Part 7

Timidly they obeyed, setting down their big wood-basket at the gate. The old woman leaned over the window to await them, her hand on a square glass jar full of yellow liquid, in which floated what seemed to be a pickled serpent with his tail in three coils, and the tip in his mouth. Pierotte shuddered at the serpent, but Pierot was bolder.

"Did you want us, good madam?" he asked.

"Want you? No," replied the "good madam." "How should I want you? I saw you staring at my house as if your eyes would pop out of your heads, and I thought, perhaps, you wanted me."

"It was only--we were only--surprised," stammered Pierot. "Because we didn't know that there was a house here."

"There was none last night, and there won't be any to-morrow morning--at least--none for children to stare at," replied the old woman, coolly.

"What _do_ you mean?" cried Pierot, astonished beyond measure. "How can a house be built in one night? And why won't it be here to-morrow?"

"Because to-morrow won't be Midsummer's Day--and to-day is," replied the old woman; "and a fairy-house is visible to mortal eyes at that time, and no other."

"Fairy-house!" faltered Pierot; while Pierotte, jumping more rapidly to a conclusion, fairly screamed: "Oh, Pierot! Madam, then, is a fairy! A real fairy! Pierot, think of it, only think of it!"

"Very much at your service," said the old woman, with a malicious smile. "Do you like fairies, then? Do you admire my pickled snake? Would you wish to pull some flowers?"

Something in the smile made Pierotte draw back; but Pierot said politely,--

"One rose, perhaps--since Madam is so good."

The fairy leaned out and plucked a rose from the vine which grew on the wall close by.

"Now listen," she said. "Each of my roses encloses a wish. You are great wishers, I know;" and her eyes twinkled queerly. "This time the wish will come true, so take care what you are about. There will be no coming to get me to undo the wish, for I shan't be visible again till this time next year on Midsummer's Day,--you know."

"Oh, Pierot! what shall we wish for?" cried Pierotte, much excited; but the old woman only repeated, "Take care!" drew her head in at the window, and all in a minute--how, they could not explain--the cottage had vanished, the garden, the gate,--they were in the wood again, with nothing but trees and bushes about them; and all would have seemed like a dream, except for the red and fragrant rose which Pierot held in his hand.

"What shall we wish for?" repeated Pierotte, as they seated themselves under a tree to talk over this marvellous adventure.

"We must be very careful, and ask for something nice," replied Pierot.

"It would be better to wait and think for a long time first," suggested Pierotte.

"Thou art right. We will. Art thou not hungry?"

"Oh, so hungry! Let us eat the rest of our bread now. I can't wait any longer."

So Pierot produced the big lump of bread, and divided it into two equal portions.

"Look, look!" cried Pierotte, as her teeth met in the first mouthful. "A cherry-tree, brother,--a real cherry-tree here in the woods! And with ripe cherries on it! How good some would be with our bread!"

"First-rate!" cried Pierot; and, putting their bread carefully on the grass, both ran to the tree. Alas! the boughs grew high, and the cherries hung far beyond their reach. Pierot tried to climb the tree, but the stem was both slight and slippery. Then they found a forked stick, but vainly attempted to hook and draw down a branch.

"Oh, dear! I wish we were both grown up," cried Pierot, panting with exertion.

"So do I. If we were as old as father and mother, we could reach the boughs without even getting on tiptoe," chimed in Pierotte.

Luckless words! As Pierot spoke, the rose, which he had stuck in his cap, shrivelled and faded, while a queer sensation as if he were being carried up into the air swept over him. He clutched at something to hold himself down. That something was the cherry-tree bough! He could reach it now, and as his eyes turned with dismay toward Pierotte, there she stood, also holding a twig of the tree, only two or three inches lower than his own. Her pretty round cheeks and childish curls were gone, and instead of them he beheld a middle-aged countenance with dull hair, a red nose, and a mouth fallen in for lack of teeth. She, on her part, unconscious of the change, was staring at him with a horrified expression.

"Why, Pierot!" she cried at last, in a voice which sounded as old as her face, "how queer you look! You've got a beard, and your forehead is all criss-cross and wrinkly, and your chin rough. Dear me, how ugly you are! I never thought you could be so ugly."

