Child Life in Prose Part 24

This was the hardest task of all. For she had been willing to be good, not because it was right to be good, but because she wished to be beautiful. Three times she sought the grotto, and three times she left in tears; for the golden specks grew dim at her approach, and the golden wands were still crossed, to shut her from the Immortal Fountain. The fourth time she prevailed. The purple Fairies lowered their wands, singing,--

Thou hast scaled the mountain, Go, bathe in the Fountain; Rise fair to the sight As an angel of light; Go, bathe in the Fountain!

Marion was about to plunge in, but the queen touched her, saying, "Look in the mirror of the waters. Art thou not already as beautiful as heart can wish?"

Marion looked at herself, and saw that her eye sparkled with new l.u.s.tre, that a bright color shone through her cheeks, and dimples played sweetly about her mouth. "I have not touched the Immortal Fountain," said she, turning in surprise to the queen. "True," replied the queen, "but its waters have been within your soul. Know that a pure heart and a clear conscience are the only immortal fountains of beauty."

When Marion returned, Rose clasped her to her bosom, and kissed her fervently. "I know all," said she, "though I have not asked you a question. I have been in Fairy Land, disguised as a bird, and I have watched all your steps. When you first went to the grotto, I begged the queen to grant your wish."

Ever after that the sisters lived lovingly together. It was the remark of every one, "How handsome Marion has grown! The ugly scowl has departed from her face; and the light of her eye is so mild and pleasant, and her mouth looks so smiling and good-natured, that to my taste, I declare, she is as handsome as Rose."

_L. Maria Child._

THE BIRD'S-NEST IN THE MOON.

I love to go to the Moon. I never shake off sublunary cares and sorrows so completely as when I am fairly landed on that beautiful island.[A] A man in the Moon may see Castle Island, the city of Boston, the ships in the harbor, the silver waters of our little archipelago, all lying, as it were, at his feet. There you may be at once social and solitary,--social, because you see the busy world before you; and solitary because there is not a single creature on the island, except a few feeding cows, to disturb your repose.

[A] Moon Island, in Boston harbor.

I was there last summer, and was surveying the scene with my usual emotions, when my attention was attracted by the whirring wings of a little sparrow, that, in walking, I had frightened from her nest.

This bird, as is well known, always builds its nest on the ground. I have seen one, often, in the middle of a cornhill, curiously placed in the centre of the five green stalks, so that it was difficult, at hoeing time, to dress the hill without burying the nest.

This sparrow had built hers beneath a little tuft of gra.s.s more rich and thickset than the rest of the herbage around it. I cast a careless glance at the nest, saw the soft down that lined it, the four little speckled eggs which enclosed the parents' hope. I marked the mult.i.tude of cows that were feeding around it, one tread of whose cloven feet would crush both bird and progeny into ruin.

I could not but reflect on the dangerous condition to which the creature had committed her most tender hopes. A cow is seeking a bite of gra.s.s; she steps aside to gratify that appet.i.te; she treads on the nest, and destroys the offspring of the defenceless bird.

As I came away from the island, I reflected that this bird's situation, in her humble, defenceless nest, might be no unapt emblem of man in this precarious world. What are diseases, in their countless forms, accidents by flood and fire, the seductions of temptation, and even some human beings themselves, but so many huge cows feeding around our nest, and ready, every moment, to crush our dearest hopes, with the most careless indifference, beneath their brutal tread?

Sometimes, as we sit at home, we can see the calamity coming at a distance. We hear the breathing of the monster; we mark its great wavering path, now looking towards us in a direct line, now capriciously turning for a moment aside. We see the swing of its dreadful horns, the savage rapacity of its brutal appet.i.te; we behold it approaching nearer and nearer, and it pa.s.ses within a hairbreadth of our ruin, leaving us to the sad reflection that another and another are still behind.

Poor bird! Our situations are exactly alike.

The other evening I walked into the chamber where my children were sleeping. There was Willie, with the clothes half kicked down, his hands thrown carelessly over his head, tired with play, now resting in repose; there was Jamie with his balmy breath and rosy cheeks, sleeping and looking like innocence itself. There was Bessie, who has just begun to prattle, and runs daily with tottering steps and lisping voice to ask her father to toss her into the air.

As I looked upon these sleeping innocents, I could not but regard them as so many little birds which I must fold under my wing, and protect, if possible, in security in my nest.

But when I thought of the huge cows that were feeding around them, the ugly hoofs that might crush them into ruin, in short, when I remembered _the bird's-nest in the Moon_, I trembled and wept.

But why weep? Is there not a special providence in the fall of a sparrow?

It is very possible that the nest which I saw was not in so dangerous a situation as it appeared to be. Perhaps some providential instinct led the bird to build her fragile house in the ranker gra.s.s, which the kine never bite, and, of course, on which they would not be likely to tread. Perhaps some kind impulse may guide that species so as not to tread even on a bird's-nest.

There is a merciful G.o.d, whose care and protection extend over all his works, who takes care of the sparrow's children and of mine. _The very hairs of our head are all numbered._

_New England Magazine._

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DREAM-CHILDREN: A REVERY.

