Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends Part 10

h-a-l-l-o-o!" Then Mitty's father lit a great bright torch, and moved it, flaming, back and forth before the door; and in a little while a poor, weary, frightened traveler, who had got lost in the dark woods, heard the voice that had answered to his, and saw, by the torch, where to come to find Mr. Moore; and in less than an hour after, he was snoring away under Mr. Moore's roof, with a good, comfortable supper tucked under his ribs while the bears had to go without any.

_Bears?_ Certainly!--I didn't mention the gentlemen before, for fear it would make your mother trouble when it came your bed-time; but, nevertheless, it is a naked fact that _bears_ live on the frontier.

One day a woman came in to Mr. Moore's, crying and "taking on" in a most pitiful manner. Mitty couldn't understand (the woman sobbed so much) what it was all about; but she concluded that something _special_ was to pay, because her mother let her brown bread all burn to a crisp in the oven, while she was listening to her. Then her mother ran out in the cornfield, with her cap strings all flying, after her father; and Mr. Moore dropped his hoe, ran to the house and caught up a great tin horn, and stood at the door, blowing with all his might; "Too--hoo--too--hoo--too--hoo;" and then Orphy Smith, the next neighbor, caught up _his_ horn, and blew, too; and then the next, and the next; and, in a very short time, all the neighbors knew that Mr.

Moore wanted them to come to his log house, just as fast as their horses legs could carry them.

So, in they flocked,--Orphy Smith, and Seth Jones, and Pete Parker, and Jesse Jenkins, and Eph. Ellet, and a whole host more; and Mitty's father told them that Desire Dibden's child (whose father had been killed by the Indians,) was lost in the woods; and that was _enough_ to say;--every man of them started off through the door, as if he had been shot out of a pop-gun, to help find the child.

Certainly;--didn't I tell you that "_farmers had hearts_?" When a child gets lost in the city, the fat old town crier (if he is paid for it) "takes his time" and his bell, and crawls through the street, whining out sleepily, "C-h-i-l-d l-o-s-t;" and the city folks pay about as much attention to it, as if you told them that a six-days' kitten had presumptuously stepped into a wash-tub.

You didn't catch the nice, big-hearted farmers acting that way; they didn't say it was none of their business,--that their corn wanted hoeing, and their hay wanted stacking, and their meadows wanted ploughing! The sight of that poor weeping mother was enough. They started right off in companies, to scour the woods for the poor, little, lost boy, hoping to find him before night-fall.

There sat poor Desire, in the chimney corner, sobbing and wringing her hands, and rocking her body to and fro. She wouldn't eat, though good, kind, motherly Mrs. Moore, baked, on purpose for her, some of her most tempting cakes; she wouldn't drink, though Mrs. Moore handed her a nice hot cup of tea. She did nothing but cry fit to break her heart; while sensible little Mitty whispered to her mother to know "if she hadn't better go out of the way, for fear the sight of her, safe in her mother's log house, might make poor Desire cry the harder."

Dinner time came; but the men didn't come back. Supper time;--then evening came on, dark and chilly, and Desire's lips grew paler every minute: still, no tidings yet of the boy. Through the long night she listened--listened--listened, till every gust of wind made her tremble like the leaves. Morning dawned,--noon came again,--then night. Then, indeed, at last they heard the tramp of heavy feet.

Desire sprang from her chair and ran toward the door, then back again to her seat, with her hands pressed tightly on her heart; then back to the door, as if her straining eye could pierce the darkness. It did, G.o.d pity her! What did she see? Her little w.i.l.l.y, quite dead, lying on a litter, carried by Mr. Moore and Orphy.

Poor little w.i.l.l.y! They had tracked him to an old shanty, in the woods, where he had gathered some dry leaves and slept. There was the mark of his little form upon the leaves. Then they tracked him out into the woods, along, along, farther than one would have thought his little feet could have carried him; and then they found him, with his little head leaning against a tree, quite dead from exhaustion and hunger.

Poor Desire! There wasn't one of those nice old farmers who wouldn't have given his farm to bring that little sleeper back to life. They took his mother's cold hands in theirs, and chafed them, and bathed her temples, and wept (strong men as they were) to think of the bitter waking she would have. But G.o.d was merciful;--she never _did_ wake in _this_ world. In Heaven she found her boy.

UNCLE JOLLY.

"Well, I declare! here it is New Year's morning again, and cold as Greenland, too," said Uncle Jolly, as he poked his cotton night-cap out of bed--"frost an inch thick on the windows, water all frozen in the pitcher, and I an old bachelor. Heigho! n.o.body to give any presents to--no little feet to come patting up to my bed to wish me 'A happy New Year.' Miserable piece of business! Wonder what ever became of that sister of mine who ran off with that poor artist? Wish she'd turn up somewhere with two or three children for me to love and pet. Heigh-ho!

