Chapter 5

Then Lionel felt deeply mortified. "What a silly I was!" he said. "Perhaps I was going just the opposite way from the one he went. Oh, dear! how can I ever give him back his rule? It is such a beauty. If it had been mine, I 'd just hate to lose it."

"Let us examine it," suggested Jack Frost, "and see if there is any sign upon it that would help to discover its owner;" and without a moment's doubt or hesitation Lionel drew it from his pocket and held it up for Jack Frost to see.

Then for a little space they both gazed at it carefully; Jack Frost bending down his tall head to get a nearer view of it, and Lionel standing upon the tips of his toes to accomplish the same purpose.

"Oh, see, see!" cried the boy, joyously. "It says, 'LIONEL,--HIS RULE FOR LIFE.' That means I can keep it for always, does n't it? Forever 'n' ever."

"It means," explained Jack Frosty gravely, "that you can keep it,--yes. But it means you are to measure your life with it. You are always to use it in everything you do. Then you 'll be _true_, and whatever you do will be _straight_ and _square_."

"Why, that's what he said himself. He said I must always 'go square.' That was when he was giving me directions how to reach the beautiful place he came from. He called it an estate; and he said if I ever got there I 'd never want to come away. As long as I 'm on the way I guess I 'll try to find that place. Will you take me?"

"I 'm afraid," replied Jack Frost, with a very kindly seriousness,--"I 'm afraid one must depend on one's self in order to reach that place. But I 'll tell you what I will do; I 'll stay with you for a bit, and, perhaps, having company will hearten you, so if you happen to come across any specially bad places just at first, you won't be discouraged. And I want to tell you that if you are ever in doubt as to the way and no one is there to give you advice, just set yourself to work and use your rule and you 'll come out right. Now don't forget!" and with these words he vanished.

"Why, I thought he was going to stay with me," murmured Lionel, despondently. "He was so jolly, and I liked him so much. He said he wouldn't leave me just yet--"

"Nor have I," rejoined the hearty voice close by his ear. "But I can't neglect my business, you know; and at this moment I 'm here and 'way off in Alaska too. Stiff work, is n't it?"

But in spite of this Lionel heard him whistling cheerily beside him.

The boy trudged on, and every once in a while he and his invisible comrade would converse together in the most friendly manner possible, and Lionel did indeed feel encouraged by the knowledge of Jack Frost's companionship. But by and by, after quite a long time, Lionel noticed that when he addressed his unseen fellow-traveller the voice that came to him in reply seemed rather far away and distant, and later became lost to him altogether.

Then he knew that Jack Frost had left him for a season, and he felt quite lonely and deserted and was about to drop a tear or two of regret, when all at once, at his very feet, opened a new way which he had not noticed before. It looked bright and inviting, and wound along in the most picturesque fashion, instead of lying straight and level before him, as did the road from which it branched.

He was just about to turn down this fascinating side-path, and was in the very act of complaining about his loneliness and bemoaning it aloud, when he happened to notice that the sky looked a little overcast; the air had grown heavy and still, and a strange, sad hush brooded over everything; while the bare branches upon the trees appeared to droop, and the one or two birds that had perched upon them uttered low, plaintive little sounds that were disheartening to hear.

Lionel was struck with so great an awe that he entirely forgot himself and his sorrow; and in that one moment the skies seemed to brighten, the air to lighten, and the trees and birds had grown songful again.

"What does it mean?" he asked himself anxiously; and then, all at once, he bethought himself of Jack Frost's advice in case he ever was in doubt as to the course he was to take, and in a twinkling had whipped out his rule and was down on his knees applying it in good earnest. Then how glad he was that he had not turned into the inviting by-path, for his little rule showed how crooked and wrong it was,--whole yards and yards away from the right; and he knew he must have met with some mishap, or at the very least have wasted any amount of precious time trying to retrace his steps and regain the place upon which he now stood.

