Hildegarde's Holiday Part 9

Well, that was a queer beginnin', you see, Dolly, and didn't help me much. But I managed to say, "My dog come in, and I followed him--to see what he was barkin' at."

"He was barkin' at me," said the woman. "Bow down before me, slave! I am the Queen!"

And she made a sign with her hand, so commandin'-like that I made a bow, the best way I could. But, of course, I saw then that the poor creature was out of her mind, and I thought 't would be best to humor her, seein'

as I had come in without an invitation, as you may say.

"Do you--do you live here, ma'am?" I asked, very polite.

"Your Majesty!" says she, holdin' up her head, and lookin' at me as if I was dirt under her feet.

"Do you live here, your Majesty?" I asked again.

"I am stayin' here," she said. "I am waitin'

for the King, who is comin' for me soon. You did not meet him, slave, on your way hither?"

"What king was your Majesty meanin'?" says I.

"King Solomon, of course!" said she. "For what lesser king should the Queen of Sheba wait?"

"To be sure!" says I. "No, ma'am,--your Majesty, I mean,--I didn't meet King Solomon. I should think you might find a more likely place to wait for him in than this cave. A king wouldn't be very likely to find his way in here, would he?"

She looked round with a proud kind o' look.

"The chamber is small," she said, "but richly furnished,--richly furnished. You may observe, slave, that the walls are lined with virgin gold."

She waved her hand, and I looked round too at the yellow clay walls and ceilin'. You never could think of such a place, Dolly, unless you'd ha' seen it. However that poor creature had fixed it up so, no mortal will ever know, I expect. There was a fireplace in one corner, and a hole in the roof over it. I found out arterwards that the smoke went out through a hollow tree that grew right over the cave.

There was a fryin'-pan, and some meal in a kind o' bucket made o' birch-bark, some roots, and a few apples. All round the sides she'd stuck alder-berries and flowers and pine-ta.s.sels, and I don't know what not. There was nothin' like a cheer or table, nothin' but the heap o' skins she was settin' on,--that was bed and sofy and everything else for her, I reckon.

And she herself--oh, dear! it makes me want to laugh and cry, both together, to think _how_ that unfortinit creature was rigged up. She had a sheepskin over her shoulders, tied round her neck, with the wool outside. On her head was a crown o' birch-bark, cut into p'ints like the crowns in pictures, and stained yeller with the yeller clay,--I suppose she thought it was gold,--and her long black hair was stuck full o' berries and leaves and things. Under the sheepskin she had just nothin' but rags,--such rags as you never seed in all your days, Dolly, your mother bein' the tidy body she is. And moccasins on her feet,--no stockin's; that finished her Majesty's dress. Well, poor soul!

and she as proud and contented as you please, fancyin' herself all gold and di'monds.

I made up my mind pretty quick what was the right thing for me to do; and I said, as soothin' as I could,--

"Your Majesty, I don't reelly advise you to wait here no longer for King Solomon. I never seed no kings round these woods,--it's out o'

the line o' kings, as you may say,--and I don't think he'd be likely to find you out, even if he should stroll down to take a look at the falls, same as I did. Haven't you no other--palace, that's a little more on the travelled road, where he'd be likely to pa.s.s?"

"No," she said, kind o' mournful, and shakin'

her head,--"no, slave. I had once, but it was taken from me."

"If you don't mind my bein' so bold," I said, "where was you stayin' before you come here?"

"With devils!" she said, so fierce and sudden that Bluff and I both jumped. "Speak not of them, lest my wrath descend upon you."

This wasn't very encouragin'; but I wasn't a bit frightened, and I set to work again, talkin' and arguin', and kind o' hintin' that there'd been some kings seen round the place where I lived. That weren't true, o' course, and I knew I was wrong, Dolly, to mislead the poor creature, even if 't was for her good; but I quieted my conscience by thinkin' that 't was true in one way, for Hezekiah King and his nine children lived not more 'n a mile from my house.

