words of priceless wisdom that fall from my lips. I'm not backward about coming forward"—
Joe was balancing himself very nicely, and making tremendous flourishes, when two brown, dimpled hands scrubbed up the shock of curly hair, and the sudden onslaught destroyed his equilibrium, as Flossy would have said, and down he went on the floor in crab fashion, looking as if he were all arms and legs.
"Charlie, you midget! just wait till I catch you. I haven't the broth, but the other thing will do as well."
But Charlie was on the outside; and her little brown, bare feet were as fleet as a deer's. Joe saw her skimming over the meadow; but the afternoon was very warm, and a dozen yards satisfied him for a race, so he turned about.
"Joe, you might take Dot a little while, I think," said Hal beseechingly, as Joe braced himself against the door-post. "I've held her all the afternoon."
"She won't come—will you, Dot?"
But Dot signified her gratification by stretching out her hands. Joe was a good-natured fellow; and, though he might have refused Hal easily, he couldn't resist Dot's tender appeal, so he took her on his shoulder and began trotting off to Danbury Cross. Dot laughed out of her sleepy eyes, highly delighted at this change in the programme.
"Oh, dear!" and Hal rubbed his tired arms. "I shouldn't think grandmother would know what to do, sure enough! What a host of us there are,—six children!"
"I'm sure I do my best," said Flossy with a pathetic little sniff. "But it's very hard to be an orphan and poor."
"And when there are six of us, and we are all orphans, and all poor, it must be six times as hard," put in Joe with a sly twinkle.
Then he changed Dot from her triumphal position on his shoulder to a kind of cradle in his arms. Her eyelids drooped, and she began to croon a very sleepy tune.
Hal looked out of the window, over to the woods, where the westward sun was making a wonderful land of gold and crimson. Sometimes he had beautiful dreams of that softened splendor, but now they were mercenary. If one could only coin it all into money! There was poor grandmother slaving away, over at Mrs. Kinsey's,—she should come home, and be a princess, to say the very least.
"I guess I'll clear up a bit!" said Hal, coming down from the clouds, and glancing round at the disorderly room. "Granny will be most tired to death when her day's work is done. Flossy, if you wouldn't mind going in the other room."
Flossy gathered up her skirts and her crocheting, and did not take the invitation at all amiss.
Then Hal found the stubby broom, and swept the floor; dusted the mantle, after removing an armful of "trash;" went at the wooden chairs, that had once been painted a gorgeous yellow with green bars; and cleared a motley accumulation of every thing off of the table, hanging up two or three articles, and tucking the rest into a catch-all closet. A quaint old pitcher, that had lost both spout and handle, was emptied of some faded flowers, and a fresh lot cut,—nothing very choice; but the honeysuckle scented the room, and the coxcombs gave their crimson glow to the top of the pyramid.
"Why, Mrs. Betty," said Joe, "you've made quite a palace out of your end of the shoe, and this miserable little Dot has gone to sleep at last. Shall I put her in the cradle, or drop her down the well?"
Hal smiled a little, and opened the door. It was the best room, quite large, uncarpeted, but clean; and though the bed was covered with a homemade spread, it was as white as it could be. The cradle was not quite as snowy; for the soiled hands that tumbled Dot in and out left some traces.
To get her safely down was a masterpiece of strategy. Joe bumped her head; and Hal took her in his arms, hushing her in a low, motherly fashion, and pressing his brown cheek to hers, which looked the color of milk that had been skimmed, and then split in two, and skimmed again. She made a dive in Hal's hair with her little bird's claw of a hand, but presently dropped asleep again.
"I guess she'll take a good long nap," whispered Hal, quite relieved.
"I'm sure she ought," sighed Florence.
Hal went back to his housekeeping. He was as handy as a girl, any day. He pulled some radishes, and put them in a bowl of cold water, and chopped some lettuce and onions together, the children were all so fond of it. Then he gleaned the raspberries, and filled the saucer with currants that were not salable.
Joe, in the meanwhile, had gone after Mrs. Green's cows. She gave them a quart of milk daily for driving the cows to and from the pasture, and doing odd chores.
"If you see the children, send them home," had been Hal's parting injunction. "Grandmother will soon be here."
She came before Joe returned. The oddest looking little old woman that you ever saw. Florence, at fourteen, was half a head taller. Thin and wrinkled and sunburned; her flaxen hair turning to silver, and yet obstinately full of little curls; her blue eyes pale and washed out, and hosts of "crows'-feet" at the corners; and her voice cracked and tremulous.
Poor Grandmother Kenneth! She had worked hard enough in her day, and was still forced to keep it up, now that it was growing twilight with her. But I don't believe there was another as merry a houseful of children in all Madison.
