The New Land Part 11

Laughing at his earnestness, the girls dressed him in a bright dressing gown striped in red and yellow, even providing him with a cane "for a gun like brother's." Then, the boys having grown tired of their Indian warfare, the entire company began a gay game of blind man's buff which ended somewhat abruptly as it was easy to tell at a touch just who was "caught" by the peculiar costume he wore.

"Ball--play ball," suggested little Benjamin, wandering from the open trunk, a small crystal ball in his hand.

"What is it?" asked Joseph, taking it curiously, "a paper weight or----"

"I know," cried Matilda, as she examined the crystal globe. "My aunt has one just like it--she got it from London. You do crystal gazing in it."

"Crystal gazing?" Rebecca was frankly puzzled.

"Yes. She showed me how to do it. You just sit with the ball in front of you and look into it for a long time and don't think of anything else and all of a sudden you see pictures; that's what aunt said."

"What kind of pictures?" Joseph demanded.

"Pictures of what's going to happen. You see just what you're going to do when you grow up."

"I don't believe that nonsense," declared Rebecca, with an emphatic shake of her dark curls. "Father says it's all foolishness--like believing what a gypsy fortune-teller promises you."

"Well, let's try it, anyhow," suggested Rachel. "It won't do any harm and it'll give us something to do till the rain's over and we can go out and play again."

The crystal ball placed upon the table, the five dark and the one flaxen head bent over it eagerly. "But we'll never see anything this way," corrected Matilda. "It's Rebecca's party, so let her have the ball first. No one else must look or say a single word till she's seen her picture."

Cheeks flushed with excitement, shining dark eyes fastened upon the crystal, Rebecca sat motionless, scarcely daring to breathe as she waited for the picture of her future to appear in the gla.s.s. The others cl.u.s.tered about her, expectant and silent. At last she shook her head and pushed the ball aside. "I can't see a single thing," she complained.

"But I want to try it," declared Jacob, reaching for the crystal. "Now all keep quiet and maybe I'll see something, even if Becky couldn't."

Again patient waiting until Jacob got up in disgust. "It's a silly game," he jeered. "Maybe your aunt could see things in an old gla.s.s ball, but n.o.body else can."

"It's more fun just playing 'pretend'," declared his sister Rachel.

"Let's do it." She flung herself upon an old fur rug near the window, pulling Benjamin down beside her. "We'll just sit in a circle and pretend we've looked in the gla.s.s ball and it told us just what we were going to do when we grow up. I want to tell my fortune first,"

she ended importantly.

"That's a silly girl game," objected Jacob; but, tired of romping, he, too, threw himself upon the rug and waited with the rest of the circle for Rachel to disclose her future.

"When I'm grown up," began Rachel very slowly, her eyes fixed on the trees beyond the window, dripping with rain, "I'm going to be very beautiful like Miss Franks in New York used to be, and go to parties and b.a.l.l.s every single night and have all the officers in the army writing poetry about me and making toasts for me, just as she did. And I'll always wear pink silk," she concluded, with a glance at her rosy ruffles.

"I should think you'd get awfully tired of b.a.l.l.s every night,"

observed Matilda. "I'd much rather be like my governess. She isn't pretty at all but she knows just everything and she writes verses, too. When I grow up, I'm going to write a whole book and everybody will say how smart I am." She spoke very seriously and the others looked at their ambitious little friend respectfully. Happy children as they were, they could not read the future and see that Matilda Hoffman, although one of the most accomplished young women of her time, would never write the wonderful book of which she dreamed. Nor could they guess that instead her lovely life would be an inspiration to a writer whose books every American would come to know and cherish.

"And I'm going 'way west to the lands father's just bought," declared Jacob, "and live with the Indians and wear a blanket and go hunting all the time."

"And I'm going with you," piped Benjamin, not understanding what the game was about, but determined not to lose any of the fun. Though something of that afternoon's pretending came to pa.s.s for him, for when a man he actually sought what was then the far western territory of Kentucky and became one of the leading citizens of Lexington.

"Well, I'm going to be a merchant like father," Joseph spoke with his usual grave determination, never dreaming of the day when he would become a senator. "And what are you going to do, Becky?"

Rebecca considered for a moment. Although older than the others, this child's play was very fascinating to her. "The other day," she said slowly, "I had the legend of St. Elizabeth for my French lesson. I think I'd like to be just like her when I grow up."

"Was she beautiful and everything like that?" asked Rachel.

"I suppose so." Rebecca's voice had grown rather dreamy. "The ladies in stories always are beautiful, aren't they? But I liked her because she went about doing good among the poor peasants, even if her mean husband wanted her to stay at home."

"Did he ever find out?" asked Jacob.

"Once he thought he did." Rebecca smiled at the recollection. "She was going through the castle courtyard with a basket on her arm and some one told him she was taking bread to the poor people. He was very angry and ran after her and asked her what was underneath the napkin on her basket. You can just imagine how frightened she was!"