He was so relieved to think he had been saved from making such a sad mistake that he began to whistle merrily, and in an instant the whole world about him was bright of hue and joyous again, and looking, he saw, to his amazement, that the bare branches were abud.

"It's spring," he cried happily, and leaped along his way toward the right. In a flash the tempting little by-path had curled up like a scroll and disappeared from view; and then Lionel knew that it had not been real at all, but only imaginary, and he was more grateful than ever that he had not followed its lead.

"Now, you good little rule," said he, addressing the shining object in his hand, "I 'll put you in my breast-pocket and keep you safe and warm next to my heart. Then you 'll be ready if I want you again." And he was just about to thrust it in his bosom, when his eyes were caught by something unusual upon its surface, and on examining it very closely he saw, in exquisitely chased characters, the words,--

Nor sigh nor weep o'er thine own ills; Such plaining earth with mourning fills. Forget thyself, and thou shalt see Thyself remembered blessedly.

For some time after he had read the lines he was plunged in thought. They seemed to teach him a lesson that it took him some little time to learn.

"I don't know why it should make the world sad if one complains," he mused. "But I s'pose it does. I s'pose one has n't any right to make things unpleasant for other people by crying about things. One ought to be brave and not bother folks with one's troubles. Well, I 'll try not to do so any more, because if it's going to make things so unpleasant it can't be right."

And this last word seemed to link in his mind his escape from the complaint of his loneliness and the by-path down which he did not turn; and he was so long trying to unravel the mystery of the connection that before he knew it he had almost stumbled into quite a bog, and there, in front of him, sat a wee child,--just where two roads met,--and he had well-nigh run over her in his carelessness.

"Oh, bother!" said he,--for he was irritated at the thought of having only so narrowly escaped doing himself serious damage,--"what do you get in a fellow's way for? You--" But the poor little mite gazed up at him so sadly, and wept so piteously at his hasty words that he paused suddenly and did not go on.

He looked down the two paths. The one was wide and curving, the other narrow and straight; the one was bordered with rich foliage, the other was bare and sandy. He might have run lightly along the one, he would have to toil wearisomely along the other. What wonder that his foot was turning in the direction of the first! But a queer pricking in his bosom and the child's cry stopped him.

He slowly drew forth his rule and began to measure, while the little one sobbed,--

"I 'm so told I tan't walt any more. My foots are all tired out, and I want sumpin to eat;" and there he found himself just on the verge of making a fearful blunder. He got up from his knees and turning to the tiny maid, said kindly,--

"There, there! don't cry, dear! We 'll fix you all right;" and he stripped off his jacket and wrapped it about her, taking her in his arms, and trudging on with his burden along the more difficult way. But it was the right one, and he knew it; and so his heart was light, and he did not have time to think of his own weariness; for all the time he was trying to comfort his forlorn little companion. And so well he succeeded that in no time at all she was asleep on his shoulder. Then he sat down by the roadside, and holding her still in his arms, began to think.

"There I was a little while ago complaining--no, not quite complaining, but _almost_--because I hadn't anybody to keep me company. Now I 've got somebody with a vengeance. She's awful heavy. But, oh, dear! what a narrow escape I had! I might have run into that bog, and that would have been a 'pretty how d 'ye do,' as Sarah says. I was so busy thinking I forgot everything, and ran almost over little Sissy; and that shows, I s'pose, how without meaning it one can hurt somebody if one does n't look out."

And then, very carefully, so as not to wake his sleeping charge, he slipped his hand into his pocket and drew out his rule again.

"What a good friend you are!" he said to it. "I really think you 're better than any sword or poniard a body could have. You 've saved me from danger twice now, and--" But here he stared at it in dumb surprise, for even as he looked he saw appear upon its polished surface the words,--

Deep is the bog in which they sink Who ne'er on others' sorrow think; Deeper the joy in which they rest Who 've served the weary and distressed.

And, sure enough, he felt so happy he could have sung aloud in spite of his weariness and fatigue.

