Holiday Stories for Young People Part 31

So the wolf lifted the latch, and the door flew open, and he fell on the grandmother and ate her up without saying one word. Then he drew on her clothes, put on her cap, lay down in her bed and drew the curtains, the old wretch that he was.

Little Redcap was all this time running about among the flowers, and when she had gathered as many as she could hold; she remembered her grandmother, and set off to go to her. She was surprised to find the door standing wide open, and when she came inside she felt very strange and thought to herself:

"Oh, dear, how uncomfortable I feel, and I was so glad this morning to go to my grandmother!"

And when she said "Good morning!" there was no answer. Then she went up to the bed and drew back the curtains; there lay the grandmother with her cap pulled over her eyes, so that she looked very odd.

"Oh, grandmother, what large ears you have got!"

"The better to hear you with."

"Oh, grandmother, what great eyes you have got!"

"The better to see you with."

"Oh, grandmother, what large hands you have got!"

"The better to take hold of you with, my dear."

"But, grandmother, what a terrible large mouth you have got!"

"The better to devour you!" And no sooner had the wolf said this than he made one bound from the bed and swallowed up poor Little Redcap.

Then the wolf, having satisfied his hunger, lay down again in the bed, went to sleep and began to snore loudly. The huntsman heard him as he was pa.s.sing by the house and thought:

"How the old lady snores--I would better see if there is anything the matter with her."

Then he went into the room and walked up to the bed, and saw the wolf lying there.

"At last I find you, you old sinner!" said he; "I have been looking for you for a long time." And he made up his mind that the wolf had swallowed the grandmother whole, and that she might yet be saved. So he did not fire, but took a pair of shears and began to slit up the wolf's body. When he made a few snips Little Redcap appeared, and after a few more snips she jumped out and cried, "Oh, dear, how frightened I have been, it is so dark inside the wolf!"

And then out came the old grandmother, still living and breathing. But Little Redcap went and quickly fetched some large stones, with which she filled the wolf's body, so that when he waked up, and was going to rush away, the stones were so heavy that he sank down and fell dead.

They were all three very much pleased. The huntsman took off the wolf's skin and carried it home to make a fur rug. The grandmother ate the cakes and drank the milk and held up her head again, and Little Redcap said to herself that she would never again stray about in the wood alone, but would mind what her mother told her, nor talk to strangers.

It must also be related how a few days afterward, when Little Redcap was again taking cakes to her grandmother, another wolf spoke to her, and wanted to tempt her to leave the path; but she was on her guard, and went straight on her way, and told her grandmother how that the wolf had met her and wished her good-day, but had looked so wicked about the eyes that she thought if it had not been on the high road he would have devoured her.

"Come," said the grandmother, "we will shut the door, so that he may not get in."

Soon after came the wolf knocking at the door, and calling out, "Open the door, grandmother, I am Little Redcap, bringing you cakes." But they remained still and did not open the door. After that the wolf slunk by the house, and got at last upon the roof to wait until Little Redcap should return home in the evening; then he meant to spring down upon her and devour her in the darkness. But the grandmother discovered his plot.

Now, there stood before the house a great stone trough, and the grandmother said to the child: "Little Redcap, I was boiling sausages yesterday, so take the bucket and carry away the water they were boiled in and pour it into the trough."

And Little Redcap did so until the great trough was quite full. When the smell of the sausages reached the nose of the wolf he snuffed it up and looked around, and stretched out his neck so far that he lost his balance and began to slip, and he slipped down off the roof straight in the great trough and was drowned. Then Little Redcap went cheerfully home and came to no harm.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 3: Every boy and girl should read this pretty fairy story.]

New Zealand Children.

New Zealand children are pretty, dark-eyed, smooth-cheeked little creatures, with clear skins of burnt umber color, and the reddest mouths in the world, until the girl grows up and her mother tattooes her lips blue, for gentility's sake.

All day they live in the open air, unless during a violent storm. But they are perfectly healthy and very clean, for the first thing they do is to plunge into the sea water. Besides this, they take baths in warm springs that abound everywhere, and which keep their skins in good order. As to their breakfast, I am afraid that often they have some very unpleasant things to eat--stale shark, for instance, and sour corn bread--so sour that you could not swallow it, and boiled fern root, or the pulp of fern stems, or crawfish.

