"O Harry, I 'm so glad," said the girl, suddenly throwing herself on his neck and hugging him, - "I 'm so glad we 're together again! Was n't it wicked to keep us apart, - we poor children?"
"Yes, Tina, I am glad," said the boy, with a steady, quiet, inward sort of light in his eyes; "but, baby, we can't stop to say so much, because we must walk fast and get way, way, way off before daylight; and you know Miss Sphyxy always gets up early, - don't she?"
"O dear, yes! She always poked me out of bed before it was light, - hateful old thing! Let 's run as fast as we can, and get away!"
And with that she sprang forward, with a brisk and onward race, over the pebbly road, down a long hill, laughing as she went, and catching now at a branch of sweetbrier that overhung the road, and now at the tags of sweet-fern, both laden and hoary with heavy autumnal dews, till finally, her little foot tripping over a stone, she fell and grazed her arm sadly. Her brother lifted her up, and wiped the tears from her great, soft eyes with her blue check apron, and talked to her in that grandfatherly way that older children take such delight in when they feel the care of younger ones.
"Now, Tina, darling, you should n't run so wild. We 'd better go pretty fast steadily, than run and fall down. But I 'll kiss the place, as mother used to."
"I don't mind it, Hensel, - I don't mind it," she said, controlling the quivering of her little resolute mouth. "That scratch came for liberty; but this," she said, showing a long welt on her other arm, - "this was slavery. She struck me there with her great ugly stick. O, I never can forgive her!"
"Don't let 's talk any more, baby; let 's hurry on. She never shall get you again; I 'll fight for you till I die, first!"
"You 'd kill 'em all, would n't you? You would have knocked her down, would n't you?" said Tina, kindling up with that inconsiderate exultation in the powers of an elder brother which belongs to childhood. "I knew you would get me away from here, Harry, - I knew you would."
"But now," said Harry, "you just keep hold of my hand, and let 's run together, and I 'll hold you up. We must run fast, after all, because maybe they will harness up the wagon when daylight comes, and come out to look for us."
"Well, if it 's only Sol comes," said the little girl, "I sha' n't care; for he would only carry us on farther."
"Ay, but you may be sure Miss Asphyxia would come herself."
The suggestion seemed too probable, and the two little pairs of heels seemed winged by it as they flew along, their long shadows dancing before them on the moonlit road, like spiritual conductors. They made such good headway that the hour which we have already recorded, when Miss Asphyxia's slumbers were broken, found the pair of tiny pilgrims five miles away on the road to Oldtown.
"Now, Tina," said the boy, as he stopped to watch the long bars of crimson and gold that seemed to be drawing back and opening in the eastern sky, where the sun was flaring upward an expectant blaze of glory, "only look there! Is n't it so wonderful? It 's worth being out here only to see it. There! there! there! the sun is coming! Look! Only see that bright-eyed maple - it seems all on fire! - now that yellow chestnut, and that old pine-tree! O, see, see those red leaves! They are like the story papa used to tell of the trees that bore rubies and emeralds. Are n't they beautiful?"
"Set me on the fence, so as I can see," said Tina. "O Harry, it 's beautiful! And to think that we can see it together!"
Just at this moment they caught the distant sound of wheels.
"Hurry, Tina! Let me lift you over the fence," said the boy; "they are coming!"
How the little hearts beat, as both children jumped down into a thicket of sweet-fern, heavy and wet with morning dew! The lot was one of those confused jungles which one often sees hedging the course of rivers in New England. Groups of pine and hemhock grew here and there, intermixed with low patches of swampy land, which were waving with late wild-flowers and molding swamp-grasses. The children tore their way through goldenrods, asters, and cat-tails to a little elevated spot where a great, flat rock was surrounded by a hedge of white-pine. This was precisely the shelter they wanted; for the pines grew so thickly around it as completely to screen it from sight from the road, while it was open to the warm beams of the morning sun.
"Cuddle down here, Tina," said Harry, in a whispering voice, as if he feared the driver in the rattling farm-wagon might hear them.
"O, what a nice little house the trees make here!" said Tina. "We are as snug here and as warm as can be; and only see what a nice white-and-green carpet there is all over the rock!"
