Chapter 10

"It makes me think of the days of long ago when there was no sin," whispered Blanche.

"It makes me long to be a hero," answered Victor with a sparkling eye.

All the while the pearly boat was drifting toward the youth and maiden; and, when it had touched the shore the Queen stepped out upon the land as lightly as if she had been made entirely of dewdrops.

"I am Fontana," said she: "and is this Blanche?"

She laid her soft hand upon the maiden's shoulder; and Blanche thought she would like to die then and there, so full was she of joy.

"I have heard of thy good heart, my maiden: now what would please thee most?" inquired the Queen.

Blanche bowed her head, and dared not speak.

Queen Fontana smiled. When she smiled it was as if a soft cloud had slid away from the moon, revealing a beautiful light.

"Say pearls and diamonds," said Victor in her ear.

"I don't know," whispered Blanche; "they are not the best things."

"No," said the Queen kindly; "pearls and diamonds are _not_ the best things."

Then Blanche knew that her whisper had been overheard, and she hid her face in her hands for shame. But the Queen only smiled down on her, and without speaking dropped into the ground a little seed. Right at the feet of Blanche it fell; and in a moment two green leaves shot upward, and between them a spotless lily, which hung its head with modest grace.

Victor gazed at the perfect flower in wonder, and before he knew it said aloud: "Ah, how like Blanche!"

The Queen herself broke it from the stem, and gave it to the maiden, saying:

"Take it! It is my choicest gift. Till it fades (which will never be), love will be thine; and in time to come it will have power to open the strongest locks, and swing back the heaviest doors.

"'Gates of brass cannot withstand One touch of this magic wand.'"

Blanche looked up to thank the Queen; but no words came--only tears.

"I see a wish in thine eyes," said Fontana.

"It is for Victor," faltered Blanche, at last; "he wishes to be rich and great."

The Queen looked grave.

"Shall I make him one of the great men of the earth, little Blanche? Then he may one day go to the ends of the world, and forget thee."

Blanche only smiled, and Victor's cheek flushed.

"I shall be a great man," said he--"perhaps a prince; but where I go Blanche shall go: she will be my wife."

"That is well," said the Queen. "Never forget Blanche, for her love will be your dearest blessing."

Then, removing from her girdle a pair of spectacles, she placed them in the youth's hand. He drew back in surprise. "Does she take me for an old man?" thought he. He had expected a casket of gems at least; perhaps a crown.

"Wait," said Fontana; "they are the eyes of Wisdom. When you have learned their use, you will not despise my gift. Keep a pure heart, and always remember Blanche. And now farewell!"

So saying, she moved on to the boat, floating over the ground as softly as a creeping mist.

When Blanche awoke next morning, her first thought was, "Happy are the maidens who have sweet dreams!" for she believed she had only been wandering in a midsummer's night's dream; so, when she saw her lily in the broken pitcher where she had placed it, great was her delight. But a change had come over it during the night. It was no longer a common lily; its petals were now large pearls, and the green leaves were green emeralds. This strange thing had happened to the flower, that it might never fade.

After this, people looked at Blanche and said: "How is it? She grows fairer every day!" And every one loved her; for the human heart has no choice but to love what is good and gentle.

As for Victor, he at first put on his spectacles with a scornful smile; but, when he had worn them a moment, he found them very wonderful things. When he looked through them, he could see people's thoughts written out on their faces; he could easily decipher the fine writing which you see traced on green leaves; and found there were long stories written on pebbles in little black and gray dots.

When he wore the spectacles, he looked so wise that Blanche hardly dared speak to him. She saw that one day he was to become great.

At last Victor said he must leave his home, and sail across the seas. Tears filled the eyes of Blanche; but the youth whispered:

"I am going away to find a home for you and me. So adieu, dearest Blanche!"

Now Victor thought the ship in which he sailed moved very slowly; for he longed to reach the land which he could see through his magic spectacles. It was a beautiful kingdom, rich with mines of gold and silver.

When the ship touched shore, the streets were lined with people who walked to and fro with sad faces. The King's daughter, a beautiful young maiden, was very ill, and it was feared she must die.