Even if their father had happened to cut down a tall palm the day before, in order to take what white people call the "palm cabbage" out of it's very top, I'm afraid he would not share this dainty with the children. I am not sure he would offer even their mother a bite. It would be literally a bite if he did, for when people get together to eat in New Zealand, one takes a piece of something from the basket in which food is served, bites out a mouthful and hands it to the next, who does the same, and pa.s.ses it to his neighbor, and so on until it is all gone, and some other morsel is begun upon.

Sixty or seventy years ago New Zealanders had never seen a pig or any animal larger than a cat. But about that time, one Captain King, feeling that a nation without pork and beans and succotash could never come to any good, brought them some Indian corn and some beans, and taught them how to plant and cultivate them, and shortly sent them some fine pigs, not doubting but that they would understand what to do with them without instruction.

However, the New Zealanders had no idea what the pigs were sent for, and everybody asked everybody else about it, until one--the smart fellow who knows it all--said that he had heard all about them from a sailor, and that they were horses! Oh, certainly they were horses! The sailor had described them perfectly--long heads, pointed ears, broad backs, four legs, and a tail. They were to ride upon. Great chiefs always rode them where the sailors lived.

So the New Zealand chiefs mounted the pigs, and when Captain King came to see how everything was going on, they had ridden them to death--all but a few obstinate ones, who had eaten up the maize as soon as it grew green, and finished up the beans by way of dessert before the vines were halfway up the poles.

Captain King did not despair, however. He took two natives home with him, taught them all about the cultivation of maize, and the rearing of pigs; and pork is now as popular in New Zealand as it is in Cincinnati.

You can hardly take a walk without meeting a mother-pig and a lot of squealing piglets; and people pet them more than they ever did or ever will in their native lands. Here, you know, when baby wants something to play with, some one finds him a kitten, a ball of white floss, or a little Maltese, or a black morsel with green eyes and a red mouth; but in New Zealand they give him a very, very young pig, smooth as a kid glove, with little slits of eyes, and his curly tail twisted up into a little tight knot; and the brown baby hauls it about and pulls its ears and goes to sleep hugging it fast; and there they lie together, the piglet grunting comfortably, the baby snoring softly, for hours at a time.

It is pleasanter to think of a piggy as a pet than as pork, and pleasanter still to know that the little New Zealanders have something really nice to eat--the finest sweet potatoes that grow anywhere.

They say that sweet potatoes, which they call _k.u.mere_, is the food good spirits eat, and they sing a song about them, and so do the mothers, which is very pretty. The song tells how, long ago, Ezi-Ki and his wife, Ko Paui, sailing on the water in a boat, were wrecked, and would have been drowned but for good New Zealanders, who rescued them.

And Ko Paui saw that the children had very little that was wholesome for them to eat, and showed her grat.i.tude by returning, all by herself, to Tawai, to bring them seeds of the _k.u.mere_. And how storms arose and she was in danger, but at last arrived in New Zealand safely and taught them how to plant and raise this excellent food. And every verse of the song ends with: "Praise the memory of beautiful Ko Paui, wife of Ezi-Ki, forever."

Little New Zealanders run about with very little on, as a general thing, but they all have cloaks--they call them "mats." Their mother sits on the ground with a little weaving frame about two feet high before her, and makes them of what is called New Zealand flax. The long threads hang down in rows of fringes, one over the other, and s.h.i.+ne like silk. They have also water-proofs, or "rain-mats," made of long polished leaves that shed the water. When a little New Zealand girl pulls this over her head she does not mind any shower. You may see a circle of these funny objects sitting in the pelting rain, talking to each other and looking just like tiny haystacks.

New Zealand children have, strange to say, many toys. They swim like ducks, and, as I have said, revel in the natural hot baths, where they will sit and talk by the hour. In fact, the life of a New Zealand child is full of occupation, and both girls and boys are bright, light-hearted, and intelligent.

The Breeze from the Peak.

A stiff Sea Breeze was having the wildest, merriest time, rocking the sailboats and fluttering the sails, chasing the breakers far up the beach, sending the fleecy cloudsails scudding across the blue ocean above, making old ocean roar with delight at its mad pranks, while all the little wavelets dimpled with laughter; the Cedar family on the sh.o.r.e, old and rheumatic as they were, laughed till their sides ached, and the children shouted and cheered upon the beach. How fresh and strong and life-giving it was. The children wondered why it was so jolly, but never guessed the reason; and its song was so wonderfully sweet, but only the waves understood the words of the wild, strange melody.