"Ugly, eh! Perhaps you would like to see your own face," said Pierot, enraged at this flattering criticism. "Just wait till we get home, and I show you the old looking-glass. But stay, we needn't wait;" and he dragged Pierotte to the side of a little pool of still water, which had caught his eye among the bushes. "Here's a looking-glass ready made," he went on. "Look, Pierotte, and see what a beauty you have become."

Poor Pierotte! She took one look, gave a scream, and covered her face with her hands.

"That me?" she cried. "Oh! I never, never will think it! What is the matter with us, Pierot? Was it that horrid fairy, do you think? Did she bewitch us?"

"The wish!" faltered Pierot, who at that moment caught sight of the faded rose in his cap. "I wished that we were both grown up, don't you remember? Oh, what a fool I was!"

"You horrid boy! You have gone and wished me into an ugly old woman! I'll never forgive you!" sobbed Pierotte.

"It was your wish too. You said you would like to be as old as father and mother. So you needn't call me horrid!" answered Pierot, angrily.

Silence followed, broken only by Pierotte's sobs. The two old children sat with their backs to each other, under different trees. By and by Pierot's heart began to smite him.

"It was more my fault than hers," he thought; and, turning round a little way, he said coaxingly, "Pierotte."

No answer. Pierotte only stuck out her shoulder a little and remained silent.

"Don't look so cross," went on Pierot. "You can't think how horrid it makes you--a woman of your age!"

"I'm not a woman of my age. Oh, how can you say such things?" sobbed Pierotte. "I don't want to be grown-up. I want to be a little girl again."

"You used to be always wishing you were big," remarked her now big brother.

"Y--es, so I was; but I never meant all at once. I wanted to be big enough to spin--and the--mother--was--going--to teach me," went on poor Pierotte, crying bitterly, "and I wanted to be as big as Laura Blaize--and--pretty--and some day have a sweetheart, as she had--and--but what's the use--I've lost it all, and I'm grown up, and old and ugly already, and the mother won't know me, and the father will say, 'My little Pierotte--Coeur de St. Martin--impossible! get out, you witch!'" Overcome by this dreadful picture, Pierotte hid her face and cried louder than ever.

"I'll tell you what," said Pierot, after a pause, "don't let us go home at all. We will just hide here in the woods for a year, and when Midsummer's Day comes round, we'll hunt till we find the fairy house again, and beg the fairy, on our knees, for another wish, and if she says 'yes,' we'll wish at once to be little just as we were this morning, and _then_ we'll go home directly."

"Poor mother; she will think we are dead!" sighed Pierotte.

"That's no worse than if she saw us like this. I'd be conscripted most likely and sent off to fight, and me only twelve years old! And you'd have a horrid time of it with the Blaize boys. Robert Blaize said you were the prettiest girl in Balne aux Bois. I wonder what he'd say now!"

"Oh, yes, let us stay here," shuddered Pierotte. "I couldn't bear to see the Blaize boys now. But then--it will be dark soon--shan't you be frightened to stay in the woods all night?"

"Oh! a man like me isn't easily frightened," said Pierot, stoutly, but his teeth chattered a little.

"It's so queer to hear you call yourself 'a man,'" remarked Pierotte.

"And it's just as queer to hear you call yourself a little girl," answered Pierot, with a glance at the antiquated face beside him.

"Dear, how my legs shake, and how stiff my knees are!" sighed Pierotte. "Do grown-up people feel like that always?"

"I don't know," said Pierot, whose own legs lacked their old springiness. "Would you like some cherries now, Pierotte? I can reach them easily."

"Cherries! Those sour things? No, thank you. They would be sure to disagree with me," returned Pierotte, pettishly.

"Times are changed," muttered Pierot; but he dared not speak aloud.

"Where shall we sleep?" asked Pierotte.

"Under the trees, so long as the summer lasts."

"Gracious! We shall both die of rheumatism."

"Rheumatism? What an idea for a child like you!"

"I wish I _were_ a child," said Pierotte, with a groan. "Here's a tree with grass below it, and I'm getting tired and sleepy."

When the brother and sister woke it was broad sunlight again.

"One day gone of our year," said Pierot, trying to be cheerful.