But I could not begin to tell you of all his experiences, nor how unfailingly his little rule helped him to meet them successfully.

He thought a great deal about it and its magical power; but once or twice he did get to wondering why it should point to the straight path when the winding one was so much the prettier to see.

"Are the right ways always the ones we should n't take if we had our own way?" he thought. "Why is it that the right one always seems not so pretty as the other? Seems to me some one told me once that the curved lines were 'the lines of beauty.'" But before he had time fairly to consider the subject, his rule, which he happened to be holding in his hand, showed him this little verse,--

"Straight is the line of duty, Curved is the line of beauty; Follow th' one and thou shalt see The other ever following thee."

And this was always the way. Whenever Lionel was puzzled about anything, his rule always made it clear to him. And by and by, after he had met with all sorts of adventures, he began to wonder whether he was ever going to see the beggar again or reach his wonderful estate.

It was on a very beautiful day that he wondered this, and he was more than a little happy because he had just been applying his rule to unusually good effect, when, lo! there beside him stood the subject of his thoughts. But oh! how changed he was!

Every rag upon him glowed and shimmered with a wondrous lustre, and the staff he carried blazed with light, while the basket upon his arm overflowed with the most beautiful blessings.

"I thought," said the new-comer, "that I might risk giving you this encouragement. It will not make you content to go no farther on _now_. It will make you long to strive for greater good ahead. You will not reach it until you have travelled a lifetime; but you will not despair, for you are being so blessed. I have been permitted to give you a great gift. It is for that I was begging you that day. See, what a privilege it is to be able to beg so--"

"Oh, yes," cried Lionel; "you were going to beg me to accept the little rule, were n't you? And you left it for me when you disappeared, and it is a beauty, and it is gold, and it does strange, wonderful things for me, and--and--" In his enthusiasm he drew it from his breast and held it up, when, lo! it curved about his hand until it formed a perfect, beautiful circle. From its shining rim shot up points of radiance, and it was no more a simple little rule, but a golden crown fit for a king to wear.

Lionel gazed at it in mute wonderment, and the beggar put out his hand and touched it lovingly.

"When your journey is done you shall wear it, lad," he said; and then Lionel closed his eyes for very ecstasy, and then--

But when extraordinary things are just on the point of getting _too_ extraordinary, they are sure to meet with some sort of an interruption, and after that they are quite ordinary and every-day again. So when Lionel opened his eyes there he was curled up in the chair by the drawing-room window, and it had grown very dark and must have been late, for one of the maids was tripping softly about the room, lighting the lamps and singing as she did it.

MARIE AND THE MEADOW-BROOK.

A little maid sat sadly weeping while the sunbeams played merrily at hide-and-seek with the shadows that the great oak branches cast on the ground; while the warm summer wind sang softly to itself as it passed, and the blue sky had not even a white cloud with which to hide the sad sight from its eyes.

"Why do you weep?" asked the oak-tree; but Marie did not hear it, and her tears tell faster than ever.

"Why are you so sad?" questioned the sunbeams; and they came to her gently and tried to peep into her eyes.

But she only got up and sat farther away in the shadow, and they could do nothing to comfort her. So they danced awhile on the door-step; and then the sun called them away, for it was growing late.

And still the little maid sat weeping; and if she had not fallen asleep from very weariness, who knows what the sad consequences might not have been?

"How warm it is!" murmured the dandelions in the meadow. "Our heads are quite heavy, and our feet are hot. If it was not our duty to stand up, we would like nothing better than to sink down in the shade and go to sleep; but we must attend to our task and keep awake."

"What can you have, you wee things, to keep you busy?" asked the tall milkweed that grew near the fence-rails; and the mullein-stalk beside it echoed,--

"What, indeed?"

"Now, one can understand one so tall as I having to stand upright and do my duty; but you,--why, you are no taller than one of my green pods that I am filling with floss--"

"And not half so tall as one of my leaves that I must line with velvet," interrupted the mullein-stalk again.