The rock, to be sure, was all frothed over with a delicate white foam of moss, which, later in the day, would have crackled and broken in brittle powder under their footsteps, but which now, saturated by the heavy night-dews, only bent under them, a soft, elastic carpet.
Their fears were soon allayed when, peeping like scared partridges from their cover, they saw a farm-wagon go rattling by from the opposite direction to that in which Miss Asphyxia lived.
"O, it 's nobody for us; it comes the other way," said the boy.
It was, in fact, Primus King, going on his early way to preside over the solemnities of pig killing.
"Then, Hensel, we are free," said the little girl; "nobody will catch us now. They could no more find us in this lot than they could find a little, little tiny pin the hay-mow."
"No, indeed, Tina; we are safe now," said the boy.
"Why don't you call me Grettel? We will play be Hensel and Grettel; and who knows what luck will come to us?"
"Well, Grettel, then," said the boy, obediently. "You sit now, and spread out your frock in the sun to dry, while I get out some breakfast for you. Old Aunty Smith has filled my basket with all sorts of good things."
"And nice old Sol, - he gave us his pie," said Tina. "I love Sol, though he is a funny-looking man. You ought to see Sol's hand, it 's so big! And his feet, - why one of his shoes would make a good boat for me! But he 's a queer old dear, though, and I love him."
"What shall we eat first?" said the boy, - "the bread and butter, or the cookies, or the doughnuts, or the pie?"
"Let 's try a little of all of them," said young madam.
"You know, Tina," said the boy, in a slow, considerate way, "that we must take care of this, because we don't know when we 'll get anymore. There 's got to be a dinner and a supper got out of this at any rate."
"O, well, Hensel, you do just as you please with it, then; only let 's begin with Sol's pie and some of that nice cheese, for I am so hungry! And then, when we have had our breakfast, I mean to lie down in the sun, and have a nap on this pretty white moss. O Harry, how pretty this moss is! There are bright little red things in it, as bright as mother's scarlet cloak. But, O Harry, look, quick! don't say a word! There 's a squirrel! How bright his little eyes are! Let 's give him some of our breakfast."
Harry broke off a crumb of cake and threw it to the little striped-backed stranger.
"Why, he 's gone like a wind, said the girl. "Come back, little fellow; we sha' n't hurt you."
"O, hush, Tina, he 's coming! I see his bright eyes. He 's watching that bit of cake."
"There, he 's got it and is off!" said Tina, with a shriek of delight. "See him race up that tree with it!"
"He 's going to take it home to his wife."
"His wife!" said Tina, laughing so hard at Harry's wit that she was obliged to lay down her pie. "Has he got a wife?"
"Why, of course he has," said Harry, with superior wisdom.
"I 'm your wife, ain't I?" said Tina, contentedly.
"No. You 're my little sister, and I take care of you," said the boy. "But people can't have their sisters for wives; the Bible says so."
"Well, I can be just like your wife; and I 'll mend your clothes and knit your stockings when I get bigger."
To which practical view of matrimonial duties Harry gave a grave assent.
Not a striped-backed squirrel, or a bobolink, or a cat-bird, in the whole pasture-lot, had better spirits than our two little travelers. They were free; th
ey were together; the sun was shining and birds were singing; and as for the future, it was with them as with the birds. The boy, to be sure, had a share of forethought and care, and deemed himself a grown man acting with most serious responsibility for his light-headed little sister; but even in him this was only a half-awakening from the dream-land of childhood.
When they had finished their breakfast, he bethought him of his morning prayers, and made Tina kneel down beside him while he repeated psalm and hymn and prayer, in which she joined with a very proper degree of attention. When he had finished, she said, "Do you know, Hensel, I have n't said my prayers a single once since I 've been at Miss Asphyxia's?"
"Why, Tina!"
"Well, you see, there was n't anybody to say them to, now mother is gone; and you were not there."
"But you say them to God, Tina."
"O, he 's so far off, and I 'm so little, I can't say them to him. I must say them to somebody I can see. Harry, where is mother gone?"
"She is gone to heaven, Tina."
"Where is heaven?"
"It 's up in the sky, Tina," said the boy, looking up into the deep, cloudless blue of an October sky, which, to say the truth, is about as celestial a thing as a mortal child can look into; and as he looked, his great blue eyes grew large and serious with thoughts of his mother's last wonderful words.
