A MAY-DAY GIFT.
I.
Early on the morning of the 1st of May, Abby Clayton ran downstairs, exclaiming by way of greeting to the household:
"A bright May Day! A bright May Day!"
"It isn"t very _bright_, I"m sure!" grumbled her little brother Larry, who clattered after her. "There"s no sunshine; and the wind blows so hard I sha"n"t be able to sail my new boat on the pond in the park.
It"s mighty hard lines! I don"t see why it can"t be pleasant on a holiday. Think of all the shiny days we"ve had when a fellow had to be in school. Now, when there"s a chance for some fun, it looks as if it were going to rain great guns!"
"Well, it won"t," said Abby, pausing in the hall to glance back at him, as he perched upon the bal.u.s.ter above her. "It won"t rain great guns, nor pitchforks, nor cats and dogs, nor even torrents. It"s going to clear up. Don"t you know that some people say the sun generally shines, for a few minutes anyhow, on Sat.u.r.days in honor of the Blessed Virgin?"
"This isn"t Sat.u.r.day," objected Larry, somewhat indignantly.
"Yes, but it is the 1st of May; and if that is not our Blessed Mother"s day too, I"d like to know what is!" said his sister.
"I don"t believe that about the sun shining," continued Larry. "If you are ten--only two years older than I am,--you don"t know everything.
I"m going to ask mother."
The children entered the breakfast room, greeted their father and mother, and then slipped into their places.
"Mother," began Larry, as he slowly poured the maple syrup over the crisp, hot pancakes upon his plate, "is it true that the sun always shines on Sat.u.r.day in honor of the Blessed Virgin?"
"It is a pious and poetic saying," replied Mrs. Clayton. "But a legendary sentiment of this kind often hides a deeper meaning. For those who are devoted to the Blessed Virgin, there is never a day so dark but that the love of Our Lady shines through the gloom like a sunbeam, changing to the rosy and golden tints of hope the leaden clouds that shadowed their happiness; and blessing the closing day of life, which, to look back upon, seems but as the ending of a week."
Mrs. Clayton had hardly finished speaking, when a long ray of yellow light fell upon the tablecloth.
"There! the sun"s out now, anyway! Crickey, I"m so glad!" exclaimed Larry.
"The clouds were only blown up by the wind," said his father. "I do not think we shall have rain to-day."
"Mother, may I put on a white dress and go to buy my May wreath?" asked Abby.
"The air is too cold for you to change your warm gown for a summer one, dear," returned Mrs. Clayton. "You may get the wreath, though; but be sure that you wear it over your hat."
Abby seemed to think it was now her turn to grumble.
"Oh, dear!" she murmured. "All the girls wear white dresses, and go without hats on May Day. I don"t see why I can"t!"
Her complaint made no impression, however; so she flounced out of the room.
"My mother is the most exaggerating person!" exclaimed the little girl, as she prepared for her shopping excursion. She meant aggravating; but, like most people who attempt to use large words the meaning of which they do not understand, she made droll mistakes sometimes.
Abby had fifteen cents, which her grandma had given her the day before.
"I"ll hurry down to the Little Women"s before the best wreaths are gone," she said to herself.
The place was a fancy store, kept by two prim but pleasant spinster sisters. Besides newspapers, stationery, thread and needles, and so forth, they kept a stock of toys, candies, and pickled limes, which insured them a run of custom among the young folk, who always spoke of them as the Little Women. Not to disappoint the confidence placed in them by their youthful patrons, they had secured an excellent a.s.sortment of the crowns of tissue-paper flowers which, in those days, every little girl considered essential to the proper observance of May Day.
Abby selected one which she and the Little Women made up their minds was the prettiest. It usually took both of the Little Women to sell a thing. If one showed it, the other descanted upon its merits, or wrapped it up in paper when the bargain was completed. Neither of them appeared to transact any business, even to the disposal of "a pickle lime" (as the children say), quite on her own responsibility.
After Abby had fully discussed the matter with them, therefore, she bought her wreath. It was made of handsome white tissue-paper roses, with green tissue-paper leaves, and had two long streamers. There was another of pink roses, which she thought would be just the thing for Larry to buy with the fifteen cents which he had received also. But Larry had said:
"Pshaw! I wouldn"t wear a wreath!" Abby didn"t see why, because some boys wore them.