The dandelions looked grieved for a moment, but answered brightly: "Why, don't you know? It must be because you live so far away--there by the fence--that you don't know we are here to pin the grass down until it grows old enough to know it must not wander off like the crickets, or to blow away like the floss in your own pods. Young grass is very foolish,--I think I heard the farmer call it green the other day, but we don't like the expression ourselves,--and it would be apt to do flighty things if we did n't pin it down where it belongs. When we have taught it its lesson, we can go to sleep. We always stay until the last minute, and then we slip on our white nightcaps,--so fluffy and light and soft they are,--and lo! some day we are gone, no one knows where but the wind; and he carries us off in his arms, for we are too tired to walk; and then we rest until the next year, when we are bright and early at our task again."

Then the milkweed and the mullein-stalk bowed very gravely and respectfully to the little dandelions, and said,--

"Yes, we see. Even such wee things as you have your duties, and we are sorry you are so weary."

So the milkweed whispered to the breeze that the dandelions were too warm, and begged it to help them; but the breeze murmured very gently,--

"I don't know what is the matter with me, dear milkweed, but I am so faint, so faint, I think I shall die."

And sure enough, the next day the little breeze had died, and then they knew how they missed him, even though he had been so weak for the last few days; for the sun glared down fiercely, and the meadow thought it was angry, and was so frightened it grew feverish and parched with very dread.

"We wish our parasols were larger," sighed the toadstools; "but they are so small that, try as we may, we cannot get them to cast a large shadow, and now the breeze has died we have no messenger. If only one knew how to get word to the clouds!"

But the clouds had done such steady duty through the spring that they thought they were entitled to a holiday, and had gone to the mountain-tops, where they were resting calmly, feeling very grand among such an assembly of crowned heads.

Meanwhile the meadow grew browner and browner, and its pretty dress was being scorched so that by and by no one would have recognized it for the gay thing it had been a week ago. And still the sun glared angrily down, and the little breeze was dead.

Then the grasses laid down their tiny spears, and the dandelions bent their heads, and the locusts and the crickets and the grasshoppers called feebly,--

"Oh, little brook, cannot you get out of your bed and come this way?"

"Our hearts are broken," cried the daisies.

"We shall die," wailed the ragged-sailors. Then they all waited for the brook to reply; but she was silent, and call as they would they could get no answer.

"Hush!" whispered the springs. "Her bed is empty. Have n't you noticed how little she sang lately? The weeds must have fallen asleep and she has run away. You know they always hindered her."

They did not tell that they were too weak to feed the brook; so it had dried away. And still the sun glared down, and the little breeze was dead, and the brook had disappeared; while there on the door-step sat Marie weeping big tears,--for the little maid was always sad, and come when you would, there was Marie with her dark eyes filled and brimming over with the shining drops.

The beeches beckoned her from the garden; she saw them do it. Their long branches waved to her to come, like inviting arms; and still weeping, she stole quietly away.

"Come," whispered the gnarled apple-trees down in the orchard; and she threaded her way sadly among the trunks, while her tears fell splash, splash, on her white pinafore.

"Here!" gasped the meadow-grass; and she followed on, sobbing softly to herself, as she sat down where, days ago, the brook had merrily sung.

"Why do you grieve?" asked the pebbles; and she heard them and answered,--

"Because I am so sad. Things are never as I want them, and so I cry. I am made to obey, and then, when the stars come out and I wish to stay up, I am sent to bed; and the next morning, when I am so sleepy I can hardly open my eyes, I am made to get up. Oh, this is a very sad world!" And she wept afresh.

Then the flowers and the grasses and the pebbles, seeing her tears, all said at once: "Would you like to stay here with us? Then you could stay awake all night and gaze at the stars, and in the morning you need not get up. You may lie in the brook's empty bed, and you need never obey your parents any more."