"I have come," it sang, "from a land far across the water. My home was on the mountain top, high up among the clouds. Such a white, white world as it was! The mountain peak hooded in snow-ermine, and the gray-white clouds floating all around me; and it was so very still; my voice, the only sound to be heard, and that was strange and m.u.f.fled. But though the fluffy clouds were so silent, they were gay companions and full of fun; let them find me napping once, and, puff! Down they would send the feathery snow, choking and blinding me, then would come a wild chase; once in a mad frolic my breath parted the clouds and I saw down the mountain side! Never shall I forget the picture I saw that day, framed by the silvery clouds. I, who had known nothing but that pale stillness and bitter cold, for the first time saw life and color, and a s.h.i.+mmering, golden light, resting on tree and river and valley farm; do you wonder I forgot the mountain peak, the clouds--_everything_ that was behind, and, without even a last farewell, spread my wings and flew swiftly down the mountain side? Very soon I was far below that snowy cloud world, with a bright blue sky above me, and patches of red gravel and green moss and gray lichens beneath. Once I stopped to rest upon a great rock, moss-covered, and with curling ferns at its base; from its side flowed a crystal spring, so clear and cool that I caught up all I could carry to refresh me on my journey; but it a.s.sured me I need not take that trouble, for it was also on its way down the mountain side.

"'But you have no wings,' I said. 'Are you sure of that?' answered the spring, and I thought she looked up in an odd way at some of my cloud friends, who had followed in my track; then she added: 'And, even if you are right, there is more than one way to reach the foot of the mountain; I am sure you will find me there before you.'

"I could not but doubt this, for I am swifter than any bird of the air, but she only laughed at me as I flew on, and once, looking back, I saw she had started on her journey, and was creeping slowly along a tiny thread of water, almost hidden in the gra.s.s. I next floated upon some dark green trees, that sent out a spicy odor as I touched their boughs, and when I moved they sang a low, tuneful melody; their song was of the snowy mountain peak, the clouds, the bubbling spring, the suns.h.i.+ne and the green gra.s.s; yes, and there was something else, a deep undertone that I did not then understand, and the melody was a loom that wove them all into a living harmony; some of my breezes are there still, listening to the Pine Trees' song; but I hurried on, the gra.s.s grew green and luscious along my way, and the sheep, with their baby lambs, were pastured upon it; rills and brooks joined hands, and went racing faster and faster down between the rocks; one of the brooks had grown quite wide and deep, and as it leaped and sparkled and sang its way into the valley, where it flowed into a wide, foaming stream, it looked back with a gay laugh, and I saw in its depths the face of the little spring I had left far up the mountain side.

"It was summer in the valley, and the air was scented with roses and ripening fruits. It was very warm and sultry, and I fanned the children's faces until they laughed and clapped their hands, crying out: 'It's the breeze from the mountain peak! How fresh and sweet and cool it is.'

"I rocked the baby-birds to sleep in their leafy cradles. I entered the houses, making the curtains flutter, and filling the rooms with my mountain perfume. I longed to stay forever in that beautiful summer land, but now the mountain stream beckoned me on. Swiftly I flew along its banks, turning the windmills met on the way, and swelling out the sails of the boats until the sailors sang for joy. On and on we journeyed; my mountain friend, joined by a hundred meadow-brooks, grew deeper and wider as it flowed along, and its breath began to have a queer, salty odor. One day I heard a throbbing music far off that sounded like the undertone in the Pine Trees' melody; then very soon we reached this great body of water, and, looking across, could see no sign of land anywhere; but still we journeyed on. I feared at first that my friend was lost to me, but often she laughed from the crest of the wave, or glistened in a white cap, cheering my way to this sunny sh.o.r.e; and now, at last, we are here, laden with treasure for each one of you. Take it, and be glad!"

But the children did not understand the song of the Sea Breeze, nor did they know what made its breath so wonderfully sweet. But all day long they breathed in its fragrance, and gathered up the treasures brought to their feet by the tiny spring born up in the clouds.