Children love to listen to stories about their elders when _they_ were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house in Norfolk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had been the scene--so, at least, it was generally believed in that part of the country--of the tragic incidents which they had lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney-piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin Redb.r.e.a.s.t.s! till a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it.--Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be called upbraiding.

Then I went on to say how religious and how good their great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by everybody, though she was not indeed the mistress of this great house, but had only the charge of it (and yet, in some respects, she might be said to be the mistress of it too), committed to her by the owner, who preferred living in a newer and more fashionable mansion which he had purchased somewhere in the adjoining county; but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they had seen lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt drawing-room.

Here John smiled, as much as to say, "That would be foolish indeed."

And then I told how, when she came to die, her funeral was attended by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the gentry, too, of the neighborhood for many miles round, to show their respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious woman; so good, indeed, that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and a great part of the Testament besides.--Here little Alice spread her hands.

Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their great-grandmother Field once was; and how in her youth she was esteemed the best dancer,--here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted,--the best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain; but it could never bend her good spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright, because she was so good and religious.

Then I told how she was used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and how she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept, but she said "those innocents would do her no harm"; and how frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep with me, because I was never half so good or religious as she,--and yet I never saw the infants.--Here John expanded all his eyebrows and tried to look courageous.

Then I told how good she was to all her grandchildren, having us to the great house in the holidays, where I in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the twelve Caesars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them; how I never could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken panels, with the gilding almost rubbed out,--sometimes in the s.p.a.cious old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary gardening man would cross me,--and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden fruit, unless now and then,--and because I had more pleasure in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yew-trees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir-apples, which were good for nothing but to look at,--or in lying about upon the fresh gra.s.s with all the fine garden smells around me,--or basking in the orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening too, along with the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth,--or in watching the dace that darted to and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the water in silent state, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings; I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet flavors of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such-like common baits of children.--Here John slyly deposited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes, which, not un.o.bserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for the present as irrelevant.

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Then, in a somewhat more heightened tone, I told how, though their great-grandmother Field loved all her grandchildren, yet in an especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John L----, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us; and instead of moping about in solitary corners, like some of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any out; and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had too much spirit to be always pent up within their boundaries; and how their uncle grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to the admiration of everybody, but of their great-grandmother Field most especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back, when I was a lame-footed boy,--for he was a good bit older than me,--many a mile, when I could not walk for pain; and how in after life he became lame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enough for him when he was impatient and in pain, nor remember sufficiently how considerate he had been to me when I was lame-footed; and how when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he had died a great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt life and death; and how I bore his death, as I thought, pretty well at first, but afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not cry or take it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I had died, yet I missed him all day long, and knew not till then how much I had loved him. I missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness, and wished him to be alive again, to be quarrelling with him (for we quarrelled sometimes), rather than not have him again, and was as uneasy without him as he their poor uncle must have been when the doctor took off his limb.

Here the children fell a-crying, and asked if their little mourning which they had on was not for their Uncle John; and they looked up, and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell them some stories about their pretty dead mother.

Then I told how, for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W----n; and, as much as children could understand, I explained to them what coyness, and difficulty, and denial meant in maidens,--when suddenly, turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a reality of representment that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding, till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech: "We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious sh.o.r.es of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence and a name";--and immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful Bridget unchanged by my side,--but John L---- (or James Elia) was gone forever.

_Charles Lamb._

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THE UGLY DUCKLING.

It was beautiful in the country; it was summer-time; the wheat was yellow; the oats were green, the hay was stacked up in the green meadows, and the stork paraded about on his long red legs, discoursing in Egyptian, which language he had learned from his mother. The fields and meadows were skirted by thick woods, and a deep lake lay in the midst of the woods. Yes, it was indeed beautiful in the country! The sunshine fell warmly on an old mansion, surrounded by deep ca.n.a.ls, and from the walls down to the water's edge there grew large burdock-leaves, so high that children could stand upright among them without being perceived. This place was as wild and unfrequented as the thickest part of the wood, and on that account a duck had chosen to make her nest there. She was sitting on her eggs; but the pleasure she had felt at first was now almost gone, because she had been there so long, and had so few visitors, for the other ducks preferred swimming on the ca.n.a.ls to sitting among the burdock-leaves gossiping with her.

At last the eggs cracked, one after another, "Tchick! tchick!" All the eggs were alive, and one little head after another peered forth.

"Quack, quack!" said the Duck, and all got up as well as they could; they peeped about from under the green leaves; and as green is good for the eyes, the mother let them look as long as they pleased.

"How large the world is!" said the little ones, for they found their present situation very different from their former confined one, while yet in the egg-sh.e.l.ls.

"Do you imagine this to be the whole of the world?" said the mother; "it extends far beyond the other side of the garden to the pastor's field; but I have never been there. Are you all here?" And then she got up. "No, not all, but the largest egg is still here. How long will this last? I am so weary of it!" And then she sat down again.