Victor asked one of the people if there was no hope.

It so happened that this man was the greatest physician in the kingdom and he answered:

"Alas, there is no hope!"

Then Victor went to a distant forest where he knew a healing spring was to be found. Very few remembered it was there; and those who had seen it did not know of its power to heal disease.

Victor filled a crystal goblet with the precious water and carried it to the palace. The old King shook his head sadly, but consented to let the attendants moisten the parched lips of the Princess with the water, as it could do no harm. Far from doing harm, it wrought a great good; and in time the royal maiden was restored to health.

Then, for gratitude, the King would have given his daughter to Victor for a wife; but Victor remembered Blanche, and knew that no other maiden must be bride of his.

Not long after this the King was lost overboard at sea during a storm. Now the people must have a new ruler. They determined to choose a wise and brave man; and, young as he was, no man could be found braver and wiser than Victor; so the people elected him for their King. Thus Fontana's gift of the eyes of Wisdom had made him truly "one of the great men of earth."

In her humble home Blanche dreamed every night of Victor, and hoped he would grow good, if he did not become great; and Victor remembered Blanche, and knew that her love was his dearest blessing.

"This old palace," thought he, "will never do for my beautiful bride."

So he called together his people, and told them he must have a castle of gems. Some of the walls were to be of rubies, some of emeralds, some of pearls. There was to be any amount of beaten gold for doors and pillars; and the ceilings were to be of milk-white opals, with a rosy light which comes and goes.

All was done as he desired; and when the castle of gems was finished it would need a pen of jasponyx dipped in rainbows to describe it.

Victor thought he would not have a guard of soldiers for his castle, but would lock the four golden gates with a magic key, so that no one could enter unless the gates should swing back of their own accord.

When the castle of gems was just completed, and not a soul was in it, Victor locked the gates with a magic key, and then dropped the key into the ocean.

"Now," thought he, "I have done a wise thing. None but the good and true can enter my castle of gems. The gates will not swing open for men with base thoughts or proud hearts!"

Then he hid himself under the shadow of a tree, and watched the people trying to enter. But they were proud men, and so the gates would not open.

King Victor laughed, and said to himself:

"I have done a wise thing with my magic key. How safe I shall be in my castle of gems!"

So he stepped out of his hiding place, and said to the people:

"None but the good and true can get in."

Then he tried to go in himself; but the gates would not move.

The King bowed his head in shame, and walked back to his old palace.

"Alas!" said he to himself, "wise and great as I am, I thought I could go in. I see it must be because I am filled with pride. Let me hide my face; for what would Blanche say if she knew, that, because my heart is proud, I am shut out of my own castle? I am not worthy that she should love me; but I hope I shall learn of her to be humble and good."

The next day he sailed for the home of his childhood. When Blanche saw him she blushed and cast down her eyes; but Victor knew they were full of tears of joy. He held her hand, and whispered:

"Will you go with me and be my bride, beautiful Blanche?"

"I will go with you," she answered softly; and Victor's heart rejoiced.

All the while Blanche never dreamed that he was a great Prince, and that the men who came with him were his courtiers.

When they reached Victor's kingdom, and the people shouted "Long live the Queen!" Blanche veiled her face and trembled; for Victor whispered in her ear that the shouts were for her. And as the people saw her beautiful face through her gossamer veil, they cried all the more loudly:

"Long live Queen Blanche! Thrice welcome, fair lady!"

The sun was sinking in the west, and his rays fell with dazzling splendor upon the castle of gems. When Blanche saw the silent, closed castle and its golden gates she remembered the words of Queen Fontana, who had said that her lily should have power to "open the strongest locks, and swing back the heaviest doors."

Like one walking in a dream, she led Victor toward the resplendent castle. She touched with her lily the lock which fastened one of the gates.

"Gates of gold could not withstand One touch of that magic wand."

In an instant, the hinges trembled; and the massive door swung open so far that forty people could walk in side by side. Then it slowly closed, and locked itself without noise.

