RECIPROCITY.
"Take upon command what we have, That to your wanting may be ministered."
"Celia Fair, do you realize what you have done?"
It was Celia who asked herself the question. She was suffering, as reserved people must, from the reaction that follows an unusual outburst of feeling. That had been a happy morning in the arbor; she had let herself go, had listened to her heart and forgotten her pride, and in the company of the merry Arden Foresters, the old joy of youth had a.s.serted itself. The brightness had stayed with her for days; she had dreamed she could make a fairy tale of life, spending her hours in an enchanted forest, and now had come the awakening.
It seemed destined from the beginning to be a day of misfortunes. She woke with a dull, listless feeling, and the first thing to greet her eyes when she went downstairs was the woolly head of Bob, the grandson of her sole dependence, Aunt Sally, waiting on the doorstep to impart the cheering information that granny had the "misery" in her side mighty bad, and couldn"t come to-day.
At another time it might not have mattered so much, for the boys were away from home, and breakfast for two did not offer any insuperable difficulties to Celia, but there were currants and raspberries waiting to be made into jelly and preserves. To complicate matters, Mrs. Fair had one of her severe headaches.
The fruit would not keep another day, and Celia couldn"t leave the house to go down the hill in search of help, even if she had known just where to seek it. After making her mother as comfortable as possible, she began on the currants with sombre energy.
"May I come in, Miss Celia? Will you lend me a cup?" It was Jack who stood in the door.
"Help yourself," she replied, "I am too busy to stop."
"We want to get some water from the spring," he explained. "Aren"t you coming over to-day?"
Celia shook her head.
Jack surveyed the piles of fruit. "Jiminy! have you all this to do?"
"Yes; Aunt Sally is sick this morning, and it can"t wait."
Jack disappeared, leaving Celia to her gloomy thoughts, but ten minutes had not pa.s.sed before he was back again, accompanied by the other Arden Foresters.
"We have come to help," they announced.
For a moment Celia was annoyed. She had made up her mind to be a martyr and did not care to be disturbed.
"Indeed, you can"t," she said. "I am very much obliged, but you would stain yourselves, and--"
"Give us some ap.r.o.ns," interrupted Belle. "Mother lets us help her."
Maurice added, "It is reciprocity, Miss Celia."
Celia"s ill temper wavered and went down before the row of bright faces.
"Well, perhaps you may help if you really want to, but it is tiresome work."
They did not seem to find it so, as they sat around the table on the porch, carefully done up in checked ap.r.o.ns, three of them at work on the raspberries, and two helping Celia with the currants.
Each wore a fresh oak leaf, and nothing would do but Rosalind must run back to get one for Miss Celia; and there must have been magic in it, so suddenly did Celia"s courage revive.
"I feel better," she said, stopping to turn the leaves of the cook-book.
"Let me see,--"boil several hours till the juice is well out of the fruit,"--Sally always lets it drip over night into the big stone jar. I shall have these currants out of the way by dinner-time. You are really a great help. I wish there was something I could do for you."
"Tell us a story, Miss Celia," Belle suggested promptly.
"I don"t know any."
"Something about when you were a little girl," said Katherine.
Celia hesitated. "The only story I know is about a magician and a tiger, Rosalind"s calling Morgan "the magician" reminded me of it."
"I love magicians and tigers," Rosalind remarked. "Do you remember the picture I told you about, Maurice? Do tell it to us, Miss Celia."
Celia wondered afterward how she could have done it, but now she thought of nothing but her desire to please the children, so she began:--
"Once there was a little girl who loved fairy tales and believed with all her heart in fairies, magicians, and ogres. In the town where she had recently come to live she had a playmate, a boy, who laughed at her for thinking there were such creatures in the world, and the two often argued the matter.
"One day this little girl was sitting on the fence looking up at the sky and wishing something would happen, when she heard the boy calling her.
She answered, and he came running across the gra.s.s and climbed up beside her, and with an air of great mystery told her he knew a secret. Of course the little girl was anxious to hear it, and of course the boy tried to tease her by refusing to tell. But by and by he could keep it no longer, and in tones of awe he whispered that he knew a magician who lived in their very town.
"The little girl clapped her hands; for if her playmate believed in magicians, he must surely come to believe in fairies too.
"The boy went on to explain that this magician appeared exactly like other men, so that few guessed his mysterious power. He lived in a house quite like other houses except that its door was painted black; but behind this door lay a tiger, always ready to spring upon any one who tried to enter.
On this great tiger in some way depended the magician"s power.
"There had been a fire in the village recently, which, the boy said, had been caused by the magician, as well as certain other calamities, such as scarlet-fever and measles, and the time had come when this must be stopped. The boy claimed to have discovered--he did not say how--that the magician"s tiger had three white whiskers, all the rest being black, and in these white whiskers resided all his power. If in any way they could be removed, he and his master would be harmless forevermore.
"But how was this to be done? the little girl wanted to know, feeling deeply impressed meanwhile by the tragedy of the situation.
"The only way, the boy replied, was to catch the tiger while he slept, and then--a snip of the scissors, and he could do no more harm. The little girl had some round-pointed scissors hanging from a ribbon around her neck, for she was fond of cutting things; she took them in her hand now and looked at them with a shiver as the boy added in a tragic whisper, "_We_ must do it!"
"Although she was very much afraid, she never thought of objecting. It was her duty, and she had great confidence in her companion. He could do many things she couldn"t do, and he was ten and she only six; so when he examined the scissors and said they would answer, without a word of objection she slipped down from the fence and trotted beside him.
"It seemed quite natural that the way should be over fences and through back yards instead of along the street. They climbed rails and squeezed through hedges until the little girl was breathless and had not the least idea where she was, when she found herself in a narrow garden-path, on either side of which grew hollyhocks and sunflowers.
""There is the door," the boy whispered; and--yes--at the end of the path she saw the black door.
""This is the hour when he sleeps," the boy said, in thrilling tones, looking at an imaginary watch. "We have timed it well. I will open the door softly, and you have your scissors ready; I will hold him while you cut off the whiskers." The little girl"s heart almost stopped beating, but she had no thought of running away.
"They reached the door; the boy had his hand on the k.n.o.b. He was opening it very gently--when something happened! He stumbled, or his hand slipped.
It flew open and there before them stood the magician, brandishing a glittering sword, and beside him were the gleaming eyes of a tiger.
"With a cry of terror the little girl fell all in a heap, grasping her scissors, shutting her eyes tight till all should be over. Then some one picked her up and asked if she was hurt, and slowly gaining courage she opened her eyes and looked into the kind face of Morgan, the cabinet-maker. At his side was Tiger, the great striped cat, and on the work-bench lay his shining saw. The boy stood by, laughing."
"I thought he must be fooling her," remarked Katherine, in a tone of relief.
"You don"t mean it!" said Maurice, with fine sarcasm.
"But finish, Miss Celia," begged Rosalind. "What did the little girl think?"
"I believe for a long time she was greatly puzzled. There seemed to have been magic somewhere. She examined Tiger"s whiskers and found them all black, and this made her think it possible that some one else had cut out the white ones, and thus turned him into a harmless cat. She felt a little uneasy at times, for fear the cabinet-maker would turn again into the wicked magician, but it never happened."
"And did she go on believing in fairies?" Rosalind asked.