Just Sixteen Part 17

The balsam firs of the hill grove could have told tales in those days.

They were Brie's sole confidants. The consolation they gave, the counsel they communicated, were mute, indeed, but none the less real to the anxious girl who sat beneath them, or laid her cheek on their rough stems. June pa.s.sed, and with early July came the answer to Brie's many prayers. It came, as answers to prayer often do, in a shape of which she had never dreamed.

Miss Mary Morgan, teacher in grammar school No. 3, Ward Nineteen, of the good city of Boston, came, tired out from her winter's work, to spend a few days with Farmer Allen's wife, her second cousin, stopped one day at the Dorset's door, while driving, to ask for a drink of water, took a fancy to the old house and to Brie, and next day came over to propose herself as a boarder for three months.

"I can only afford to pay seven dollars a week," she said; "but, on the other hand, I will try not to make much trouble, if you will take me."

"Seven dollars a week; only think!" cried Brie, gleefully, to her mother after the bargain was completed, and Miss Morgan gone. "Doesn't it seem like a fortune? It'll pay Reuben's wages, and leave ever so much over!

And she doesn't eat much meat, she says, and she likes baked potatoes and cream and sweet baked apples better than anything. And there's the keeping-room chamber all cleaned and ready. Doesn't it seem as if she was sent to us, mother?"

"Your poor father never felt like keepin' boarders," said Mrs. Dorset.

"I used to kind of fancy the idea of it, but he wasn't willin'. I thought it would be company to have one in the house, if they was nice folks. It does seem as if this was the Lord's will for us; her coming in so unexpected, and all."

Two days later Miss Morgan, with a hammock and a folding canvas chair and a trunk full of light reading, arrived, and took possession of her new quarters. For the first week or two she did little but rest, sleeping for hours at a time in the hammock swung beneath the shadowing elms. Then, as the color came back to her thin face and the light to her eyes, she began to walk a little, to sit with Brie in the fir grove, or read aloud to her on the doorstep while she mended, sh.e.l.led peas, or picked over berries; and all life seemed to grow easier and pleasanter for the dwellers in the solitary farmhouse. The guest gave little trouble, she paid her weekly due punctually, and the steady income, small as it was, made all the difference in the world to Brie.

As the summer went by, and she grew at home with her new friend, she found much relief in confiding to her the perplexities of her position.

"I see," Miss Morgan said; "it is the winter that is the puzzle. I will engage to come back next summer as I have this, and that will help along; but the time between now and then is the difficulty."

"Yes," replied Brie; "the winter is the puzzle, and Reuben's money. We have plenty of potatoes and corn and vegetables to take us through, and there's the pig to kill, and the chickens will lay some; if only there were any way in which I could make enough for Reuben's wages, we could manage."

"I must think it over," said Miss Morgan.

She pulled a long branch of the balsam fir nearer as she spoke, and buried her nose in it. It was the first week of September, and she and Brie were sitting in the hill grove.

"I love this smell so," she said. "It is delicious. It makes me dream."

Brie broke off a bough.

"I shall hang it over your bed," she said, "and you will smell it all night."

So the fir bough hung upon the wall till it gradually yellowed, and the needles began to drop.

"Why, they are as sweet as ever,--sweeter," declared Brie, smelling a handful which she had swept from the floor. Then an idea came into her head.

She gathered a great f.a.got of the branches, and laid them to dry in the sun on the floor of a little-used piazza. When partly dried, she stripped off the needles, stuffed with them a square cotton bag, and made for that a cover of soft sage-green silk, with an odd shot pattern over it. It was a piece of what had been her great-grandmother's wedding gown.

_Voila!_ Do you realize the situation, reader? Brie had made the first of all the many balsam pillows. It was meant for a good-by gift to Miss Morgan.

"Your cus.h.i.+on is the joy of my life," wrote that lady to her a month after she went home. "Every one who sees it, falls in love with it. Half a dozen people have asked me how they could get one like it. And, Brie, this has given me an idea. Why should you not make them for sale? I will send you up some pretty silk for the covers, and you might cross-st.i.tch a little motto if you liked. I copy some for you. Two people have given me an order already. They will pay four dollars apiece if you like to try."

This suggestion was the small wedge of the new industry. Brie lost no time in making the two pillows, grandmother's gown fortunately holding out for their covers. Then came some pretty red silk from Miss Morgan, with yellow _filoselle_ for the mottoes, and more orders. Brie worked busily that winter, for her balsam pillows had to be made in spare moments when other work permitted. The grove on the hill was her unfailing treasury of supply. The thick-set twigs bent them to her will; the upper branches seemed to her to rustle as with satisfaction at the aid they were giving. In the spring the old trees renewed their foliage with vigorous purpose, as if resolved not to balk her in her purpose.