It was hard work as time went on, and with all their constant walking and wandering they never seemed to find their way out of the forest, or of that particular part of it where their luckless adventure had befallen them. Turn which way they would, the paths always appeared to lead them round to the same spot; it was like bewitchment; they could make nothing out of it. The dulness of their lives was varied only by an occasional quarrel. Pierot would essay to climb a tree, and Pierotte, grown sage and proper, would upbraid him for behaving so foolishly,--"just like a boy,"--or he would catch her using the pool as a mirror, and would tease her for caring so much for a plain old face when there was nobody but himself to look. How the time went they had no idea. It seemed always daylight, and yet weeks, if not months, must have passed, they thought, and Pierot at last began to suspect the fairy of having changed the regular course of the sun so as to cheat them out of the proper time for finding her at home.

"It's just like her," he said. "She is making the days seem all alike, so that we may not know when Midsummer comes. Pierotte, I'll tell you what, we must be on the lookout, and search for the little house every day, for if we forget just once, that will be the very time, depend upon it."

So every day, and all day long, the two old children wandered to and fro in search of the fairy cot. For a long time their quest was in vain; but at last, one bright afternoon, just before sunset, as they were about giving up the hunt for that day, the woods opened in the same sudden way and revealed the garden, the hut, and--yes--at the window the pointed cap, the sharp black eyes. It was the fairy herself; they had found her at last.

For a moment they were too much bewildered to move; then side by side they hurried into the garden without waiting for invitation.

"Well, my old gaffer, what can I do for you, or for you, dame?" asked the fairy, benevolently.

"Oh, please, I am not a dame, he is not a gaffer," cried Pierotte, imploringly. "I am little Pierotte"--and she bobbed a courtesy. "And this is Pierot, my brother."

"Pierot and Pierotte! Wonderful!" said the fairy. "But, my dear children, what has caused this change in your appearance? You have aged remarkably since I saw you last."

"Indeed, we have," replied Pierot, with a grimace.

"Well, age is a very respectable thing. Some persons are always wishing to be old," remarked the fairy, maliciously. "You find it much pleasanter than being young, I dare say."

"Indeed, we don't," said Pierotte, wiping her eyes on her apron.

"No? Well, that is sad, but I _have_ heard people say the same before you."

"Oh, please, please," cried Pierot and Pierotte, falling on their knees before the window, "please, dear, kind fairy, forgive us. We don't like to be grown-up at all. We want to be little and young again. Please, dear fairy, turn us into children as we were before."

"What would be the use?" said the old woman. "You'd begin wanting to be somebody else at once if you were turned back to what you were before."

"We won't, indeed we won't," pleaded the children, very humbly.

The fairy leaned out and gathered a rose.

"Very well," she said. "Here's another wish for you. See that it is a wise one this time, for if you fail, it will be of no use to come to me."

With these words, she shut the blinds suddenly, and lo! in one second, house, garden, and all had vanished, and Pierot and Pierotte were in the forest again.

There was no deliberation this time as to what the wish should be.

"I wish I was a little boy," shouted Pierot, holding the rose over his head with a sort of ecstasy.

"And I wish I was a little girl, the same little girl exactly that I used to be," chorused Pierotte.

The rose seemed to melt in air, so quickly did it wither and collapse. And the brother and sister embraced and danced with joy, for each in the other's face saw the fulfilment of their double wish.

"Oh, how young you look! Oh, how pretty you are! Oh, what happiness it is not to be old any longer! The dear fairy! The kind fairy!" These were the exclamations which the squirrels and the birds heard for the next ten minutes, and the birds and the squirrels seemed to be amused, for certain queer and unexplained little noises like laughs sounded from under the leaves and behind the bushes.

"Let us go home at once to mother," cried Pierotte.

There was no difficulty about the paths now. After walking awhile, Pierot began to recognize this turn and that. There was the huntsman's oak and the Dropping Well; and there--yes, he was sure--lay the hazel copse where the father had bidden them go for wood.

"I say," cried Pierotte, with a sudden bright thought, "we will wait and bind one fagot for the mother's oven--the poor mother! Who has fetched her wood all this time, do you suppose?"

