Part 12

Now Maggie had had her doubts as to whether a flag was altogether a suitable ornament for the garden of Eden, but she had not chosen to say so to Bessie, who had taken great pains with her picture; and she watched the Colonel’s face closely to see if she could find any sign of amusement or surprise.

Not the slightest. He sat gravely smoothing down his moustache, as Bessie explained the picture to him, not a smile disturbing the lines of his face, not a twinkle breaking into those black eyes, looking only interested and pleased; and Maggie dismissed her fears and satisfied herself that the flag was not at all out of place.

“This is a compliment, indeed,” said the Colonel with the utmost gravity. “You were very, very kind to think of it, Bessie; and Adam and Eve were, as Maggie says, extremely considerate to allow the flag of my country to be planted in the garden of Eden. I must show this to Aunt May, and shall certainly keep it for May Bessie when she is old enough to understand it. But see, who is coming here?”

The children followed the direction of his eye. Two figures were coming down the beach,--a tall one, and a little one. Was it possible? Yes; it really was Mr. Powers and Belle, dear little Belle, whom Bessie had been longing to see.

A shriek from Maggie, who went tumbling over a rock in her haste to reach them, but picked herself up and rushed on, regardless of grazed knees and elbows; an exclamation, less noisy, but quite as full of pleasure, from Bessie,--and the three little friends had met again. There was Frankie too, who had been carting sea-weed, but had dropped spade and wagon-tongue at sight of Belle, of whom he was very fond; and then there was such a hugging and kissing, such an interlacing of heads and arms and feet, that it would have been difficult to tell to which little person each set belonged. Belle did not object to the smothering she received; on the contrary, she seemed to enjoy it, and Frankie soon relieved her from his share, saying in a tone of great importance,--

“I have bis-er-ness to ’tend to,” and marched off to his sea-weed.

“I shall call Newport the ‘Country of Happy Delights’ when I write about it in the ‘Complete Family,’” said Maggie. “I never _did_ see such a place. Did you happen here, Belle, or did you know you were coming?”

“We happened,” said Belle, “least Daphne and I did; but I think papa knew we were coming when he brought us.”

“That was just the way with us,” said Bessie: “all the big people knew we were coming; but Maggie and I were so glad and surprised. How long have you been here, Belle?”

“Oh! about half a year,” said Belle.

“Why, no,” said Maggie; “for it’s only a month since we left you in New York.”

“Is it?” said Belle. “Well, we came last Friday; and then papa brought me here to see Aunt May. We live in the hotel; but Aunt May says I must come over every day and play with you. It was so lonesome wifout you,” and Belle put an arm about the neck of each of her little playmates, looking from one to the other with loving, satisfied eyes. “You see, Bessie, I grew to love you and Maggie so much, I can’t very well stay away from you; and so I wasn’t very patient till you came.”

“Did you know we were coming?” asked Maggie.

“Yes, Aunt May told me I was so homesick for you; and papa said he brought me here so I could see you sooner. Wasn’t it good of him?”

“Yes,” said Maggie. “Now let’s go and have a good play. Aunt May gave us pails and spades to play in the sand with, Belle, and I will lend you mine.”

But there proved to be no need of this; for Belle had been furnished with a spade and pail of her own, and Daphne now appeared with them; so the little girls joined Frankie.

“What are you doing, Frankie?” asked Belle.

“Helpin’ Dod,” said Frankie.

“Why, Frankie!” said Bessie, rather shocked: “it’s not respectful for you to say you’re helping God. He can do every thing Himself, without any one to help Him.”

“Well,” said Frankie, taking up another spadeful of sea-weed and tossing it into his wagon, “maybe so; but I dess He has too much trouble to make so much waves, and keep pushing dis sea-weed up all de time; so I jest putting it a little way farder for Him,” and away he went with another wagon-load of sea-weed, which he was carting higher up the beach.

The three little girls did not know whether to laugh or not; but, presently, Maggie said,--

“I guess we need not be shocked at him. He thinks he’s doing something right, and we won’t disturb his mind about it. He’s such a funny child.”

