Just Sixteen Part 21

"I 'ant to," was all Marianne's explanation.

"Well, don't cry. Now you've come, you can play," remarked Lois; and Marianne was consoled.

They began to try the windows in turn, and at last found one in a wood-shed which was unfastened. Kitty scrambled in, and admitted the others, first into the wood-shed and then into a very dusty kitchen. The cellar stairs opened from this. They all ran down, but--oh, disappointment!--the jewel-mine proved to be only the half of a broken teacup with a pattern on it in gold and lilac. This was a terrible come-down from a pirate treasure.

"Pshaw!" said Kitty. "Only an old piece of crockery. I don't think it's fair to cheat like that."

Little Marianne had been afraid to venture down into the cellar, and now stayed at the top waiting for them.

"Let's run away from her," suggested Kitty, who was cross after her disappointment.

So they all hopped over Marianne, and, deaf to her cries, ran upstairs to the second story as fast as they could go. There were four bare, dusty chambers, all unfurnished.

"There she comes," cried Kitty, as Marianne was heard climbing the stairs. "Where shall we hide from her? Oh, here's a place!"

She had spied a closet door, fastened with a large old-fas.h.i.+oned iron latch. She flew across the room. It was a narrow closet, with a shelf across the top of it.

"Hurry, hurry!" called Kitty. The others made haste. They squeezed themselves into the closet, and banged the door to behind them. Not till it was firmly fastened did they notice that there was no latch inside, or handle of any sort, and that they had shut themselves in, and had no possible way of getting out again.

Their desire to escape from Marianne changed at once into dismay. They kicked and pounded, but the stout old-fas.h.i.+oned door did not yield.

Marianne could be heard crying without. There was a round hole in the door just above the latch. Putting her eye to this, Lois could see the poor little thing, doll in arms, standing in the middle of the floor, uncertain what to do.

"Marianne!" she called, "here we are, in the closet. Come and let us out, that's a good baby. Put your little hand up and push the latch. You can, if you will only try."

"I'll show you how," added Kitty, taking her turn at the peep-hole.

"See, come close to the door, and Kitty will tell you what to do."

But these mysterious voices speaking out of the unseen frightened Marianne too much to allow of her doing anything helpful.

"I tan't! I tan't!" she wailed, not venturing near the door.

"Oh, do try, please do!" pleaded Lois. "I'll give you my china doll if you will, Marianne."

"And I'll give you my doll's bedstead," added Emmy. "You'd like that, I know. Dear little Marianne, do try to let us out. Please do. We're so tired of this old closet."

But still Marianne repeated, "Tan't, tan't." And at last she sat down on the floor and wept. The imprisoned children wept with her.

"I've thought of a plan," said Emmy at last. "If you'll break one of the teeth out of your sh.e.l.l comb, Lois, I think I can push it through the hole and raise the latch up."

Alas! the hole was above the latch, not below it. Half the teeth were broken out of Lois's comb in their attempt, and with no result except that they fell through the hole to the floor outside. At intervals they renewed their banging and pounding on the door, but it only tired them out, and did no good.

It was a very warm afternoon, and, as time went on, the closet became unendurably hot. Emmy sank down exhausted on the floor, and she and Kitty began to sob wildly. Lois alone kept her calmness. Little Marianne had grown wonderfully quiet. Peeping through the hole, Lois saw that she had gone to sleep on the floor.

"Don't cry so, Kitty," she said. "It's no use. We were naughty to come here. I suppose we've got to die in this closet, and it is my fault. We shall starve to death pretty soon, and no one will know what has become of us till somebody takes the house; and when they come to clean it and they open the closet door, they will find our bones."

Kitty screamed louder than ever at this terrible picture.

"Oh, hus.h.!.+" said her cousin. "The only thing we can do now is to pray.

G.o.d is the only person that can help us. Mamma says he is close to every person who prays. He can hear us if we are in the closet."

Then Lois made this little prayer:--

"Our Father who art in heaven. We have been naughty, and came down here when mamma didn't give us leave to come; but please forgive us. We won't disobey again, if only Thou wilt. We make a promise. Help us. Show us the way to get out of this closet. Don't let us die here, with no one to know where we are. We ask it for Jesus Christ's sake. Forever and forever. Amen."

It was a droll little prayer, but Lois put all her heart into it. A human listener might have smiled at the odd turn of the phrases; but G.o.d knew what she meant, and he never turns away from real prayer. He answered Lois.

How did he answer her? Did he send a strong angel to lift up the latch of the door? He might have done that, you know, as he did for Peter in prison. But that was not the way he chose in this instance. What he did was to put a thought into Lois's mind.

She stood silent for a while after she had finished praying.

"Children," she said, "I have thought of something. Kitty, you are the lightest. Do you think Emmy and I could push you up on to the shelf?"

It was not an easy thing to do, for the place was narrow; but at last, with Lois and Emmy "boosting," and Kitty scrambling, it was accomplished.

"Now, Kitty, put your back against the wall," said Lois, "and when I say 'One, two, three,' push the door with your feet as hard as you can, while we push below."

Kitty braced herself, and at the word "three," they all exerted their utmost strength. One second more, and--oh, joy!--the latch gave way, and the door flew open. Kitty tumbled from the shelf, the others fell forward on the floor,--they were out! Lois had b.u.mped her head, and Emmy's shoulder was bruised; but what was that? They were free.

"Let us run, run!" cried Lois, catching Marianne up in her arms. "I never want to see this horrible house again."

So they ran downstairs, and out through the wood-shed into the open air.

Oh, how sweet the suns.h.i.+ne looked, and the wind felt, after their fear and danger!

Their mother taught them a little verse next morning, after they had told her all about their adventure and made confession of their fault; and Lois said it to herself every day all her life afterward. This is it:--

"G.o.d is never far away; G.o.d is listening all the day.

When we tremble, when we fear, The dear Lord is quick to hear,-- Quick to hear, and quick to save, Quick to grant each prayer we make, For the precious Gift he gave, For his Son our Saviour's sake."

"I love that hymn," Lois used to say; "and I know it's true, because G.o.d heard us just as well in that little bit of a closet as if we had been in church!"

A CHILD OF THE SEA FOLK.

The great storm of 1430 had done its worst. For days the tempest had raged on land and sea, and when at last the sun struggled through the clouds, broken now and flying in angry ma.s.ses before the strong sea wind, his beams revealed a scene of desolation.

All along the coast of Friesland the dikes were down, and the salt water was.h.i.+ng over what but a few days before had been vegetable-gardens and fertile fields. The farm-houses on the higher ground stood each on its own little island as it were, with shallow waves breaking against the walls of barns and stoned sheepfolds lower down on the slopes. Already busy hands were at work repairing the d.y.k.es. Men in boats were wading up to their knees in mud and water, men, swimming their horses across the deeper pools, were carrying materials and urging on the work, but many days must pa.s.s before the damage could be made good; and meanwhile, how were people to manage for food and firing, with the peat-stacks under water, and the cabbages and potatoes spoiled by the wet?

"There is just this one thing," said Metje Huyt to her sister Jacqueline. "Little Karen shall have her cup of warm milk to-night if everybody else goes without supper; on that I am determined."

"That will be good, but how canst thou manage it?" asked Jacqueline, a gentle, placid girl of sixteen, with a rosy face and a plait of thick, fair hair hanging down to her waist. Metje was a year younger, but she ruled her elder sister with a rod of iron by virtue of her superior activity and vivacity of mind.

"I shall manage it in this way,--I shall milk the Electoral Princess."

"But she is drowned," objected Jacqueline, opening wide a pair of surprised blue eyes.