The fir grove paid Reuben's wages that winter. Miss Morgan came back the following June, and by that time balsam pillows were established as articles of commerce, and Brie had a munificent offer from a recently established Decorative Art Society for a supply of the needles, at three dollars the pound. It was hard, dirty work to prepare such a quant.i.ty, but she did not mind that.

As I said, this was some years since. Brie no longer lives in her old home. Her mother died the third year after Miss Morgan came to them, the farm is sold, and Brie married. She lives now on a ranch in Colorado, but she has never forgotten the fir-grove, and the memory of it is a help often in the desponding moments that come at times to all lives.

"I could not be worse off than I was then," she says to herself. "There seemed no help or hope anywhere. I felt as if G.o.d didn't care and didn't hear my prayers; and yet, all the time, there was dear Miss Morgan coming to help us, and there were the trees, great beautiful things, nodding their heads, and trying to show me what could be made out of them. No, I never will be faithless again, nor let myself doubt, however dark things may look, but remember my balsam pillows, and trust in G.o.d."

COLONEL WHEELER.

Colonel Wheeler, as any one might see at a glance, had been a gallant officer in his day. It was true that he no longer had anything to do with military movements, but his very face suggested a martial past. So did his figure, which, though thin to an almost incredible degree, was unmistakably that of a military man, and also his dress, for the colonel invariably appeared in full uniform, with a scarlet, gold-laced coat, epaulettes, and a c.o.c.ked hat and feathers, seldom removed even at meal-times. His moustache waved fiercely half-way across his cheeks, his eyes were piercing, and his eyebrows black and frowning; in short, it would be difficult to imagine a more warlike appearance than he presented on the most peaceful occasions.

Like all truly brave men, Colonel Wheeler was as gentle as he was valiant, and nothing pleased him better in the piping times of peace than to be detailed on escort duty, and made of use to the ladies of his acquaintance. So it came to pa.s.s that again and again he was asked to take charge of large family parties on long journeys. You might see him starting off with a wife or two, half a dozen sisters-in-law, and from eight to fourteen children, all of them belonging to somebody else; not one of them being kith or kin to the gallant colonel. They made really a formidable a.s.semblage when collected, and it took the longest legal envelope which Liz--

There! I have let out the secret. Colonel Wheeler was a paper doll, and these ladies and children who travelled about with him were paper dolls also. They belonged to Lizzie Bruce and her cousin Ernestine, who between them owned several whole families of such. These families were all large. None of the mamma dolls had less than twelve children, and some of them had as many as twenty. Lizzie and Ernestine despised people not made of paper, who had only two or three little boys and girls. In fact, Lizzie was once heard to say of some neighbors with eleven children, "They are the only really satisfactory people I ever knew,--just as good as paper dolls;" and this was meant as the highest possible compliment.

Lizzie lived in Annapolis, Md., and Ernestine in Hingham, Ma.s.s., so, as you will see, there was a long distance between their homes. It took a day and a half to make the journey, and the little cousins did not visit each other more than once or twice a year. But the dolls went much oftener. _They_ travelled by mail, in one of those long yellow envelopes which lawyers use to put papers in, and Colonel Wheeler always went in the same envelope to take care of them. When they came back from these trips, Lizzie or Ernestine, whichever it chanced to be, would unpack them, and exclaim delightedly, "How well the dear things look! So much better for the change! See, mamma, how round and pink their faces have grown!"

"I wouldn't advise you to depend so much on Colonel Wheeler," Lizzie's mother would sometimes say. "These military men are rather uncertain characters. I wouldn't send off all the dolls at once with him, if I were you. And really, Lizzie, such constant journeys are very expensive.

There is never a stamp in my desk when I want one in a hurry."

"But, mamma, the children really _had_ to have a change," Lizzie would protest, with tears in her eyes. "And as for the colonel, he is such a good man, truly, mamma! He would never steal anybody else's family! He takes beau-tiful care of the dolls, always."

"Very well, we shall see," answered mamma, with a teazing smile. But she saw that Lizzie was in earnest, so she did not say anything more to trouble her, and the very next day contributed seven postage-stamps to pay for the transportation of a large party which Lizzie wanted to send on to Hingham for a Christmas visit.