On the way home she met a number of her playmates. Several of them shivered in white dresses, and all were bareheaded except for their paper wreaths. Not one of the wreaths was so fine as Abby"s, however.
But, then, few little girls had fifteen cents to expend upon one. Abby perceived at a glance that most of those worn by her companions were of the ten-cent variety. The Little Women had them for eight; and even five copper pennies would buy a very good one, although the roses of the five-cent kind were p.r.o.nounced by those most interested to be "little bits of things."
Abby talked to the girls a while, and then went home to exhibit her purchase. Her mother commented approvingly upon it; and the little girl ran down to the kitchen to show it to Delia the cook, who had lived with the family ever since Larry was a baby.
Delia was loud in her admiration.
"Oh, on this day they do have great doings in Ireland!" said she; "but nowadays, to be sure, it"s nothing to what it was in old times. It was on May eve, I"ve heard tell, that St. Patrick lit the holy fire at Tara, in spite of the ancient pagan laws. And in the days when the country was known as the island of saints and of scholars, sure throughout the length and breadth of the land the monastery bells rang in the May with praises of the Holy Mother; and the canticles in her honor were as ceaseless as the song of the birds. And "twas the fairies that were said to have great power at this season--"
"Delia, you know very well there are no fairies," interrupted Abby.
"Well, some foolish folk thought there were, anyhow," answered Delia.
"And in Maytide the children and cattle, the milk and the b.u.t.ter, were kept guarded from them. Many and many an evening I"ve listened to my mother that"s dead and gone--G.o.d rest her soul!--telling of an old woman that, at the time of the blooming of the hawthorn, always put a spent coal under the churn, and another beneath the grandchild"s cradle, because that was said to drive the fairies away; and how primroses used to be scattered at the door of the house to prevent the fairies from stealing in, because they could not pa.s.s that flower. But you don"t hear much of that any more; for the priest said "twas superst.i.tion, and down from the heathenish times. So the old people came to see "twas wrong to use such charms, and the young people laughed at the old women"s tales. Now on May Day the shrines in the churches are bright with flowers, of course. And as for the innocent merrymakings, instead of a dance round the May or hawthorn bush, as in the olden times, in some places there"s just perhaps a frolic on the village green, when the boys and girls come home from the hills and dales with their garlands of spring blossoms--not paper flowers like those," added Delia, with a contemptuous glance at Abby"s wreath, forgetting how much she had admired it only a few moments before.
Somehow it did not now seem so beautiful to Abby either. She took it off, and gazed at it with a sigh.
"Here in New England the boys and girls go a-Maying," she said. "Last year, when we were in the country, Larry and I went with our cousins.
We had such fun hanging May-baskets! I got nine. But," she went on, regretfully, "I don"t expect any this year; for city children do not have those plays."
She went upstairs to the sitting-room, where Larry was rigging his boat anew. He had been to the pond, but the wind wrought such havoc with the little craft that he had to put into port for repairs.
Half an hour pa.s.sed. Abby was dressing her beloved doll for an airing on the sidewalk,--a promenade in a carriage, as the French say. While thus occupied she half hummed, half sang, in a low voice, to herself, a popular May hymn. When she reached the refrain, Larry joined, and Delia appeared at the door just in time to swell the chorus with honest fervor:
"See, sweet Mary, on thy altars Bloom the fairest flowers of May.
Oh, may we, earth"s sons and daughters, Grow by grace as fair as they!"
"If you please," said Delia at its close, "there"s a man below stairs who says he has something for you both."
"For us!" exclaimed the children, starting up.
"Yes: your mother sent me to tell you. He says he was told to say as how he had a May-basket for you."
"A May-basket, Delia? What! All lovely flowers like those I told you about?" cried the little girl.
"Sure, child, and how could I see what was inside, and it so carefully done up?" answered Delia, evasively.
They did not question further, but rushed downstairs to see for themselves.
In the kitchen waited a foreign-looking man, with swarthy skin, and thin gold rings in his ears. On the floor beside him was a large, rough packing-basket.
"_That_ a May-basket!" exclaimed Abby, hardly able to restrain the tears of disappointment which started to her eyes.