Plenty of sticks lay on the ground ready for binding. The wood-choppers had just left off their work, it would seem. Pierotte's basket was filled, a fagot tied and lifted on to Pierot's shoulders, and through the gathering twilight they hurried homeward. They were out of the wood soon. There was the hut, with a curl of smoke rising from the chimney; there was the mother standing at the door and looking toward the forest. What _would_ she say when she saw them?

What she said astonished them very much.

"How long you have been!" were the words, but the tone was not one of surprise.

"O mother, mother!" cried Pierotte, clinging to her arm, while Pierot said, "We were afraid to come home because we looked so old, and we feared you would not know us, but now we are young again."

"Old! young!" said the mother. "What does the lad mean! One does not age so fast between sunrise and sunset as to be afraid to come home. Are you dreaming, Pierot?"

"But we have been away a year," said Pierot, passing his hand before his eyes as if trying to clear his ideas.

"A year! Prithee! And the sheets which I hung out at noon not fairly dry yet. A year! And the goats thou drovest to pasture before breakfast not in the shed yet! A year! Thou wouldst better not let the father hear thee prate thus! What, crying, Pierotte! Here's a pretty to-do because, forsooth, you are come in an hour late!"

An hour late! The children looked at each other in speechless amazement. To this day the amazement continues. The mother still persists that they were absent but a few hours. Where, then, were the weeks spent in the wood, the gray hair, the wrinkles, the wanderings in search of the old woman and her hut? Was all and each but a bit of enchantment, a trick of the mirth-loving fairies? They could not tell, and neither can I. Fairies are unaccountable folk, and their doings surpass our guessing, who are but mortal, and stupid at that! One thing I know, that the two children since that day have dropped their foolish habit of wishing, and are well content to remain little Pierot and Pierotte till the time comes for them to grow older, as it will only too soon.

BLUE AND PINK.

TWO valentines lay together in the pillar post-box. One was pink and one was blue. Pink lay a-top, and they crackled to each other softly in the paper-language, invented long since by Papyrus, the father of Manuscript, and used by all written and printed sheets unto this day. Listen hard, next time you visit the reading-room at the Public Library, and you will hear the newspapers exchanging remarks across the table in this language.

Said the pink valentine: "I am prettier than you, much prettier, Miss Blue."

Blue was modester. "That may be true, my dear Miss Pink; still, some folks like blue best, I think," she replied.

"I wonder they should," went on Pink, talking in prose now, for valentines can speak in prose and in rhyme equally well. "You are such a chilly color. Now _I_ warm people. They smile when they see me. I like that. It is sweet to give pleasure."

"I like to give pleasure, too," said Blue, modestly. "And I hope I may, for something beautiful is written inside me."

"What? oh! what?" cried Pink.

"I cannot say," sighed Blue. "How can one tell what is inside one? But I know it is something sweet, because

She who sent me here Is so very fair and dear."

Blue was running into rhyme again, as valentines will.

"I don't believe a word of it," said Pink, digging her sharp elbow into Blue's smooth side. "Nothing is written inside me, and I'm glad of it. I am too beautiful to be written on. In the middle of my page is a picture, Cupid, with roses and doves. Oh, so fine! There is a border too, wreaths of flowers, flowers of all colors, and a motto, 'Be mine.' Be mine! What can be better than that? Have you got flowers and 'Be mine' inside, you conceited thing? If not, say so, and be ashamed, as you deserve to be."

Again the pink elbow dented Blue's smooth envelope.

But Blue only shook her head softly, and made no answer. Pink grew angry at this. She caught Blue with her little teeth of mucilage and shook her viciously.

"Speak," she said. "I hate your stuck-up, shut-up people. Speak!"

But Blue only smiled, and again shook her head.

Just then the pillar-post opened with a click. The postman had come. He scooped up Pink, Blue, and all the other letters, and threw them into his wallet. A fat yellow envelope of law-papers separated the two valentines, and they had no further talk.

Half an hour later, Pink was left at the door of a grand house, almost the finest in the town. Charles, the waiter, carried her into the parlor, and Pink said to herself: "What a thing it is to have a mission. My mission is to give pleasure!"

"A letter for you, Miss Eva," said Charles. He did not smile. Well-behaved waiters never smile; besides, Charles did not like Eva.