It's a miserable piece of business to be an old bachelor."

[Ill.u.s.tration: UNCLE JOLLY.]

And Uncle Jolly broke the ice in the basin with his frost-nipped fingers, and b.u.t.toned his dressing gown tightly to his chin; then he went down stairs, swallowed a cup of coffee, an egg, and a slice of toast. Then he b.u.t.toned his surtout snugly up over them, and went out the front door into the street.

Such a crowd as there was buying New Year's presents. The toy-shops were filled with grandpas and grandmas, and aunts and uncles and cousins. As to the shopkeepers, what with telling prices, answering forty questions in a minute, and doing up parcels, they were as crazy as a bachelor tending a crying baby.

Uncle Jolly slipped along over the icy pavements, and finally halted in front of Tim Nonesuch's toy shop. You should have seen _his_ show windows! Beautiful English dolls at five dollars a-piece, dressed like Queen Vic's babies, with such plump little shoulders and arms that one longed to pinch 'em; and tea sets, and dinner sets, cunning enough, for a fairy to keep house with. Then, there were dancing Jacks, and jumping Jennys, and "Topsys," and "Uncle Toms" as black as the chimney back, with wool made of a raveled black stocking. Then, there were little work-boxes with gold thimbles and bodkins, and scissors in crimson velvet cases, and snakes that squirmed so naturally as to make you hop up on the table to get out of the way, and little innocent looking boxes containing a little spry mouse, that jumped into your face as soon as you raised the lid, and music boxes to place under your pillows when you had drank too strong a cup of green tea, and vinaigrettes that you could hold to your nose to keep you from fainting when you saw a dandy. Oh! I can tell you that Mr. Nonesuch understood keeping a toy shop; there were plenty of carriages always in front of it, plenty of taper fingers pulling over his wares, and plenty of husbands and fathers who returned thanks that New Year's didn't come _every_ day!

"Don't stay here, dear Susy, if it makes you cry," said the elder of two little girls; "I thought you said it would make you happy to come out and _look_ at the New Year's presents, though we couldn't _have_ any."

"I did think so," said Susy; "but it makes me think of last New Year's, when you and I lay cuddled together in our little bed, and papa came creeping up in his slippers, thinking we were asleep, and laid our presents on the table, and then kissed us both, and said, 'G.o.d bless the little darlings!' Oh! Katy--all the little girls in that shop have their papa's with them. I want MY papa," and little Susy laid her head on Katy's shoulder and sobbed as if her heart were breaking.

"Don't, dear Susy," said Katy, wiping away her own tears with her little pinafore; "don't cry--mamma will see how red your eyes are,--poor, sick, tired mamma,--don't cry, Susy."

"Oh, Katy, I can't help it. See that tall man with the black whiskers, (don't he look like papa?) kissing that little girl. Oh! Katy," and Susy's tears flowed afresh.

Uncle Jolly couldn't stand it any longer;--he rushed into the toy shop, bought an armful of play-things helter-skelter, and ran after the two little girls.

"Here, Susy! here, Katy!" said he, "here are some New Year's presents from Uncle Jolly."

"Who is Uncle Jolly?"

"Well, he's uncle to all the poor little children who have no kind papa."

"Now, where do you live, little pigeons?--got far to go?--toes all out your shoes here in January? Don't like it,--_my_ toes ain't out my shoes;--come in here, and let's see if we can find anything to cover them. There, now, (fitting them both to a pair,) that's something like; it will puzzle Jack Frost to find your toes now. Cotton clothes on? _I_ don't wear cotton clothes;--come in here and get some woolen shawls.

Which do you like best, red, green, or blue?--plaids or stripes, hey?

"'Mother won't like it?' Don't talk to me;--mother's don't generally scratch people's eyes out for being kind to their little ones. I'll take care of that, little puss. Uncle Jolly's going home with you. 'How do _I_ know whether you have got any dinner or not?' _I've_ got a dinner--_you_ shall have a dinner, too. Pity if I can't have my own way--New Year's day, too.

"_That_ your home? p-h-e-w! I don't know about trusting my old bones up those rickety stairs,--old bones are hard to mend; did you know that?"

Little Susy opened the door, and Uncle Jolly walked in,--their momma turned her head, then with one wild cry of joy threw her arms about his neck, while Susy and Katy stood in the door-way, uncertain whether to laugh or cry.

"Come here, come here," said Uncle Jolly; "I didn't know I was so near the truth this morning when I called myself your _Uncle_ Jolly; I didn't know what made my heart leap so when I saw you there in the street. Come here, I say; don't you ever shed another tear;--you see I don't,"--and Jolly tried to smile, as he drew his coat sleeve across his eyes.

