The Story Hour Part 6

"Go after it," the old man had said. Karl thought, "Why not go with it?"

He loved it better than anything else in the world, even better than Hilda. He ran off quickly after the cart which was carrying the dear Hirschvogel to the station. How he managed it he never knew very well himself, but it was certain that when the freight train moved away from the station Karl was hidden behind the stove. It was very dark, but he wasn't frightened. He was close beside Hirschvogel, but he wanted to be closer still; he meant to get inside the stove. He set to work like a little mouse to make a hole in the straw and hay. He gnawed and nibbled, and pushed and pulled, making a hole where he guessed that the door might be. At last he found it; he slipped through it, as he had so often done at home for fun, and curled himself up. He drew the hay and straw together carefully, and fixed the ropes, so that no one could have dreamed that a little mouse had been at them. Safe inside his dear Hirschvogel, he went as fast asleep as if he were in his own little bed at home. The train rumbled on in its heavy, slow way, and Karl slept soundly for a long time. When he awoke the darkness frightened him, but he felt the cold sides of Hirschvogel, and said softly, "Take care of me, dear Hirschvogel, oh, please take care of me!"

Every time the train stopped, and he heard the banging, stamping, and shouting, his heart seemed to jump up into his mouth. When the people came to lift the stove out, would they find him? and if they did find him, would they kill him? The thought, too, of Hilda, kept tugging at his heart now and then, but he said to himself, "If I can take Hirschvogel back to her, how pleased she will be, and how she will clap her hands!" He was not at all selfish in his love for Hirschvogel; he wanted it for them at home quite as much as for himself. That was what he kept thinking of all the way in the darkness and stillness which lasted so long. At last the train stopped, and awoke him from a half sleep. Karl felt the stove lifted by some men, who carried it to a cart, and then they started again on the journey, up hill and down, for what seemed miles and miles. Where they were going Karl had no idea. Finally the cart stopped; then it seemed as though they were carrying the stove up some stairs. The men rested sometimes, and then moved on again, and their feet went so softly he thought they must be walking on thick carpets. By and by the stove was set down again, happily for Karl, for he felt as though he should scream, or do something to make known that he was there. Then the wrappings were taken off, and he heard a voice say, "What a beautiful, beautiful stove!"

{Ill.u.s.tration: "Oh let me stay please let me stay"}

Next some one turned the round handle of the bra.s.s door, and poor little Karl's heart stood still.

"What is this?" said the man. "A live child!"

Then Karl sprang out of the stove and fell at the feet of the man who had spoken.

"Oh, let me stay, please let me stay!" he said. "I have come all the way with my darling Hirschvogel!"

The man answered kindly, "Poor little child! tell me how you came to hide in the stove. Do not be afraid. I am the king."

Karl was too much in earnest to be afraid; he was so glad, so glad it was the king, for kings must be always kind, he thought.

"Oh, dear king!" he said with a trembling voice, "Hirschvogel was ours, and we have loved it all our lives, and father sold it, and when I saw that it really did go from us I said to myself that I would go with it; and I do beg you to let me live with it, and I will go out every morning and cut wood for it and for all your other stoves, if only you will let me stay beside it. No one has ever fed it with wood but me since I grew big enough, and it loves me; it does indeed!" And then he lifted up his little pale face to the young king, who saw that great tears were running down his cheeks.

"Can't I stay with Hirschvogel?" he pleaded.

"Wait a little," said the king. "What do you want to be when you are a man? Do you want to be a wood-chopper?"

"I want to be a painter," cried Karl. "I want to be what Hirschvogel was. I mean the potter that made my Hirschvogel."

"I understand," answered the king, and he looked down at the child, and smiled. "Get up, my little man," he said in a kind voice; "I will let you stay with your Hirschvogel. You shall stay here, and you shall be taught to be a painter, but you must grow up very good, and when you are twenty-one years old, if you have done well, then I will give you back your beautiful stove." Then he smiled again and stretched out his hand.

Karl threw his two arms about the king's knees and kissed his feet, and then all at once he was so tired and so glad and hungry and happy, that he fainted quite away on the floor.