He was a droll fellow, to be sure, that Frankie; always making odd speeches; and like Maggie in one thing, that one never knew which way his ideas would turn. Like Maggie, also, he would never allow that he could not reply to any question which might be put to him; but, if he had not the right answer, would contrive one which would fit the occasion more or less well.

He now came running up to his father, who, with the other gentlemen, had joined Colonel Rush, and exclaimed eagerly,--

“Papa, papa, tome quit. I taught a nassy lobster; let’s tate him to the house and eat him.”

This was not a very inviting proposal, certainly; but the little boy was so anxious that some one should see his “nassy lobster,” that Mr. Bradford and Mr. Stanton went with him; the little girls also running to see.

The “nassy lobster” proved to be one of those ugly shell-fish called horseshoes, which had been left there by the tide, and which Frankie had contrived to turn over on its back. He was rather disgusted with his prize, however, now that he had captured it; and, in spite of his request that it should be taken home and cooked, looked very scornfully at it, and pronounced it “degusting as any sing.”

Talking of cooking his fish had put him in mind that he was hungry, after his play in the fresh sea-air; and now, coming back and standing at his father’s knee, he said rather plaintively,--

“I wish Jesus was here.”

“Why, Frankie?” asked Mr. Bradford.

“’Tause He would dive me some fish and bread lite He did all those many people,” replied Frankie, who had lately heard the story of Christ feeding the multitude with the five loaves and two fishes. He was very fond of Bible stories, this little boy, and liked to apply them to himself and those about him.

“Tell me about that, Frankie, while Daphne goes to the house for some biscuits for you,” said the Colonel; and Frankie repeated in a droll, but still sweet and simple way, the story of the grand miracle.

“But how was it that there was enough for so many people when there was so little food, Frankie?” asked Mr. Powers, wishing to hear what the child would say.

The little fellow looked thoughtful for a moment, and stood rubbing up his hair with his hand; but he was not to be conquered even by a question hard as this, and presently, seeing a way out of his difficulty, his face lighted up as he exclaimed,--

“Betause our Lord did not dive ’em dood appetites. You ought to know dat yousef, sir;” and, with this, he ran away to meet Daphne, whom he saw coming with his wished-for biscuits.

XIII.

_LITTLE ACTS OF KINDNESS; LITTLE DEEDS OF LOVE._

Aunt May’s invitation to come every day and play with Maggie and Bessie was never once lost sight of by Belle, who was only too glad to accept it, and be with her beloved little playmates as much as possible.

It was surprising to see how much Belle had improved during these months she had been so much with Maggie and Bessie: no, not surprising either to any one who knew how much a good example can do; at least when it shines before eyes which are willing and ready to profit by its light.

And this was so with dear little Belle. She was not naturally an obstinate or selfish child; and her faults had come chiefly from the over-indulgence of her father and Daphne, who seldom or never contradicted her, but allowed her to think that she must always have her own way. She had never been taught the duty and pleasure of yielding to others, until she was thrown so constantly with our little girls; and then the lesson came to her almost without words. She could not have better teaching than she found in the grave surprise in Bessie’s sweet eyes when she worried her father, and fretted herself for some forbidden pleasure, or when she was wilful and imperious with her devoted old nurse; or in her gentle, “You wouldn’t tease your father when you’re his little comfort: would you, Belle?” She could not but learn ready obedience, generosity, and thoughtfulness for others, when she saw them put in daily practice even by Maggie, who had so much natural heedlessness to struggle with; and, almost without knowing it, she strove to copy her little friends, and to put away the old self-will and impatience.

“Why! how obedient and good my little daughter is growing,” said her father, one day, surprised at her ready submission when he was obliged to refuse her some pleasure she had begged for.

“’Cause Bessie says mamma and Jesus will be glad when I’m good,” Belle answered, laying her cheek against her father’s; “and she said that was the best way to make you happy too, papa. She says when we love um we try to please um. Isn’t that true, papa?”

“Very true, my darling. Bessie is a dear little girl, and I am glad that you remember when she tells you what is right.”