"Where is your tray?" demanded Eva, crossly. "You are always forgetting what mamma told you. Go and get it." But when she saw Pink in her beautiful envelope, unmistakably a valentine, she decided not to wait.

"Never mind, this time," she said; "but don't let it happen again."

"Who's your letter from, Evy?" asked grandmamma.

"I haven't opened it yet, and I wish you wouldn't call me Evy; it sounds so backwoodsy," replied Eva, who, for some mysterious reason, had waked that morning very much out of temper.

"Eva!" said her father, sternly.

Eva had forgotten that papa was there. To hide her confusion, she opened the pink envelope so hastily as to tear it all across.

"Oh dear!" she complained. "Everything goes wrong."

Then she unfolded the valentine. Pink, who had felt as if a sword were thrust through her heart when her envelope was torn, brightened up.

"Now," she thought, "when she sees the flowers, Cupid, and doves, she _will_ be pleased."

But it was not pleasure which shone on Eva's countenance.

"What's the matter?" asked papa, seeing her face swell and angry tears filling her eyes.

"That horrid Jim Slack!" cried Eva. "He said he'd send me a valentine just like Pauline's, and he hasn't. Hers was all birds and butterflies, and had verses--"

"Yours seems pretty enough," said papa, consolingly.

"It's not pretty enough," responded Eva, passionately. "It's a stupid, ugly thing. I hate it. I won't have it."

And, horrible to state, she flung Pink, actually flung her, into the middle of the fire. There was time for but one crackling gasp; then the yellow flame seized and devoured all--Cupid, doves, flowers! Another second, they were gone. A black scroll edged with fiery sparkles reared itself up in the midst of the glow; then an air-current seized it, it rose, and the soul of Pink flew up the chimney.

Blue, meantime, was lying on the lap of a little girl of twelve, a mile or more from this scene of tragedy. Two plump hands caressed her softly.

"Sister, may I read it to you just once more?" begged a coaxing voice.

"Yes, Pet, once more. That'll make five times, and they say there is luck in odd numbers," said another voice, kind and gay.

So Pet read:--

"My dear is like a dewy rose All in the early morn; But never on her stem there grows A single wounding thorn.

"My dear is like a violet shy, Who hides her in the grass, And holds a fragrant bud on high To bless all men who pass.

"My dear is like a merry bird, My dear is like a rill, Like all sweet things or seen or heard, Only she's sweeter still.

"And while she blooms beside my door, Or sings beneath my sky, My heart with happiness runs o'er, Content and glad am I.

"So, sweetheart, read me as I run, Smile on this simple rhyme, And choose me out to be your one And only VALENTINE."

"Isn't it lovely?" said Pet, her blue eyes dancing as she looked up.

"Yes, it's very nice," replied sister.

"I wish everybody in the world had such a nice valentine," went on Pet. "How pleased they'd be! Do you suppose anybody has sent Lotty one? Only that about the bird wouldn't be true, because Lotty's so sick, you know, and always stays in bed."

"But Lotty sings," said sister. "She's always singing and cheerful, so she's like a bird in that."

"Birdies with broken wings Hide from each other; But babies in trouble Can run home to mother,"

hummed Pet, who knew the "St. Nicholas" jingles by heart. "But poor Lotty hasn't any mamma to run to," she added softly.

"No; and that's a reason why it would be so specially nice to give her the pleasure of a valentine like yours."

"I wish somebody had sent her one," said Pet, thoughtfully.

"I don't suppose there is another in the world just like yours," said sister, smiling at Pet.

"Then she _can't_ have one. What a pity!"

"She might have this of yours," suggested sister.

"But--then--I shouldn't have any," cried Pet.

"Oh yes, you would, and I'll tell you how," said sister. "You've had all the pleasure of getting it, and opening and reading it, already. _That's_ yours to keep. Now, if I copy the verses for you on plain white paper, you can read them over as often as you like, till by and by you learn them by heart. When you have done that they will be yours for always; and, meanwhile, Lotty will have the pleasure of getting the valentine, opening, reading, learning, just as you have done--so you will get a double pleasure instead of one. Don't you see?"

"That will be splendid," cried Pet, joyously. "Poor Lotty, how glad she will be! And I shall have two pleasures instead of one, shan't I?"

"How nice," thought Blue, "to have given two pleasures already!"