"If it 's up in the sky, why did they dig down into the ground, and put her in that hole?" said the little sceptic.
"It is her soul that went up. Her body is planted like a beautiful flower. She will come up by and by; and we shall see her again, if we are good children."
Tina lay back on the white moss, with only a fringy bough of white-pine between her and the deep, eternal, blue, where the thinnest films of white clouds were slowly sailing to and fro. Her spiritual musings grew, to say the truth, rather confused. She was now very tired with her night tramp; and the long fringes fell over her great, dark eyes, as a flower shuts itself, and she was soon asleep.
The boy sat watching her awhile, feeling soothed by the calm, soft sunshine, and listening to the thousand sweet lullaby-notes which Nature is humming to herself, while about her great world-housework, in a calm October morning. The locusts and katydids grated a drowsy, continuous note to each other from every tree and bush; and from a neighboring thicket a lively-minded catbird was giving original variations and imitations of all sorts of bird voices and warbling; while from behind the tangled thicket which fringed its banks came the prattle of a hidden river, whose bright brown waters were gossiping, in a pleasant, constant chatter, with the many-colored stones on the bottom; and when the light breezes wandered hither and thither, as your idle breezes always will be doing, they made little tides and swishes of sound among the pine-trees, like the rising and falling of sunny waters on the sea-shore.
Altogether, it was not long before Harry's upright watch over his sister subsided into a droop upon one elbow, and finally the little curly head went suddenly down on to his sister's shoulder; and then they were fast asleep, - as nice a little pair of babes in the wood as ever the robins could cover up. They did not awake till it was almost noon. The sun was shining warm and cloudless, and every bit of dew had long been dried; and Tina, in refreshed spirits, proposed that they should explore the wonders of the pasture-lot, - especially that they should find out where the river was whose waters they heard gurgling behind the leafy wall of wild vines.
"We can leave our basket here in our little house, Hensel. See, I set it in here, way, way in among the pine-trees; and that 's my little green closet."
So the children began picking their way through the thicket guided by the sound of the water.
"O Tina!" said the boy; "look there, over your head!"
The object pointed out was a bough of a wild grape-vine heavily laden with ripe purple grapes.
"O, wild grapes!" said Tina. "Harry, do get them!"
Harry soon pulled the bough down within reach, and the children began helping themselves.
"I 'm going to take an apronful up to the tree, and put into our closet," said Tina; "and we shall have a nice store there."
"But, Tina, we can't live there on the rock," said the boy; "we must walk on and get to Oldtown some time."
"O well, we have the whole long, long day for it," said the girl, "and we may as well have a good time now; so, when I 've put up these grapes, we 'll see where the river is."
A little scrambling and tearing through vines soon brought the children down to the banks of a broad, rather shallow river, whose waters were of that lustrous yellow-brown which makes every stone gleam up from the bottom in mellow colors, like the tints through the varnish of an old picture. The banks were a rampart of shrubbery and trees hung with drapery of wild vines, now in the brilliancy of autumnal coloring. It is not wonderful that exclamations of delight and wonder burst from both children. An old hemlock that hung slantwise over the water opposite was garlanded and interwoven, through all its dusky foliage, with wreaths and pendants of the Virginia creeper, now burning in the brilliant carmine and scarlet hues of autumn. Great, soft, powdery clumps of golden-rod projected their heads from the closely interwoven thicket, and leaned lovingly over the stream, while the royal purple of tall asters was displayed in bending plumage at their side. Here and there, a swamp-maple seemed all one crimson flame; while greener shrubbery and trees, yet untouched by frosts, rose up around it, as if purposely to give background and relief to so much color. The rippling surface of the waters, as they dashed here and there over the stones, gave back colored flashes from the red, yellow, crimson, purple, and green of the banks; while ever and anon little bright leaves came sailing down the stream, all moist and brilliant, like so many floating gems. The children clapped their hands, and began, with sticks, fishing them towards the shore. "These are our little boats," they said. So they were, - fairy boats, coming from the land of nowhere, and going on to oblivion, shining and fanciful, like the little ones that played with them.
"I declare," said Tina, "I mean to take off my shoes and stockings, and wade out to that little island where those pretty white stones are. You go with me."