“She _does_ it more than she _tells_ it, papa: that’s why I ’member so much. It makes me feel ’shamed when Maggie and Bessie see I am naughty.”

“I won’t go to Aunt May’s this morning, papa,” she said another day when her father told her to go and be made ready.

“What! stay away from your dear Maggie and Bessie?” said Mr. Powers. “How is that?”

“Daphne is sick, papa: she has such a hegget”--Belle meant headache--“she could hardly dress me this morning, and had to lie right down. If she has to get up again, I’m afraid she will be more worse, so I will stay home to-day.”

But Belle’s voice shook as she proposed this, for it was a great sacrifice for her. Six months since she would not have thought of denying herself any thing for the sake of her old nurse, and her father was both pleased and touched.

“Then papa’s unaccustomed fingers will see what they can do,” he said, unwilling that his little girl should lose her day’s pleasure; and, if Belle were not quite as neatly dressed as usual, no fault was found, and “Aunt Margaret” soon remedied all that was wrong.

But another bit of self-denial came in Belle’s way that day, and that she carried out.

Coming in with two or three bunches of fine hot-house grapes,--the first of the season,--in his hand, Colonel Rush found the children on the piazza, playing “party” with their dolls’ teacups and saucers. Two other little girls, the children of a neighbor, were playing with them. He stopped and gave Maggie a bunch to divide amongst them. They were greatly pleased with this little treat; but Maggie and Bessie were rather surprised to see Belle put hers aside on one of the doll’s plates, as if she did not intend to eat, or even play with them.

“Are you not going to play with yours?” asked Maggie, rather reproachfully.

Belle colored a little, and said with some hesitation,--

“I wanted to save them.”

Belle was not like some children who would rather enjoy a nice thing by themselves, and the others were surprised.

Now Belle would have been ready enough to tell Maggie and Bessie why she wanted to keep the grapes, but she did not care to do so before the young visitors; lest as she afterwards said, they should think she was “proud of herself for doing it.”

“She thinks we’ll give her some of ours, and then she’ll eat up her own afterwards,” said Minnie Barlow, one of the little guests.

“I don’t either,” said Belle, flushing angrily: “I wouldn’t eat one of your old grapes, not if you begged and begged me to.”

“No,” said Bessie, putting her arm about Belle’s neck: “Belle never does greedy things. I know she has a very excellent reason if she don’t eat them. Are you sick, Belle?”

“No,” said Belle; and then she whispered in Bessie’s ear, “but poor Daphne is sick, and I am going to keep my grapes for her. She likes them very much.”

“And I’ll give you mine for her too,” said Bessie, “yours make only a few for her when she is sick.” Then she said aloud: “I’m going to keep my grapes too; and Maggie, I think you’d keep yours, if you knew the circumstance.”

“Then I will,” said Maggie; and turning to the little strangers she added, “Bessie knows what’s inside of my mind most as well as I do myself; so if she tells me I would do a thing, I just know I would.”

So Maggie, too, put by her share of the grapes, till the company had gone, and Belle felt free to tell what she wanted to do with them; when she agreed that Bessie was right, and she was quite ready to save her grapes for such a “circumstance.” It was but a small act of self-denial for these little girls to make out of their abundance; but who can tell the pleasure the gift gave to old Daphne. And verily Belle had her reward.

“Now Heaven bress my child,” said the old woman, when Belle offered the grapes, and told that she and her young friends had kept them from their play: “if she ain’t growin’ jes like her dear mamma, who was allus thinkin’ for oders.”

Nothing could have pleased Belle more than to be told she was like her dear mother; but she said,--

“I didn’t used to think for ofers much, Daphne; not till I saw Bessie do it, and Maggie too. They taught me.”

“Never min’ who taught ye, so long as you’re willin’ to learn,” said Daphne. “But I say Heaven bress them dear little girls too, as I knows it will.”

Pleased as Daphne was, she would have been better satisfied if her little mistress had taken back her gift for her own use; but Belle insisted that she should eat the grapes herself, and indeed climbed on her lap and stuffed them one after the other into her mouth, refusing to taste one herself.