This party included, besides Colonel Wheeler, who as usual acted as escort, Mrs. Allen, the wife of Captain Allen, her fourteen children, her sister-in-law Miss Allen, her own sister Pauline Gray,--so called because her only dress happened to be made of gray and blue tissue-paper,--and Mrs. Adipose and her little girl. Mrs. Adipose, whose name had been suggested by papa, was the fattest of all the dolls. Her daughter was fat, too, and Ernestine had increased this effect by making her a jacket so much too large for her that it could only be kept on with a dab of glue. Captain Allen was a creature who had no real existence. Lizzie meant to make a doll to represent him some day.

Meanwhile, he was kept persistently "at the front," wherever that might be, and Mrs. Allen travelled about as freely as if she had no husband at all. This Lizzie and Ernestine considered an admirable arrangement; for, as Captain Allen never came home and never wrote, he was as little of an inconvenience to his family as any gentleman can ever hope to be.

Well, this large and mixed company started off gayly in the mail-bag, and in due time Lizzie heard of their safe arrival, that they were all well, and that the baby "already looked better for the change." About three weeks later another letter came, and she opened it without the least qualm of anxiety, or any suspicion of the dreadful news it was to bring. It ran thus:--

DEAR LIZ,--Mrs. Adipose grew a little home-sick. She began to worry about Mr. Adipose. She was afraid he would have trouble with the servants, or else try to clean house while she was away, and make an awful mess all over everything. You never could tell what men would do when they were left alone, she said. So, as I saw she wasn't enjoying herself any more, and as the baby and little Ellen seemed to have got as much good out of the visit as they were likely to get, I sent them back last week Friday, and hope you got them safely.

Lizzie dropped the letter with a scream of dismay. This was Sat.u.r.day.

Last week Friday was more than a week ago. Where, oh, where were the precious dolls?

She flew with her tragic tale to mamma, who, for all she was very sorry, could not help laughing.

"You know I warned you against trusting too much to Colonel Wheeler,"

she said.

"Oh, mamma, it isn't his fault, I am sure it isn't," pleaded Lizzie. "I have perfect confidence in him. Think how often he has gone to Hingham, and never once didn't come back! He _would_ have fetched them safely if he hadn't been interfered with, I know he would! No, something dreadful has happened,--it's that horrid post-office!" and she wrung her hands.

Mamma was very sorry for Lizzie. Papa wrote to the postmaster, and Ernestine's papa inquired at the Hingham post-office, and there was quite a stir over the lost travellers.

Time went on. A month, six weeks, two months pa.s.sed, and no tidings came, and Mr. Adipose still sat in the lonely baby-house, watching the cook brandis.h.i.+ng a paper saucepan--always the same saucepan--over the toy stove, and Bridget, the "housemaid," forever dusting the same table-top, and never getting any farther on with her work. Mamma proposed that Lizzie should make some new dolls to take the place of the lost ones, and offered help and the use of her mucilage bottle; but Lizzie shook her head sorrowfully.

"I can't help feeling as if the Allens may come back some day," she said. "Colonel Wheeler is such a good traveller; and what would they think if there was a strange family in their rooms? Besides, it's almost as much fun to play without them, because there is Mr. Adipose, a widower, you know, which is very interesting, and the two pairs of twins, which Mrs. Allen forgot to take. Besides, I can always make believe that they are coming to-morrow."

The very next morning after this conversation, as mamma sat writing in her room upstairs, she heard a wild shriek at the front door. The postman had rapped a moment before, and Lizzie had rushed down to meet him, as she had each day since the dolls were lost. The shriek was so loud and sudden that Mrs. Bruce jumped up; but before she could get to the door in flew Lizzie, holding in her hand a wild huddle of battered blue envelopes with "Dead Letter Office" stamped on their corners, and a ma.s.s of pink and gray and green gowns and funny tumbled capes and hats.

It was the doll party, returned at last!

"Mamma, mamma," she cried, "what did I tell you? Colonel Wheeler didn't run away with them; he has brought them all home."

There they were indeed; Mrs. Adipose as fat as ever, Mrs. Allen, and all her children, the sister, the sister-in-law, and Colonel Wheeler, erect and dignified as usual, in spite of a green crease across both his legs, and a morsel of postage-stamp in his eye, and wearing an air of conscious merit, which the occasion fully warranted. As Lizzie rapturously embraced him, she cried: "Dear old Colonel, n.o.body believed in you but me, not even mamma! I knew you hadn't run away with nineteen people. Mamma laughed at me, but she doesn't know you as well as I do.

n.o.body shall ever laugh at you again."