"What was that?" exclaimed Grandfather, starting nervously. "Ho, Prince!
Are you without there?" and he ran to the door, while Grandmother was still rubbing from her eyes the happy dream which had made them moist,--the dream of a rosy, radiant Child who was to be the care and comfort of a lonely cottage. And then, before she had fairly wakened from the dream, Prince bounded into the room and laid before the fire at her feet a soft, snow-wrapped bundle, from which hung a pale little face with golden hair.
"It is the Child of my dream!" cried Bettine. "The Holy One has come back to us."
"Nay, this is no dream-child, mother. This is a little human fellow, nearly frozen to death," exclaimed Josef Viaud, pulling the bundle toward the fire. "Come, Bettine, let us take off his snow-stiff clothes and get some little garments from the chests yonder. I will give him a draught of something warm, and rub the life into his poor little hands and feet. We have both been dreaming, it seems. But certainly this is no dream!"
"Look! The dove!" cried Grandmother, taking the bird from the child"s bosom, where it still nestled, warm and warming. "Josef! I believe it is indeed the Holy Child Himself," she whispered. "He bears a dove in his bosom, like the image in the Church." But even as she spoke the dove fluttered in her fingers, then, with a gentle "Coo-roo!" whirled once about the little chamber and darted out at the door, which they had forgotten quite to close. With that the child opened his eyes.
"The dove is gone!" he cried. "Yet I am warm. Why--has the little Stranger come once more?" Then he saw the kind old faces bent over him, and felt Prince"s warm kisses on his hands and cheeks, with the fire flickering pleasantly beyond.
"It is like coming home again!" he murmured, and with his head on Bettine"s shoulder dropped comfortably to sleep.
On the morrow all the village went to see the image of the Christ Child lying in a manger near the high altar of the church. It was a sweet little Child in a white shirt, clasping in his hands a dove. They believed him to have come in the stormy night down the village street.
And they were glad that their pious candles in the windows had guided Him safely on the road. But little Pierre, while he sang in the choir, and his adopted parents, the Viauds, kneeling happily below, had sweet thoughts of a dream which had brought them all together.
Who knows but that Prince at home happily guarding Pierre"s snow-wet old shoes--who knows but that Prince was dreaming the happiest dream of all?
For only Prince knew how and where and under what guidance he had found the little friend of the Lord"s friends sleeping in the snow, with but a white dove in his bosom to keep him from becoming a boy of ice.
THE MERMAID"S CHILD
IN the rocks on the seash.o.r.e, left bare by the tide, one often finds tiny pools of water fringed with seaweed and padded with curious moss.
These are the cradles which the Mermaids have trimmed prettily for the sea-babies, and where they leave the little ones when they have to go away on other business, as Mermaids do. But one never spies the sea-children in their cradles, for they are taught to tumble out and slip away into the sea if a human step should approach. You see, the fishes have told the Mer-folk cruel tales of the Land-people with their nets and hooks and lines.
In the softest, prettiest little cradle of all a Sea-child lay one afternoon crying to himself. He cried because he was lonesome. His mother did not love him as a baby"s mother should; for she was the silliest and the vainest of all the Mermaids. Her best friend was her looking-gla.s.s of polished pearl, and her only care was to remain young and girlish. Indeed, she bore her thousand-odd years well, even for a Mermaid. She liked the Sea-baby well enough, but she was ashamed to have him follow her about as he loved to do, because she imagined it made her seem old to be called "Mer-mother" by his lisping lips. She never had time to caress or play with him; and finally she forbade him ever to speak to her unless she spoke first. Sometimes she seemed to forget him altogether, as she left him to take care of himself, while she sat on the rocks combing her long green hair, or playing with the giddy Mermen in the caves below the sea.
So while the other sea-people sported or slept and were happy, her poor little Sea-child lay and cried in the green pool where the sea-anemones tickled his cheek with their soft fingers, seeking to make him laugh, and the sea-fringe curled about the scaly little tail which, like a fish, he had in place of legs. On this particular afternoon he was particularly lonesome.
"Ahoo!" he sobbed. "I am so unhappy! Ahoo! I want some one to love me very much!"
Now a kind old Stork was sitting on a rock above the baby"s head, preening his feathers in a looking-gla.s.s pool. He heard the Sea-child"s words, and he spoke in his kind, gruff voice.
"What is the matter, little one?" he asked.
At first the Sea-child was surprised to be addressed by a land bird. But he soon saw that this creature was friendly, and told him all his trouble, as babies do. "Tut tut!" said the Stork, frowning. "Your Mer-mother needs a lesson sadly."
"What is a lesson?" lisped the Sea-child.
But the Stork was busy thinking and did not reply at once. "How would you like a change?" he asked after a time.
"What is a change?" asked the baby, for he was very young and ignorant.
"You shall see," answered the Stork, "if you will take my advice; for I am your friend. Now listen. When next you hear a step upon the rocks do not stir from your cradle, but wait and see what will happen." Without another word the Stork flapped away, leaving the baby to stare up at the blue sky with the tears still wet upon his cheeks, wondering what the Stork could have meant.