"Did she tell him?" Matilda wanted to know.

"I suppose she was so frightened she just didn't know she was telling a lie," Rebecca excused her heroine, "and before she knew what she was saying, she told her husband that she was carrying roses. And it was in the middle of the winter, too! And when he s.n.a.t.c.hed the napkin off the basket--" the story teller paused impressively, "what do you suppose he found there?"

"Bread," chorused her listeners.

"No!" Rebecca shook her curls. "Because she was so good, G.o.d saved her from telling a lie and her basket was filled with beautiful red roses.

And when her husband saw how much G.o.d thought of her, he became good, too, and tried to help Elizabeth care for all the poor people in the country."

"She must have been very rich to help so many poor people," observed Joseph.

"Oh, she was a real princess and I guess all princesses have plenty of money," answered his sister easily.

"Then you can be just like her, if you want to," the admiring Matilda a.s.sured her. "Your papa's one of the richest men in Philadelphia, I guess, and you're beautiful like Elizabeth and with that long veil and those pearls you look just like a real princess this minute, doesn't she, Rachel?"

"Let's play the princess in the tower?" cried Joseph, springing up, already weary of the game. "Becky, you get on top of that trunk and we'll put chairs around it and play it's a high tower and Jacob and I will be princes and come and rescue you and take you away on our horses--the way they did in the fairy book you read us the other day."

"But what'll we be?" cried Rachel and Matilda together.

"You can be her ladies-in-waiting or something," Joseph decided, "and Benjamin can be our page and hold our horses while we climb into the tower." He straddled one of the fencing foils and pranced across the room. "A rescue!" he called shrilly to his brothers, "a rescue for the lovely Princess Rebecca."

Hyman Gratz, Rebecca's sixteen-year-old brother, entering the room at that moment, smiled at their sport. Swinging Benjamin to his shoulder he advanced toward the tower which sheltered the three lovely ladies and pulled Rebecca's face down to his for a kiss. "Having a happy birthday?" he asked.

"Just splendid." Rebecca's eyes danced with happiness. "We're playing the princess in the tower and I'm the princess."

Hyman, his face suddenly grave, looked over the happy, dancing figures in their fantastic dresses. Although he did not know why, he wished at that moment that the children playing in the old attic need never grow up, but might always be carefree and laughing in their idle games. His eyes lingered longest on Rebecca, such a dainty little princess in her yellow silk and pearls and he sighted a little. But all he said was: "If I were you youngsters, I'd play in the garden. The rain's all over and there's a fine rainbow just behind the old chestnut tree."

Washington Irving sat crouched in one of the great arm chairs of the drawing room in Mr. Gratz's house in Philadelphia. His elbow on his knee, he sat with his hand shading his face, his eyes seeking the floor. When Rebecca Gratz entered the room, he seemed about to rise, but with a gesture she urged him to remain seated and took a chair beside him. For a long time they sat there in silence, Rebecca's hands twisting a small package that lay in her lap, her face pale and tired, her dark eyes filled with tears.

Sitting there with the soft candle light falling upon her simple blue dress and white arms, she made a picture which young Irving would have appreciated at any other moment. The slim little princess of the nursery had grown into a graceful young girl of gracious, yet dignified bearing, her abundant hair brushed simply back from her forehead, the gravity of her sweet face increased by the earnestness that never left her large dark eyes, even when she smiled. For even in her gayest moments there was always a hint of gentle gravity about Rebecca Gratz; tonight, when utterly exhausted from watching at the deathbed of her childhood friend, Matilda Hoffman, she looked like a beautiful graven image of Sorrow.

At last Rebecca spoke, her low voice tremulous with tears: "The end was very easy--G.o.d was good to her at the last. And I do not think she suffered much lately. Matilda just seemed to fade away, not like one ill, but very tired. She often spoke of you when we were together; that is why I asked brother Hyman to send for you. I thought you would like to hear it all from me."

The young man in the arm chair shifted a little. "Yes, I would like to hear everything from you," he answered, not trusting himself to meet her eyes.

Simply, tenderly, Rebecca told young Irving of the last illness of the young girl whom he had hoped to marry. Now and then her voice broke, for she had loved Matilda Hoffman dearly; but she went bravely on until the end, when she placed the little package in Irving's hand.

"She said I was to give you this," she told him, and looked away while he opened the cord with fingers that trembled a little.

The tokens that Washington Irving now gazed upon with tear-dimmed eyes and which were never to leave his possession during all the years when he was to acquire fame and wealth as America's leading author were a little prayer book and Bible. Between the pages of the latter the dead girl had placed a lock of her bright hair; as he raised the worn little book several faded rose leaves fell upon the carpet.

"I pressed one of the roses from her coffin for you," Rebecca told him. "I did not think it would fade so soon."