Wasn't that a merry New Year's night in Uncle Jolly's little parlor?

Wasn't the fire warm and bright? Were not the tea cakes nice? Didn't Uncle Jolly make them eat till he had tightened their ap.r.o.n strings?

Were their toes ever out of their shoes again? Did they wear cotton shawls in January? Did cruel landlords ever again make their mamma tremble and cry?

In the midst of all this plenty, did they forget "papa?" No, no!

Whenever little Susy met in the street a tall, princely man with large black whiskers, she'd look at Katy and nod her little curly head sorrowfully, as much as to say--"Oh, Katy, I never--never can forget _my own dear papa_."

A PEEP UNDER GROUND.

THE RAFFERTYS AND THE ROURKES.

I have made up my mind, that there is nothing lost in New-York. You open your window and toss out a bit of paper or silk, and though it may be no bigger than a sixpence, it is directly s.n.a.t.c.hed up and carried off, by a cla.s.s of persons the Parisians call, "Chiffoniers"

(rag-pickers)! You order a load of coal, or wood, to be dropped at your door;--in less than five minutes a whole horde of ragged children are greedily waiting round to pick up the chips, and bits, that are left after the wood or coal is carried in and housed; and often locks of hair are pulled out, and b.l.o.o.d.y noses ensue, in the strife to get the largest share. You will see these persons round the stores, looking for bits of paper, and silk, and calico, that are swept out by the clerks, upon the pavement; you will see them watching round provision shops, for decayed vegetables, and fruits, and rinds of melons, which they sell to keepers of pigs; you will see them picking up peach stones to sell to confectioners, who crack them and use the kernels; you will see them round old buildings, carrying off, at the risk of cracked heads, pieces of decayed timber, and old nails; you will see them round new buildings, when the workmen are gone to meals, scampering off with boards, s.h.i.+ngles, and bits of scaffolding. I thought I had seen all the ingenuity there was to be seen, in picking up odds and ends in New-York, but I hadn't then seen Michael Rafferty!

Michael Rafferty, and Terence Rourke, who was a wood sawyer by profession, lived in a cellar together; the little Raffertys, and little Rourkes, with their mammas, filling up all the extra s.p.a.ce, except just so much as was necessary to swing the cellar door open. A calico curtain was swung across the cellar for a boundary line, to which the little Rourkes and little Raffertys paid about as much attention, as the whites did to the poor Indians' landmarks.

At the time I became acquainted with the two families, quite a jealousy had sprung up on account of Mr. Rafferty's having made a successful b.u.t.ter speculation. Mrs. Rourke, in consequence, had kept the calico curtain tightly drawn for some weeks, and boxed six of the little Rourkes' ears (twelve in all,) for speaking to the little Raffertys through the rents in the curtain.

All this I learned from Mrs. Rafferty, as I sat on an old barrel in the north-west corner of her cellar. "It was always the way," she said, "if a body got up in the world, there were plenty of envious spalpeens, sure, to spite them for it;" which I took occasion to remark to Mrs.

Rafferty, was as true, as anything I had ever had the pleasure of hearing her say.

Just then the cellar door swung open, and the great b.u.t.ter speculator, Mr. Michael Rafferty, walked in. He nodded his head, and gave an uneasy glance at the curtain, as much as to say "calicoes have ears." I understood it, and told him we had been very discreet. Upon which he said, "You see, they'll be afther staling my thrade, your ladys.h.i.+p, if they know how I manage about the b.u.t.ther."

"Tell me how you do it, Michael," said I; "you know women have a right to be curious.

"Well," said he, speaking in a confidential whisper, "your ladys.h.i.+p knows there are plenty of little grocery shops round in these poor neighborhoods, where they sell onions, and combs, and mola.s.ses, and fish, and tape, and gingerbread, and rum. Most of them sell milk, (none of the best, sure, but it does for the likes of us poor folks.) It stands round in the sun in the shop windows, your ladys.h.i.+p, till it gets turned, like, and when they have kept it a day or two, and find they can't sell it," (and here Michael looked sharp at the calico curtain,) "I buys it for two cents a quart, and puts it in that churn,"

(pointing to a dirty looking affair in the corner,) "and my old woman and I make it into b.u.t.ter." And he stepped carefully across the cellar, and pulled from _under the bed_, a keg, which he uncovered with a proud flourish, and sticking a bit of wood in it, offered me a taste, "just to thry it."

I couldn't have tasted it, if Michael had shot me; but I told him I dare say he understood his trade and hoped he found plenty of customers.