Well, to make a long story short, I e'en persuaded the Queen o' Sheba to come home with me, and stay at my house till King Solomon turned up. She didn't much relish the idee of staying with a slave,--as she would have it I was,--but I told her I didn't work for no one but myself, and I wasn't no common kind o'

slave at all; so at last she give in, poor soul, and followed me as meek as a lamb through the hole, draggin' her big moose-skin--which was her coronation-robe, she said, and she couldn't leave it behind--after her, and Bluff growlin' at her heels like all possessed.

Well, I got her home, and gave her some supper, and set her in a cheer; and you never in all your life see any one so pleased. She looked, and looked, and you'd ha' thought this kitchen was Marble Halls like them in the song. It _did_ look cheerful and pleasant, but much the same as it does now, after sixty years, little Dolly. And if you'll believe it, it's this very arm-cheer as I'm sittin' in now, that the Queen o' Sheba sot in. It had a flowered chintz cover then, new and bright. Well, she sat back at last, and drew a long breath.

"You have done well, faithful slave!" she said.

"This is my own palace that you have brought me to. I know it well,--well; and this is my throne, from which I shall judge the people till the King comes."

This is what the boys would call "rather cool;"

but I only said, "Yes, your Majesty, you shall judge every one there is to judge,"--which was me and Bluff, and Crummy the cow, and ten fowls, and the pig. She was just as pleasant and condescendin' as could be all the evenin', and when I put her to bed in the fourposter in the spare room, she praised me again, and said that when the King came she would give me a carcanet of rubies, whatever that is.

Just as soon as she was asleep, the first thing that I did was to open the stove and put her rags in, piece by piece, till they was all burnt up. The moose-skin, which was a good one, I hung out on the line to air. Then I brought out some clothes of Mother's that I'd kep' laid away,--a good calico dress and some underclothing, all nice and fresh,--and laid them over the back of a cheer by her bed. It seemed kind o' strange to go to bed with a ravin' lunatic, as you may say, in the next room; but I knew I was doin' right, and that was all there was to it. The Lord would see to the rest, I thought.

Next mornin' I was up bright and early, and soon as I'd made the fire and tidied up and got breakfast under way, I went in to see how her Majesty was. She was wide awake, sittin' up in bed, and lookin' round her as wild as a hawk.

Seemed as if she was just goin' to spring out o' bed; but when she saw me, she quieted down, and when I spoke easy and soothin' like, and asked her how she'd slept, she answered pleasant enough.

"But where are my robes?" said she, pointin' to the clothes I'd laid out. "Those are not my robes."

"They's new robes," I said, quite bold. "The old ones had to be taken away, your Majesty.

They weren't fit for you to wear, really,--all but the coronation robe; and that's hangin' on the line, to--to take the wrinkles out."

Well, I had a hard fight over the clothes; she couldn't make up her mind nohow to put 'em on.

But at last I had an idee. "Don't you know," I said, "the Bible says 'The King's Daughter is all radiant within, in raiment of wrought needlework'? Well, this is wrought needlework, every bit of it."

I showed her the seams and the st.i.tches; and, my dear, she put it on without another word, and was as pleased as Punch when she was dressed up all neat and clean. Then I brushed her hair out,--lovely hair it was, comin' down below her knees, and thick enough for a cloak, but matted and tangled so 't was a sight to behold,--and braided it, and put it up on top of her head like a sort o' crown, and I tell you she looked like a queen, if ever anybody did. She fretted a little for her birch-bark crown, but I told her how Scripture said a woman's glory was her hair, and that quieted her at once. Poor soul! she was real good and pious, and she'd listen to Scripture readin' by the hour; but I allus had to wind up with somethin' about King Solomon.

Well, Dolly, the Queen o' Sheba stayed with me (I must make my story short, Honey, for your ma'll be comin' for ye soon now) three years; and I will say that they was happy years for both of us. Not yourself could be more biddable than that poor crazy Queen was, once she got wonted to me and the place. At first she was inclined to wander off, a-lookin' for the King; but bimeby she got into the way of occupyin'

herself, spinnin'--she was a beautiful spinner, and when I told her 't was Scriptural, I could hardly get her away from the wheel--and trimmin' the house up with flowers, and playin'

with Bluff, for all the world like a child. And in the evenin's,--well, there! she'd sit on her throne and tell stories about her kingdom, and her gold and spices, and myrrh and frankincense and things, and all the great things she was goin' to do for her faithful slave,--that was me, ye know; she never would call me anything else,--till it all seemed just as good as true.