One of the people who passed in was the King, whose heart was no longer proud. The others, who had entered unwittingly, could not speak for wonder. Some of them were poor, and some were lame or blind; but all were good and true.

At the rising of the moon a wonderful thing came to pass. The people entered the castle of gems and became beautiful. This was through the power of the magic lily.

Now there were no more crooked backs, and lame feet, and sightless eyes; and the King looked at these people, who were beautiful as well as good, and declared he would have them live in the castle; and the gentlemen should be knights; and the ladies maids of honor.

To this day Victor and Blanche rule the kingdom; and such is the charm of the lily--so like the pure heart of the Queen--that the people are becoming gentle and good.

Until Queen Fontana shall call for the magic spectacles and the lily of pearl, it is believed that Victor and Blanche will live in the castle of gems, though the time should be a hundred years.

THE HEN THAT HATCHED DUCKS

BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE

Once there was a nice young hen that we will call Mrs. Feathertop. She was a hen of most excellent family, being a direct descendant of the Bolton Grays, and as pretty a young fowl as you wish to see of a summer's day. She was, moreover, as fortunately situated in life as it was possible for a hen to be. She was bought by young Master Fred Little John, with four or five family connections of hers, and a lively young cock, who was held to be as brisk a scratcher and as capable a head of a family as any half-dozen sensible hens could desire.

I can't say that at first Mrs. Feathertop was a very sensible hen. She was very pretty and lively, to be sure, and a great favorite with Master Bolton Gray Cock, on account of her bright eyes, her finely shaded feathers, and certain saucy dashing ways that she had, which seemed greatly to take his fancy. But old Mrs. Scratchard, living in the neighboring yard, assured all the neighborhood that Gray Cock was a fool for thinking so much of that flighty young thing--that she had not the smallest notion how to get on in life, and thought of nothing in the world but her own pretty feathers. "Wait till she comes to have chickens," said Mrs. Scratchard. "Then you will see. I have brought up ten broods myself--as likely and respectable chickens as ever were a blessing to society--and I think I ought to know a good hatcher and brooder when I see her; and I know _that_ fine piece of trumpery, with her white feathers tipped with gray, never will come down to family life. _She_ scratch for chickens! Bless me, she never did anything in all her days but run round and eat the worms which somebody else scratched up for her!"

When Master Bolton Gray heard this he crowed very loudly, like a cock of spirit, and declared that old Mrs. Scratchard was envious because she had lost all her own tail-feathers, and looked more like a worn-out old feather duster than a respectable hen, and that therefore she was filled with sheer envy of anybody that was young and pretty. So young Mrs. Feathertop cackled gay defiance at her busy rubbishy neighbor, as she sunned herself under the bushes on fine June afternoons.

Now Master Fred Little John had been allowed to have these hens by his mamma on the condition that he would build their house himself, and take all the care of it; and, to do Master Fred justice, he executed the job in a small way quite creditably. He chose a sunny sloping bank covered with a thick growth of bushes, and erected there a nice little hen-house, with two glass windows, a little door, and a good pole for his family to roost on. He made, moreover, a row of nice little boxes with hay in them for nests, and he bought three or four little smooth white china eggs to put in them, so that, when his hens _did_ lay, he might carry off their eggs without their being missed. The hen-house stood in a little grove that sloped down to a wide river, just where there was a little cove which reached almost to the hen-house.

The situation inspired one of Master Fred's boy advisers with a new scheme in relation to his poultry enterprise. "Hullo! I say, Fred," said Tom Seymour, "you ought to raise ducks--you've got a capital place for ducks there."

"Yes, but I've bought _hens_, you see," said Freddy; "so it's no use trying."

"No use! Of course there is! Just as if your hens couldn't hatch ducks' eggs. Now, you just wait till one of your hens wants to set, and you put ducks' eggs under her, and you'll have a family of ducks in a twinkling. You can buy ducks' eggs, a plenty, of old Sam under the hill; he always has hens hatch his ducks."