Then the king had a letter written to Karl's father, telling him that Karl had drawn him some beautiful charcoal pictures, and that he liked them so much he was going to take care of him until he was old enough to paint wonderful stoves like Hirschvogel. And he did take care of him for a long time, and when Karl grew older, he often went for a few days to his old home, where his father still lives.

In the little brown house stands Hirschvogel, tall and splendid, with its peac.o.c.k colors as beautiful as ever,--the king's present to Hilda; and Karl never goes home without going into the great church and giving his thanks to G.o.d, who blessed his strange winter's journey in the great porcelain stove.

THE BABES IN THE WOOD

"Nature and life speak very early to man."--FROEBEL.

A great many years ago three little girls lived in an old-fashioned house in the East. They had a very lovely home, and a kind father and mother, who tried to make them happy. All through the summer they used to roam over the hills and fields, catching b.u.t.terflies, watching the birds and bees at work, and studying the flowers and trees in the beautiful meadows and woods. Then when winter came, and the days grew cold, they went to school; and in the evening, when the fire was burning brightly, they read and studied in books about all they had seen in the summer.

Besides all these lovely things, and perhaps best of all, they had a very large yard to play in, so large that it took up a whole block, and seemed like a little farm in the middle of the town. There was a lovely lawn and flower beds; a vegetable garden, barnyard and stable; and an orchard where all kinds of fruit trees grew, apple, peach, pear, and many others. A cow lived down in the meadows of clover, and old Bob, the horse, was sometimes turned out to pasture there. But nicest of all, there was the wood yard. You must remember that every winter, where these little girls lived, the snow fell, and lay so deep on the roads that no one could bring in wood from the forest, and without it all the people would have frozen in their cold homes.

So every September the gates were thrown wide open, and into the yard load after load of wood was drawn and piled up under the shed. Then, when it was too cold to play out on the hills, the little girls used to have a fine time in the yard, piling up the wood, making beds, tables, chairs, and stoves of the sticks that had once been the waving branches and strong, st.u.r.dy trunks of trees.

Toward spring they often found a strange yellow powder on the ground under the wood. At first they played with it, calling it flour, and made pies and cakes out of it. But at last they began to wonder where the flour came from, and after watching and studying a long time this is what they found out.

But first I must tell you that all the time the three little girls were happy and busy in this beautiful place, they were not the only family there. There were the robins' children, whose mammas were trying to make them good and happy too. There were the beetles' children, the ants'

children, and families of toads, b.u.t.terflies, and spiders. And while the three little girls were playing with the sticks of wood, there lay, tucked snugly away inside of them, many families of children, warm and safe in their wooden home.

Now I want the smallest of you little children to hold up her hand. How small it is compared with your body! Now let us see the little finger on that hand,--it is smaller still; and now look at the nail on that finger: the brothers and sisters of one of these families were altogether about as large as that tiny nail. Their mamma was a wasp, with light, gauzy wings and a strong body with a long sting on the end of it, about the length of a needle. With this little sting or saw, as it really was, she had bored many holes in the wood when it was still a green tree, and at the bottom of each hole she had laid a tiny egg.

There it lay for a long time, all white and still, until one day it cracked open, and out came a funny little white grub, with six short white feet, and black jaws very strong and large for such a tiny thing.

This little creature had never had anything to eat, and as it was very hungry indeed, it fell to eating--what do you think? Wood--its own house! You wouldn't like a stick of wood for your breakfast, I know, but the wasp-mamma knew what her little grub-children would want, so she put them in just the right place; for they couldn't have eaten anything else. And the hungry little grubs ate and ate and ate as long as they could, pushing away from the hole the part they did not want, and this fell upon the ground as the strange yellow powder the children found in the wood-yard, every spring.

And so, while the little girls were placing away in the sunshine the little grubs were eating away in the wood, until at last, one day, they grew satisfied, and one after another went to sleep. There they lay in their dark homes, fast asleep, through long weeks, while the snow was melting and the gra.s.s coming up, and the birds and bees beginning their summer work again; until one day these lazy little creatures, that had never done anything in their lives but eat and sleep, woke up and began to stretch themselves. But what had happened to them? Instead of the soft white bodies they had gone to sleep with, they now had black ones and four gauzy wings; while six slender legs had taken the place of the six short ones. There were still the strong black jaws to do all needful work with, and in addition, delicate mouth-parts, for their food was now to be the honey from flowers. In fact, they looked and were just like their mamma, the gauzy wasp. One after another they crept to the end of the pa.s.sage that led from their dark homes to the bright world without.