Joe's discovery was not far out of the way. The old woman, whose biography and family troubles were so graphically given by Mother Goose, died long before our childhood; but I think Granny Kenneth must have looked like her, though I fancy she was better natured. As for the children, many and many a time she had not known what to do with them,—when they were hungry, when they were bad, when their clothes were worn out and she had nothing to make new ones with, when they had no shoes; and yet she loved the whole six, and toiled for them without a word of complaint.
Her only son, Joe, had left them to her,—a troublesome legacy indeed; but at that time they had a mother and a very small sum of money. Mrs. Joe was a pretty, helpless, inefficient body, who continually fretted because Joe did not get rich. When the poor fellow lay on his death-bed, his disease aggravated by working when he was not able, he twined his arms around his mother's neck, and cried with a great gasp,—
"You'll be kind to them, mother, and look after them a little. God will help you, I know. I should like to live for their sakes."
A month or two after this, Dot was born. Now that her dear Joe was dead, there was no comfort in the world; so the frail, pretty little thing grieved herself away, and went to sleep beside him in the churchyard.
The neighbors made a great outcry when Grandmother Kenneth took the children to her own little cottage.
"What could she do with them? Why, they will all starve in a bunch," said one.
"Florence and Joe might be bound out," proposed another.
A third was for sending them to the almshouse, or putting them in some orphan asylum; but five years had come and gone, and they had not starved yet, though once or twice granny's heart had quaked for fear.
Every one thought it would be such a blessing if Dot would only die. She had been a sight of trouble during the five years of her life. First, she had the whooping cough, which lasted three times as long as with any ordinary child. Then she fell out of the window, and broke her collar-bone; and when she was just over that, it was the water-pox. The others had the mumps, and Dot's share was the worst of all. Kit had the measles in the lightest possible form, and actually had to be tied in bed to make him stay there; while it nearly killed poor Dot, who had been suffering from March to midsummer, and was still poor as a crow, and cross as a whole string of comparisons.
But Granny was patient with it all. The very sweetest old woman in the world, and the children loved her in their fashion; but they seldom realized all that she was doing for them. And though some of her neighbors appreciated the toil and sacrifice, the greater part of them thought it very foolish for her to be slaving herself to death for a host of beggarly grandchildren.
"Well, Hal!" she exclaimed in her rather shrill but cheery voice, "how's the day gone?"
"Pretty well: but you're tired to death. I suppose Mrs. Kinsey's company came, and there was a grand feast?"
"Grand! I guess it was. Such loads of pies and puddings and kettles of berries and tubs of cream"—
Granny paused, out of breath from not having put in any commas.
"Ice-cream, you mean? Freezers, they call 'em."
"You do know every thing, Hal!" And granny laughed. "I can't get all the new-fangled names and notions in my head. There was Grandmother Kinsey, neat as a new pin, and children and grandchildren, and aunts and cousins. But it was nice, Hal."
The boy smiled, thinking of them all.
"Half of the goodies'll spile, I know. Mrs. Kinsey packed me a great basket full; and, Hal, here's two dollars. I'm clean tuckered out."
"Then you just sit still, and let me 'tend to you. Dot's asleep; and if I haven't worried with her this afternoon! That child ought to grow up a wonder, she's been so much trouble to us all. Joe's gone after the cows, and Florence is busy as a bee. Oh, what a splendid basket full! Why, we shall feast like kings!"
With that Hal began to unpack,—a plate full of cut cake, biscuits by the dozen, cold chicken, delicious slices of ham, and various other delicacies.
"We'll only have a few to-night," said Hal economically. "'Tisn't every day that we have such a windfall. I'll put these out of the children's sight; for there they come."
The "children" were Charlie and Kit, with barely a year between; Kit being seven, and Charlie—her real name was Charlotte, but she was such a tomboy that they gave her the nickname—was about eight. Hal was ten, and Joe twelve.
"Children," said Hal, "don't come in till you've washed yourselves. Be quiet, for Dot is asleep."
Thus admonished, Charlie did nothing worse than pour a basin of water over Kit, who sputtered and scolded and kicked until Hal rushed out to settle them.
"If you're not quiet, you shall not have a mouthful of supper; and we've lots of goodies."
Kit began to wash the variegated streaks from his face. Charlie soused her head in a pail of water, and shook it like a dog, then ran her fingers through her hair. It was not as light or silken as that of Florence, and was cropped close to her head. Kit's was almost as black as a coal; and one refractory lock stood up. Joe called it his "scalp-lock waving in the breeze."
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