So Freddy thought it would be a good experiment, and informed his mother the next morning that he intended to furnish the ducks for the next Christmas dinner; and when she wondered how he was to come by them, he said, mysteriously, "O, I will show you how!" but did not further explain himself. The next day he went with Tom Seymour, and made a trade with old Sam, and gave him a middle-aged jack-knife for eight of his ducks' eggs. Sam, by the bye, was a woolly-headed old negro man, who lived by the pond hard by, and who had long cast envying eyes on Fred's jack-knife, because it was of extra-fine steel, having been a Christmas present the year before. But Fred knew very well there were any number more of jack-knives where that came from, and that, in order to get a new one, he must dispose of the old; so he made the trade and came home rejoicing.

Now, about this time Mrs. Feathertop, having laid her eggs daily with great credit to herself, notwithstanding Mrs. Scratchard's predictions, began to find herself suddenly attacked with nervous symptoms. She lost her gay spirits, grew dumpish and morose, stuck up her feathers in a bristling way, and pecked at her neighbors if they did so much as look at her. Master Gray Cock was greatly concerned, and went to old Doctor Peppercorn, who looked solemn and recommended an infusion of angle-worms, and said he would look in on the patient twice a day till she was better.

"Gracious me, Gray Cock!" said old Goody Kertarkut, who had been lolling at the corner as he passed, "a'n't you a fool?--cocks always are fools. Don't you know what's the matter with your wife? She wants to set--that's all; and you just let her set! A fiddlestick for Doctor Peppercorn! Why, any good old hen that has brought up a family knows more than a doctor about such things. You just go home and tell her to set, if she wants to, and behave herself."

When Gray Cock came home, he found that Master Freddy had been before him, and established Mrs. Feathertop upon eight nice eggs, where she was sitting in gloomy grandeur. He tried to make a little affable conversation with her, and to relate his interview with the Doctor and Goody Kertarkut, but she was morose and sullen, and only pecked at him now and then in a very sharp, unpleasant way; so, after a few more efforts to make himself agreeable, he left her, and went out promenading with the captivating Mrs. Red Comb, a charming young Spanish widow, who had just been imported into the neighboring yard.

"Bless my soul!" said he, "you've no idea how cross my wife is."

"O you horrid creature!" said Mrs. Red Comb; "how little you feel for the weaknesses of us poor hens!"

"On my word, ma'am," said Gray Cock, "you do me injustice. But when a hen gives way to temper, ma'am and no longer meets her husband with a smile--when she even pecks at him whom she is bound to honor and obey----"

"Horrid monster! talking of obedience! I should say, sir, you came straight from Turkey!" And Mrs. Red Comb tossed her head with a most bewitching air, and pretended to run away, and old Mrs. Scratchard looked out of her coop and called to Goody Kertarkut:

"Look how Mr. Gray Cock is flirting with that widow. I always knew she was a baggage."

"And his poor wife left at home alone," said Goody Kertarkut. "It's the way with 'em all!"

"Yes, yes," said Dame Scratchard, "she'll know what real life is now, and she won't go about holding her head so high, and looking down on her practical neighbors that have raised families."

"Poor thing, what'll she do with a family?" said Goody Kertarkut.

"Well, what business have such young flirts to get married," said Dame Scratchard. "I don't expect she'll raise a single chick; and there's Gray Cock flirting about fine as ever. Folks didn't do so when I was young. I'm sure my husband knew what treatment a setting hen ought to have--poor old Long Spur--he never minded a peck or so now and then. I must say these modern fowls a'n't what fowls used to be."

Meanwhile the sun rose and set, and Master Fred was almost the only friend and associate of poor little Mrs. Feathertop, whom he fed daily with meal and water, and only interrupted her sad reflections by pulling her up occasionally to see how the eggs were coming on.

At last "Peep, peep, peep!" began to be heard in the nest, and one little downy head after another poked forth from under the feathers, surveying the world with round, bright, winking eyes; and gradually the brood was hatched, and Mrs. Feathertop arose, a proud and happy mother, with all the bustling, scratching, caretaking instincts of family life warm within her breast. She clucked and scratched, and cuddled the little downy bits of things as handily and discreetly as a seven-year-old hen could have done, exciting thereby the wonder of the community.