Marie was silent a moment, and then a hundred small voices said, "Do, oh, do!" And her tears fell faster and more fast, and larger and larger, for she felt more abused than ever now the meadow had shown her sympathy, as she thought. She kept dropping tears so quickly that by and by even her sobbing could scarcely be heard for the splash, splash, of the many drops that were falling on the white pebbles in the brook's bed.

How they fell! The brown eyes grew dim, and Marie could not see. She felt tiny hands pulling her down--down; and in a moment she had ceased to be a little girl and had become a brook, while her weeping was the murmur of little waves as they plashed against the stones.

Yes, it was true!

She need never go to sleep when the stars came out; she need never get out of her bed in the morning,--how could she when the strong weeds hindered her,--and how could a brook obey when people spoke?

And meanwhile the meadow grew gay again, for the brook cooled its fever; and by and by the dandelions tied on their large, fluffy nightcaps and disappeared, and the sun ceased to glare--for Marie was gone from the door-step with her weeping, and he need not look down on the ungrateful little maid who ought to have been so happy. The clouds came back; and when they heard how the meadow had suffered they wept for sympathy, and the underground springs grew strong, until one day there was a great commotion in the meadow.

A little bird had told the whole story of Marie's woe to the breeze, and he rose and sighed aloud; the trees tossed their arms about, because it was so wicked in a little girl to be ungrateful. The crickets said, "Tut, tut!" in a very snappy way; and at last the great wind rose, and whipped the poor brook until it grew quite white with foam and fear.

Then Marie knew how naughty she had been, and she made no complaint at her punishment. In fact, she bore it so meekly that after the wind had quieted down and the stormy flurry was over, she began to sing her quiet little song again, although she was very tired of it by this time, and was so meek and patient that all the meadow whispered:

"Good little thing now,--good little thing!" and then they told her how everything in the world, no matter how small it is, has a duty to perform, and should do its task cheerfully and gladly, and not weep and complain when it thinks matters are not going in the right way, but try to keep on with its task and relief will come.

Marie listened like an obedient little brook as she was, and was just going to float another merry little bubble to the little reeds below when she heard a voice say, "Give me my bed; I want it," and lo! there was the real brook come back. She pushed Marie aside and hurt her, though she seemed so gentle.

Marie tried to rise, but it was difficult; her limbs were stiff lying all this time in the meadow, her eyes were weary gazing at the sky, and her voice hoarse with the song she had been forced to sing.

She tried again, and this time she succeeded; and behold! there she was on the door-step, and the sun was going down.

NINA'S CHRISTMAS GIFTS.

Hark! What was that?

Nina stood still in the wintry blast and listened. The wind rushed upon her wildly, and dragged her tattered skirt this way and that, and fleered at her, and whistled at her; and when she paid not the slightest attention to his cruel treatment of her, fled tumultuously down the street.

It was a wretched, shivering little figure that he left behind him,--a small girl, with coal-black hair escaping from the folds of a bright kerchief that was tied about it; with immense dark eyes, that seemed to light up her poor, pinched face and make it beautiful; with tattered dress and torn shoes, and with something clutched tightly beneath her arm,--something that she tried unsuccessfully to shield from the weather beneath her wretched rag of a shawl, that was so insufficient to shield even her. She was listening intently to the sounds of an organ that came pealing forth into the dusk from within the enormous church before whose doors she was standing.

Louder, fuller swelled the majestic cords, and then--Nina strained her ears to listen--and then the sweetest, tenderest voice imaginable seemed to be singing to her of all the most beautiful things of which she had ever dreamed. It drew her toward it by the influence of its plaintiveness; and first one step and then another she took in its direction until she was within the huge doors, and found herself standing upon a white marble floor, with wonderful paintings on the lofty ceiling above her head, and a sense of delicious warmth all about her. But, alas! where was the singer? The thrilling notes were still falling upon her ear with caressing sweetness; but they seemed to come from beyond,--from far beyond.

Before her she saw more doors. Perhaps if she slipped through these she might come in sight of the owner of the voice.