"I will not stir," he said to himself. "Whatever happens I will wait and see."
It was the Stork"s business to bring babies to the homes where babies were needed; and sometimes it was very hard to find babies enough. Even now he knew of a house upon the hill where a boy was longing for a little brother to play with. Every night Gil mentioned the matter in his prayers; every night he begged the Stork to bring him a playmate. But though the Stork had hunted far and wide through all the land he could not find a human baby to spare for the cottage on the hill. Now he had a happy idea.
With his long legs dangling he flew swiftly up towards the hill; and halfway there he met the boy wandering about sulkily all alone. The Stork had never before spoken to this boy, because he well knew what Gil wanted, and he hated to be teased for what he could not give. So, though he had listened sadly to the boy"s prayers, by day he had kept carefully out of sight. But now he came close overhead, and settling down stood upon one leg directly in Gil"s path.
"Good-afternoon," he said. "I think I have heard you say that you wanted a little brother."
Gil was surprised to have a Stork address him like this, but he was still more pleased at the happy word. "I do! Oh, I do indeed!" he cried.
"Would you make a good brother to him?" asked the Stork.
"Oh yes!" answered the boy eagerly. "A very good brother I should be."
"H"m," said the Stork. "One never can tell about these boys. I think you are selfish and jealous. But a little brother may be a good thing for you. In any case, there is little for him to lose. Will you be so good as to come with me?"
Without another word the Stork flew up and away toward the beach, leaving Gil staring. This certainly was a most extraordinary bird! But Gil soon decided to follow him and see what would happen, for who could tell what the Stork"s mysterious words might mean?
Presently, lying in his little cradle, the Sea-child heard the sound of feet scrambling up the rocks,--the sound he had been taught to fear more than anything in the world. It was his first thought to flop out of the cradle, over into the sea below; and he half turned to do so. But in a moment he remembered the Stork"s last words, and although he was trembling with fear he remained where he was.
Soon over the top of the rock peered the face of the boy, Gil of the hill cottage, looking straight down into the pool where the Sea-baby lay snugly on the seaweed.
"Oh!" cried the boy, with round black eyes fixed upon the baby"s round blue ones. "Oh!" cried the Sea-child. And it would be hard to say which of the two was more astonished. For to a Sea-child the sight of a clothed, two-legged land-boy is quite as strange as a naked little fish-tailed infant is to a human. But after the first look neither felt afraid, in spite of the terrible tales which each had heard of the other"s kind. They stared wistfully at each other, not knowing what to do next, until the Stork came forward and spoke wise words.
"You, land-boy Gil," he said, "you want a little brother, do you not?"
Gil nodded. "And you, Sea-child, want some one to love you? I think I can manage to please you both. But first you must kiss each other."
Gil hesitated. He was a big boy of five or six, too old for kissing.
Moreover the Sea-child looked cold and wet and somewhat fishy. But already the red lips of the little fellow were pouted into a round O, and the sad blue eyes were looking up at him so pleadingly that Gil bent low over the watery cradle. Then two little soft arms went about his neck, and Gil felt the heart of the Sea-child thump happily against his own.
"Very good," said the Stork approvingly.
The Sea-child could not stand, on account of having no feet, but he lay in his pool holding Gil"s hand.
"Now the change is coming," went on the Stork, and as he spoke the baby began to fall asleep. "In twelve hours," he said to Gil, "he will become a tiny human child, and I shall carry him to the house on the hill, where he will find a loving family awaiting him. Look! Already he is losing the uniform of the sea," and he pointed at the Sea-child"s fishy tail. Sure enough, the scales were falling away one by one, and already the shape of two little chubby legs could be seen under the skin, which was shrinking as a tadpole"s does before he becomes a frog. "When this tail is wholly gone," declared the Stork, "he will forget what we have said to-night. He will forget his sea-home and the caves of the Mer-people. He will forget that he was once a Sea-child; and no one will ever remind him. For only you, Gil, and I shall know the secret."
"And I shall never tell," declared Gil.
"No, surely you will never tell," answered the Stork gravely, "for if you tell that will be the end of all. You will lose the little brother, and you will be sorry all the rest of your life. Do not forget, Gil. Do not forget."
"I shall not forget," said Gil.
Again they looked at the Sea-child, and he had fallen sound asleep, still holding Gil"s hand. Now there was scarcely anything of the fish left about his little pink body; he was growing younger and younger, smaller and smaller.
"You must go home now, Gil," said the Stork. "Go home and go to bed. And to-morrow when you wake there will be a little brother in the house, and you ought to be a very good boy because you have your wish."
Gil gently loosened the Sea-child"s hand and ran home as the Stork bade him, but said no word of all this to any one.
Now early in the morning the Stork came to the house on the hill, bringing a rosy little new baby which he laid on the bed beside Gil"s mother, and then flew away. What a hullabaloo there was then, to be sure! What a welcome for the little stranger! Gil was not the only one who had longed for a new baby in the house, and this was the prettiest little fellow ever seen. Loudest of all cheered Gil when he saw the present which the Stork had brought. "Hurrah for my little new brother!"