Master Gray Cock came home in high spirits and complimented her; told her she was looking charmingly once more, and said, "Very well, very nice!" as he surveyed the young brood. So that Mrs. Feathertop began to feel the world going well with her, when suddenly in came Dame Scratchard and Goody Kertarkut to make a morning call.

"Let's see the chicks," said Dame Scratchard.

"Goodness me," said Goody Kertarkut, "what a likeness to their dear papa!"

"Well, but bless me, what's the matter with their bills?" said Dame Scratchard. "Why, my dear, these chicks are deformed! I'm sorry for you, my dear, but it's all the result of your inexperience; you ought to have eaten pebble-stones with your meal when you were setting. Don't you see, Dame Kertarkut, what bills they have? That'll increase, and they'll be frightful!"

"What shall I do?" said Mrs. Feathertop, now greatly alarmed.

"Nothing as I know of," said Dame Scratchard, "since you didn't come to me before you set. I could have told you all about it. Maybe it won't kill 'em, but they'll always be deformed."

And so the gossips departed, leaving a sting under the pin-feathers of the poor little hen mamma, who began to see that her darlings had curious little spoon-bills different from her own, and to worry and fret about it.

"My dear," she said to her spouse, "do get Doctor Peppercorn to come in and look at their bills, and see if anything can be done."

Doctor Peppercorn came in, and put on a monstrous pair of spectacles and said: "Hum! Ha! Extraordinary case--very singular!"

"Did you ever see anything like it, Doctor?" said both parents, in a breath.

"I've read of such cases. It's a calcareous enlargement of the vascular bony tissue, threatening ossification," said the Doctor.

"Oh, dreadful!--can it be possible?" shrieked both parents. "Can anything be done?"

"Well, I should recommend a daily lotion made of mosquitoes' horns and bicarbonate of frogs' toes together with a powder, to be taken morning and night, of muriate of fleas. One thing you must be careful about: they must never wet their feet, nor drink any water."

"Dear me, Doctor, I don't know what I _shall_ do, for they seem to have a particular fancy for getting into water."

"Yes, a morbid tendency often found in these cases of bony tumification of the vascular tissue of the mouth; but you must resist it, ma'am, as their life depends upon it." And with that Doctor Peppercorn glared gloomily on the young ducks, who were stealthily poking the objectionable little spoon-bills out from under their mothers' feathers.

After this poor Mrs. Feathertop led a weary life of it; for the young fry were as healthy and enterprising a brood of young ducks as ever carried saucepans on the end of their noses, and they most utterly set themselves against the doctor's prescriptions, murmured at the muriate of fleas and the bicarbonate of frogs' toes and took every opportunity to waddle their little ways down to the mud and water which was in their near vicinity. So their bills grew larger and larger, as did the rest of their bodies, and family government grew weaker and weaker.

"You'll wear me out children, you certainly will," said poor Mrs. Feathertop.

"You'll go to destruction, do ye hear?" said Master Gray Cock.

"Did you ever see such frights as poor Mrs. Feathertop has got?" said Dame Scratchard. "I knew what would come of _her_ family--all deformed, and with a dreadful sort of madness, which makes them love to shovel mud with those shocking spoon-bills of theirs."

"It's a kind of idiocy," said Goody Kertarkut. "Poor things! they can't be kept from the water, nor made to take powders, and so they got worse and worse."

"I understand it's affecting their feet so that they can't walk, and a dreadful sort of net is growing between their toes; what a shocking visitation!"

"She brought it on herself," said Dame Scratchard. "Why didn't she come to me before she set? She was always an upstart, self-conceited thing, but I'm sure I pity her."

Meanwhile the young ducks throve apace. Their necks grew glossy like changeable green and gold satin, and though they would not take the doctor's medicine, and would waddle in the mud and water--for which they always felt themselves to be very naughty ducks--yet they grew quite vigorous and hearty. At last one day the whole little tribe waddled off down to the bank of the river. It was a beautiful day, and the river was dancing and dimpling and winking as the little breezes shook the trees that hung over it.