Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories Part 10

"There I make a stand," said the proud ear, "I will _not_ be cut down."

But it was just as the wise ear said it would be. Not long after a reaping-machine was brought and driven back and forth in the fields, and down went all the wheat ears before the great knives. But it did not hurt the wheat, of course, and only the proud ear felt angry.

"I am the colour of gold," it said, "and yet they have dared to cut me down. What will they do next, I wonder?"

What they did next was to bunch it up with other wheat and tie it and stack it together, and then it was carried in a waggon and laid in the barn.

Then there was a great bustle after a while. The farmer's wife and daughters and her two servants began to work as hard as they could.

"The threshers are coming," they said, "and we must make plenty of things for them to eat."

So they made pies and cakes and bread until their cupboards were full; and surely enough the threshers did come with the threshing-machine, which was painted red, and went "Puff! puff! puff! rattle! rattle!" all the time. And the proud wheat was threshed out by it, and found itself in grains again and very much out of breath.

"I look almost as I was at first," it said; "only there are so many of me. I am grander than ever now. I was only one grain of wheat at first, and now I am at least fifty."

When it was put into a sack, it managed to get all its grains together in one place, so that it might feel as grand as possible. It was so proud that it felt grand, however much it was knocked about.

It did not lie in the sack very long this time before something else happened. One morning it heard the farmer's wife saying to the coloured boy:

"Take this yere sack of wheat to the mill, Jerry. I want to try it when I make that thar cake for the boarders. Them two children from Washington city are powerful hands for cake."

So Jerry lifted the sack up and threw it over his shoulder, and carried it out into the spring-waggon.

"Now we are going to travel," said the proud wheat "Don't let us be separated."

At that minute, there were heard two young voices, shouting:--

"Jerry, take us in the waggon! Let us go to mill, Jerry. We want to go to mill."

And these were the very two boys who had played in the granary and made so much noise the summer before. They had grown a little bigger, and their yellow hair was longer, but they looked just as they used to, with their strong little legs and big brown eyes, and their sailor hats set so far back on their heads that it was a wonder they stayed on. And gracious! how they shouted and ran.

"What does yer mar say?" asked Jerry.

"Says we can go!" shouted both at once, as if Jerry had been deaf, which he wasn't at all--quite the contrary.

So Jerry, who was very good-natured, lifted them in, and cracked his whip, and the horses started off. It was a long ride to the mill, but Lionel and Vivian were not too tired to shout again when they reached it.

They shouted at sight of the creek and the big wheel turning round and round slowly, with the water dashing and pouring and foaming over it.

"What turns the wheel?" asked Vivian.

"The water, honey," said Jerry.

"What turns the water?"

"Well now, honey," said Jerry, "you hev me thar. I don't know nuffin 'bout it. Lors-a-ma.s.sy, what a boy you is fur axin dif'cult questions."

Then he carried the sack in to the miller, and said he would wait until the wheat was ground.

"Ground!" said the proud wheat. "We are going to be ground. I hope it is agreeable. Let us keep close together."

They did keep close together, but it wasn't very agreeable to be poured into a hopper and then crushed into fine powder between two big stones.

"Makes nice flour," said the miller, rubbing it between his fingers.

"Flour!" said the wheat--which was wheat no longer. "Now I am flour, and I am finer than ever. How white I am! I really would rather be white than green or gold colour. I wonder where the learned grain is, and if it is as fine and white as I am?"

But the learned grain and her family had been laid away in the granary for seed wheat.

Before the waggon reached the house again, the two boys were fast asleep in the bottom of it, and had to be helped out just as the sack was, and carried in.

The sack was taken into the kitchen at once and opened, and even in its wheat days the flour had never been so proud as it was when it heard the farmer's wife say--

"I'm going to make this into cake."

"Ah!" it said; "I thought so. Now I shall be rich, and admired by everybody."

The farmer's wife then took some of it out in a large white bowl, and after that she busied herself beating eggs and sugar and b.u.t.ter all together in another bowl: and after a while she took the flour and beat it in also.

"Now I am in grand company," said the flour. "The eggs and b.u.t.ter are the colour of gold, the sugar is like silver or diamonds. This is the very society for me."

"The cake looks rich," said one of the daughters.

"It's rather too rich for them children," said her mother. "But Lawsey, I dunno, neither. Nothin' don't hurt 'em. I reckon they could eat a panel of rail fence and come to no harm."

"I'm rich," said the flour to itself. "That is just what I intended from the first. I am rich and I am a cake."

Just then, a pair of big brown eyes came and peeped into it. They belonged to a round little head with a ma.s.s of tangled curls all over it--they belonged to Vivian.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Cake."

"Who made it?"

"I did."

"I like you," said Vivian. "You're such a nice woman. Who's going to eat any of it? Is Lionel?"

"I'm afraid it's too rich for boys," said the woman, but she laughed and kissed him.

"No," said Vivian. "I'm afraid it isn't."

"I shall be much too rich," said the cake, angrily. "Boys, indeed. I was made for something better than boys."

After that, it was poured into a cake-mould, and put into the oven, where it had rather an unpleasant time of it. It was so hot in there that if the farmer's wife had not watched it carefully, it would have been burned.

"But I am cake," it said, "and of the richest kind, so I can bear it, even if it is uncomfortable."

When it was taken out, it really was cake, and it felt as if it was quite satisfied. Everyone who came into the kitchen and saw it, said--