"Well, Tina, wait till I can hold you."
And soon both the little pairs of white feet were slipping and spattering among the pebbles at the bottom. On the way Tina made many efforts to entrap the bright rings of sunlight on the bottom, regardless of the logic with which Harry undertook to prove to her that it was nothing but the light, and that she could not catch it; and when they came to the little white gravelly bank, they sat down and looked around them with great content.
"We 're on a desolate island, are n't we, Hensel?" said Tina. "I like desolate islands," she added, looking around her, with the air of one who had had a wide experience of the article. "The banks here are so high, and the bushes so thick, that Miss Asphyxia could not find us if she were to try. We 'll make our home here."
"Well, I think , Tina, darling, that it won't do for us to stay here very long," said Harry. "We must try to get to some place where I can find something to do, and some good, kind woman to take care of you."
"O Harry, what 's the use of thinking of that, - it 's so bright and pleasant, and it 's so long since I 've had you to play with! Do let 's have one good, pleasant day alone among the flowers! See how beautiful everything is!" she added, "and it 's so warm and quiet and still, and all the birds and squirrels and butterflies are having such a good time. I don't want anything better than to play about out in the woods with you."
"But where shall we sleep nights, Tina?"
"O, it was so pleasant last night, and the moon shone so bright, I would not be afraid to cuddle down under a bush with you, Harry."
"Ah, Tina! You don't know what may come. The moon don't shine all night, and there may be cold and wind and rain, and then where would we be? Come, darling, let 's go on; we can walk in the fields by the river, and so get down to the place Sol told us about."
So at last the little fanciful body was
persuaded to wade back from her desolate island, and to set out once more on her pilgrimage. But even an older head than hers might have been turned by the delights of that glorious October day, and gone off into a vague trance of bliss, in which the only good of life seemed to be in luxurious lounging and dreamy enjoyment of the passing hour. Nature in New England is, for the most part, a sharp, determined matron, of the Miss Asphyxia school. She is shrewd, keen, relentless, energetic. She runs through the seasons a merciless express-train, on which you may jump if you can, at her hours, but which knocks you down remorselessly if you come in her way, and leaves you hopelessly behind if you are late. Only for a few brief weeks in the autumn does this grim, belligerent female condescend to be charming; but when she does set about it, the veriest Circe of enchanted isles could not do it better. Airs more dreamy, more hazy, more full of purple light and lustre, never lay over Cyprus or Capri than those which each October overshadow the granite rocks and prickly chestnuts of New England. The trees seem to run no longer sap, but some strange liquid glow; the colors of the flowers flame up, from the cold, pallid delicacy of spring, into royal tints wrought of the very fire of the sun and the hues of evening clouds. The humblest weed, which we trod under our foot unnoticed in summer, changes with the first frost into some colored marvel, and lifts itself up into a study for a painter, - just as the touch of death or adversity often strikes out in a rough nature traits of nobleness and delicacy before wholly undreamed of.
The children traveled onward along the winding course of the river, through a prairie-land of wild-flowers. The whole tribe of asters - white, lilac, pale blue, and royal purple - were rolling in perfect billows of blossoms around them, and the sprays of golden-rod often rose above their heads, as they crackled their way through the many-colored thickets. The children were both endowed with an organization exquisitely susceptible to beauty, and the flowers seemed to intoxicate them with their variety and brilliancy. They kept gathering from right to left without any other object than the possession of a newer and fairer spray, till their little arms were full; and then they would lay them down to select from the mass the choicest, which awhile after would be again thrown by for newer and fairer treasures. Their motion through the bushes often disturbed clouds of yellow butterflies, which had been hanging on the fringes of the tall purple asters, and which rose toying with each other, and fluttering in ethereal dances against the blue sky, looking like whirls and eddies of air-flowers. One of the most brilliant incidents in the many-colored pictures of October days is given by these fluttering caprices of the butterflies. Never in any other part of the season are these airy tribes so many and so brilliant. There are, in particular, whole armies of small, bright yellow ones, which seem born for no other purpose than to make effective and brilliant contrasts with those royal-purple tints of asters, and they hang upon them as if drawn to them by some law of affinity in their contrasting colors.