“What is that, Uncle Horace?” asked Maggie, one afternoon when she and Bessie were out driving on the Avenue with Colonel Rush, Aunt Bessie, and the boys.

The object of her interest was certainly of a nature to excite curiosity. It was a round building of stone, supported by eight pillars, with open arches between. In the wall, above the pillars, were three narrow loop-holes or openings. It could scarcely have been told, however, that it was built of stone; for pillars and round walls were alike covered with beautiful green vines, just now in all their summer glory. It stood in the centre of a small park or common, where children and nurses were playing and wandering about.

“That,” said Colonel Rush, “is the old stone mill.”

“I don’t think it looks much like a mill,” said Bessie: “it don’t have any things to go round.”

“Probably it had things to go round, as you call them, once upon a time,” said the Colonel.

“I thought it was a tower built by the early settlers to defend themselves from the Indians,” said Harry. “Willie Thorn told me so.”

“Many people think so,” said the Colonel, “and some still believe that it was built by the Danes, hundreds of years ago.”

“Oh!” said Fred, “this is the tower Longfellow wrote about in his ‘Skeleton in Armor,’ isn’t it, sir?”

“The very same,” said the Colonel; “but, I believe, Fred, that it has been pretty well proved, from old papers, that it had no such romantic beginning, but was really and truly a windmill.”

“Tell me about the skeleton, Fred,” said Maggie.

So Fred told how a skeleton in armor, having been found in a place called Fall River, some miles from Newport, the poet, Longfellow, had written a ballad about it; telling how a viking, or Norwegian sailor of the olden time, had fallen in love with the daughter of a prince, who refused to give his child to the roving sailor; but they had run away together, and crossing the sea had come to this spot, where the viking had built this tower for his wife to live in.

“Here for my lady’s bower Built I the lofty tower, Which to this very hour Stands looking seaward,”

chanted Fred, stretching out his hand with a magnificent air towards the old tower.

“That’s nice,” said Maggie, with a satisfied nod of her curly head. “I shall just believe that. It’s a great deal nicer than to think it was just a common old windmill for grinding up corn.”

“I shan’t,” said matter-of-fact Bessie, “not when Uncle Horace says it’s not true.”

“I don’t see that any one can be very _sure_ what it was,” said Maggie, determined to have faith in the most romantic story, “and I shall make up my mind it was the lady’s bower. But what about the skeleton, Fred?”

“Oh! Mr. Longfellow goes on to say how the lady died, and her husband could not bear to live without her; so he went out into the woods and killed himself, and the skeleton in armor which was really found is supposed to be his.”

“He oughtn’t to kill hisse’f. He ought to wait till Dod killed him,” said Frankie, who had been listening with great interest to the story. “He could play with all these nice chillen, if he’d ’haved hisself.”

“Yes,” said Bessie, who had received the story with as much displeasure as she had done that of the “Chief’s Head,” last summer, at Chalecoo, “if God chooses people to stay here, they ought to do it, even if they are having very hard times.”

“So they ought, Bess,” said Fred; “but I guess those old vikings did not care much about playing with children. They were very brave, daring fellows.”

“People can be brave and like children,” said Bessie, slipping her little hand into that of her own hero. “Uncle Horace likes children and plays with them, and no one could be braver than he is. And besides, Fred, if people have very good courage, I should think they would be brave to bear the trouble God sends them, and not go kill themselves out of it.”

“Well reasoned, little one,” said the Colonel, bending his tall head to kiss her; “that man is certainly a coward who cannot bear what God sends to him, but takes the life his Maker has given.”

“And I shall think it is a windmill,” said Bessie, quite as resolved to stick to facts as Maggie was to believe the poet’s story.

“And I shall think it the viking’s tower, and write a story-book about it when I’m grown up,” said Maggie. “I’ll put it down for a subject.”

If Maggie lives to write a book on each “subject” she has put down for that purpose, she will be very old indeed.

Bessie said no more; for if she and Maggie differed on something which was not important, she never argued about it, and this was probably one reason why they never quarrelled; for each was content to let the other be of her own way of thinking, so long as it did no harm. If we could all learn that lesson it would save many hard words and thoughts, and the trouble which arises from such.