They stood one minute at the little dark hole, and then, spreading their wings, flitted out into the beautiful world of sunshine and flowers.

THE STORY OF CHRISTMAS,

"A great spiritual efficiency lies in story-telling."--FROEBEL.

Christmas Day, you knew, dear children, is Christ's day, Christ's birthday, and I want to tell you why we love it so much, and why we try to make every one happy when it comes each year.

A long, long time ago--more than eighteen hundred years--the baby Christ was born on Christmas Day: a baby so wonderful and so beautiful, who grew up to be a man so wise, so good, so patient and sweet, that, every year, the people who know about him love him better and better, and are more and more glad when his birthday comes again. You see that he must have been very good and wonderful; for people have always remembered his birthday, and kept it lovingly for eighteen hundred years.

He was born, long years ago, in a land far, far away across the seas.

Before the baby Christ was born, Mary, his mother, had to make a long journey with her husband, Joseph. They made this journey to be taxed or counted; for in those days this could not be done in the town where people happened to live, but they must be numbered in the place where they were born.

In that far-off time, the only way of traveling was on a horse, or a camel, or a good, patient donkey. Camels and horses cost a great deal of money, and Mary was very poor; so she rode on a quiet, safe donkey, while Joseph walked by her side, leading him and leaning on his stick.

Mary was very young, and beautiful, I think, but Joseph was a great deal older than she.

People dress nowadays, in those distant countries, just as they did so many years ago, so we know that Mary must have worn a long, thick dress, falling all about her in heavy folds, and that she had a soft white veil over her head and neck, and across her face. Mary lived in Nazareth, and the journey they were making was to Bethlehem, many miles away.

They were a long time traveling, I am sure; for donkeys are slow, though they are so careful, and Mary must have been very tired before they came to the end of their journey.

They had traveled all day, and it was almost dark when they came near to Bethlehem, to the town where the baby Christ was to be born. There was the place they were to stay,--a kind of inn, or lodging-house, but not at all like those you know about.

They have them to-day in that far-off country, just as they built them so many years ago.

It was a low, flat-roofed, stone building, with no window and only one large door. There were no nicely furnished bedrooms inside, and no soft white beds for the tired travelers; there were only little places built into the stones of the wall, something like the berths on steamboats nowadays, and each traveler brought his own bedding. No pretty garden was in front of the inn, for the road ran close to the very door, so that its dust lay upon the doorsill. All around the house, to a high, rocky hill at the back, a heavy stone fence was built, so that the people and the animals inside might be kept safe.

Mary and Joseph could not get very near the inn; for the whole road in front was filled with camels and donkeys and sheep and cows, while a great many men were going to and fro, taking care of the animals. Some of these people had come to Bethlehem to pay their taxes, as Mary and Joseph had done, and others were staying for the night, on their way to Jerusalem, a large city a little further on.

The yard was filled, too, with camels and sheep; and men were lying on the ground beside them, resting, and watching, and keeping them safe.

The inn was so full and the yard was so full of people, that there was no room for anybody else, and the keeper had to take Joseph and Mary through the house and back to the high hill, where they found another place that was used for a stable. This had only a door and a front, and deep caves were behind, stretching far into the rocks.

This was the spot where Christ was born. Think how poor a place!--but Mary was glad to be there, after all; and when the Christ-child came, he was like other babies, and had so lately come from heaven that he was happy everywhere.

There were mangers all around the cave, where the cattle and sheep were fed, and great heaps of hay and straw were lying on the floor. Then, I think, there were brown-eyed cows and oxen there, and quiet, woolly sheep, and perhaps even some dogs that had come in to take care of the sheep.

And there in the cave, by and by, the wonderful baby came, and they wrapped him up and laid him in a manger.