_'T was_ true to her; and if 't had been really true for me, I shouldn't ha' been half so well off as in my own sp'ere; so 't was all right.

My dear, my poor Queen might have been with me to this day, if it hadn't been for the meddlesomeness of men. I've heerd talk o' women meddling, and very likely they may, when they live along o' men; but it don't begin with women, nor yet end with 'em. One day I'd been out 'tendin' to the cow, and as I was comin'

back I heerd screams and shrieks, and a man's voice talkin' loud. You may believe I run, Dolly, as fast as run I could; and when I came to the kitchen there was Hezekiah King and a strange man standin' and talkin' to the Queen.

She was all in a heap behind the big chair, poor soul, tremblin' like a leaf, and her eyes glarin' like they did the fust time I see her; and she didn't say a word, only scream, like a panther in a trap, every minute or two.

I steps before her, and "What's this?" says I, short enough.

"Mornin', Ca-iry," says Hezekiah, smilin' his greasy smile, that allus _did_ make me want to slap his face. "This is Mr. Clamp, from Coptown. Make ye acquainted with Miss Ca-iry Pennypacker, Mr. Clamp. I met up with Mr. Clamp yesterday, Ca-iry, and I was tellin' him about this demented creatur as you've been shelterin'

at your own expense the last three years, as the hull neighborhood says it's a shame. And lo! how myster'ous is the ways o' Providence!

Mr. Clamp is sup'n'tendent o' the Poor Farm down to Coptown, and he says this woman is a crazy pauper as he has had in keer for six year, ever since she lost her wits along o' her husband bein' drownded. She run away three year ago last spring, and he ain't heard nothin' of her till yisterday, when he just chanced to meet up with me. So now he's come as in dooty bound, she belongin' to the deestrick o'

Coptown, to take her off your hands, and thank ye for--"

He hadn't no time to say more. I took him by the shoulders,--I was mortal strong in those days, Dolly; there wasn't a man within ten miles but I could ha' licked him if he'd been wuth it,--and shot him out o' the door like a sack o' flour. Then I took the other man, who was standin' with his mouth open, for all the world like a codfish, and shot him out arter him. He tumbled against Hezekiah, and they both went down together, and sat there and looked at me with their mouths open.

"You go home," says I, "and take care o'

yourselves, if you know how. When I want you or the like o' you, I'll send for you. _Scat!_"

And I shut the door and bolted it, b'ilin' with rage, and came back to my poor Queen.

She was down on the floor, all huddled up in a corner, moanin' and moanin', like a dumb beast that has a death wound. I lifted her up, and tried to soothe and quiet her,--she was tremblin' all over,--but 't was hard work. Not a word could I get out of her but "Devil!

Devil!" and then "Solomon!" over and over again. I brought the Bible, and read her about the Temple, and the knops and the flowers, and the purple, and the gold dishes, till she was quiet again; and then I put her to bed, poor soul! though 't was only six o'clock, and sat and sang "Jerusalem the Golden" till she dropped off to sleep. I was b'ilin' mad still, and besides I was afraid she'd have a fit o'

sickness, or turn ravin', after the fright, so I didn't sleep much myself that night. Towards mornin', however, I dropped off, and must have slept sound; for when I woke it was seven o'clock, the sun was up high, the door was swingin' open, and the Queen o' Sheba was gone.

Don't ask me, little Dolly, how I felt, when I found that poor creature was nowhere on the place. I knew where to go, though. Something told me, plain as words; and Bluff and I, we made a bee-line for the Rollin' Dam woods. The dog found her first. She had tried to get into her hole, but the earth had caved in over it; so she had laid down beside it, on the damp ground, in her nightgown. Oh, dear! oh, dear!

How long she'd been there, n.o.body will ever know. She was in a kind o' swoon, and I had to carry her most o' the way, however I managed to do it; but I was mortal strong in those days, and she was slight and light, for all her bein'

tall. When I got her home and laid her in her bed, I knowed she'd never leave it; and sure enough, before night she was in a ragin' fever.