They all now went back to the carriage, which they had left for a closer view of the old mill, and drove on to what is called the Point, and around the north-western side of the island, from which road they gained a beautiful view of the harbor and bay.

“What is that over there, Uncle Horace?” asked Fred, “it looks like an old fort.”

“Just what it is, my boy,” replied Colonel Rush. “That point is called the ‘Dumpling Rocks,’ and that ruin is old Fort Lewis, or Fort Dumpling.”

“What a funny name,” said Maggie.

They now crossed the long stone causeway which leads to Coaster’s Harbor Island; and, as they went over this, the children were all greatly delighted with the number of pretty little birds which went whirling round them on every side, darting almost under the horses’ feet, and in their very faces; passing round and round, above and beneath the carriage. They were sand-martins, the Colonel said, and being disturbed by the rolling of the wheels, were probably trying to draw attention from their nests, which were built in the crevices of the stones that formed the causeway.

On this island stood the poor-house which they had come to visit; and here another carriage, containing several of the elders of the party, had arrived before them. Papa was there and took the little girls out of the carriage when it stopped.

“What a nice place for the poor people to be in, when they don’t have any house of their own!” said Bessie: “I s’pose they’re very grateful for it.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” said Maggie. “I find poor people in this world are not always grateful when they ought to be. Don’t you remember Mrs. Bent, Bessie?”

“Yes, I do,” said Bessie, in a tone which told that Mrs. Bent’s ingratitude, as she and Maggie thought it, was not to be easily forgotten. Indeed, the way in which Mrs. Bent had received the gift of the hospital-bed for her lame boy, had left a very disagreeable impression on the minds of our two little girls.

“But I s’pose rich people are not always so grateful as they ought to be, either,” added Bessie.

“No,” said Maggie, thoughtfully: “maybe some are not, but I think _we_ are, generally. I think I feel my blessings, Bessie,--I think I do, ’specially being in Newport.”

“There can be no doubt about that,” said Uncle Ruthven, who had overheard this short conversation, to his wife: “if ever there was a grateful, contented, little heart it is that of our sunny Maggie.”

Certainly a more comfortable home, or one more beautifully situated, could scarcely have been found for those who could furnish none for themselves. The grown people, as well as the children, were greatly pleased with the order, neatness, and quiet of the whole place. This visit having been planned, the ladies had come provided with little parcels of tea, fruit, and other small delicacies, as a treat for some of the sick and old people. There were a few toys and books also for such of the children as had behaved well, and these things Maggie and Bessie were allowed to present.

“I b’lieve I’ll change my mind about poor people being grateful,” said Maggie, when she had witnessed the pleasure these trifles gave; “and I’m glad I can, for an ungrateful person is ‘sharper than a serpent’s tooth,’ ’specially if it’s an old woman.”

Bessie looked at her sister in great admiration, as she always did when Maggie made any of these fine speeches; but Harry turned away lest she should see him laughing. For as Maggie was so careful of other people’s feelings, Harry felt bound not to trouble her in that way when he could avoid it.

“The band plays at Fort Adams to-morrow afternoon,” said the Colonel, as they drove homeward: “who will be for a drive over there?”

There was no want of assenting voices; and, the next afternoon, the whole family went over to the fort,--some driving, some on horseback, Mr. Powers and Belle being of the party this time.

Maggie and Bessie had never in their lives been inside of a fort, so that this was quite an event to them. Harry and Fred had visited several; but they were all much smaller than Fort Adams, which indeed is the second in size in the country, only Fortress Monroe being larger. Passing around the road, which runs between the water and the immense earthworks which rise above it, they entered the fort beneath a stone arch, and over a stone pavement on which the horses’ feet rang with a loud clatter. Just without this gateway, was the guard-house, a low stone building, with grated door and loop-holes, where drunken soldiers, and those who have broken the rules, are confined. Two or three sullen-looking men were peeping through the iron bars of the door, for whom Bessie’s tender little heart was much moved; but Maggie was afraid of them, and turned her face away, though they could not possibly have hurt her, and probably had no will to do so.