"I asked if maybe there was any message besides, and they said no, just give it you as it was--but happen you"d like to hear how "twas given...?"
"Go on--tell me," said the young man, still with some embarra.s.sment.
"Well, I pulled up there, as I said, and started off again just towards dusk about. Got down just past the meadow below the house, and hears someone running after. Thought maybe I"d left something behind, and so I stopped. "Twas a neat little maid, with red cheeks, and no kerchief on her head. "What"s wrong?" says I.
""Nothing," says the little maid, and looks down at her shoes. "Only you said--didn"t you say Olof was staying your way just now?"
"Well, that was right enough, and I said so. "And what then?"
""Why," says she, "I know him--and I"d a message for him."
""Aha," says I, and laughed a bit.
"""Twas no more than a greeting," says she, all of a hurry like.
"Why, then, I could carry it, "twas an easy matter enough.
""Can I trust you?" says the girl.
""Why, d"you think I"d lose it on the way?" says I.
""If you did--or if you went and told about it..."
""Nay," says I. "I"m an old man, my dear, and not given to playing tricks that away."
""Yes, I know," says she. "I can trust you." And then she gives me this.
""That"s for him?" says I. "Give it him just as it is?"
""Yes. You won"t open it, I know. Though, to be sure, anyone can tell what"s inside. But be sure no one sees you give it him. There"s no message, only just that."
"Well, I was just on the way to tell her I"d sense enough to do that without being asked--but all of a sudden she"s off, racing away with her hair flying behind. Ay, that was the way of it, and now I"ve told you, I"ll be off."
"Good-night, then," said Olof. "And many thanks."
Olof sank into a chair by the table, holding the packet in his hand.
He knew well enough what was inside, but hesitated to open it. He was thinking of what had happened there--he could see it himself as in a vision. A bright-eyed girl, slight of figure, hardly more than a child, sat at one end of the room, and at the other a traveller, eating from the red-painted box in which he carried his food. The man spoke of the weather, how the first snow had come, and it was good going underfoot; where he came from, too, the woodcutters had already started work. More work than usual this season, and the gang foreman had taken on a new hand, a young fellow--Olof was his name.
And the girl all but cries his name aloud, blushes violently, and lays down her work to listen. But the traveller says no more of what she is longing to hear, only talks of this and that--all manner of trifling things. The girl is restless, uncertain what to do--but she must do something. And she watches the man"s face closely as he sits smoking his pipe on the bench. "He looks honest, and kindly," she thinks to herself. "I could trust him, I know."
And then quietly she slips off to her own room, as if to fetch something, and takes something from a drawer--a little thing she has kept there long. Looks for some paper, or a bag, to put it in, searches and looks again, and finds it at last, packs it up and ties it round with string, tying the hardest knot she can manage, and cutting the ends off close, so it can"t be opened without being seen--and laughs to herself.
Then she goes back to the room, with the thing in her pocket. The traveller is getting ready to go.
""Tis time to mix the cattle food," says the girl. And from the kitchen window she can see the traveller come out to his horse and make ready to start. He drives out of the yard and down the road at a trot. "Now!" says she to herself, and races off after him.
Olof can see her as she runs--how her breast heaves as she comes up with the cart and hails the driver. How she blushes and looks down, and then, having gained her purpose, runs off again too full of joy even to thank the messenger, running a race, as it were, with her own delight. And then, once back at the house, she looks round anxiously to every side, lest any should have seen her, and goes in to her work again....
Filled with a quiet joy, Olof opens the packet.
A big, dark red apple carries her greeting.
"The very colour of the rowans!" he cries--as if the girl had chosen that very one from a great store, though he knows well enough it was likely the only one she had.
And his heart swells with joy and pride at the thought. "Was there ever such a greeting--or such a girl!"
Once more his mind goes back to that happy autumn; he turns the apple in his hand caressingly, and looks out through the window and smiles.
Then he notices that the apple seems harder to the touch in one place, as if to call his attention to something. He looks at it again, and sees that the skin on one side is raised, with a cut all round, is if done with a knife. He lifts the flap of skin, and it comes away like a lid; underneath is a folded slip of paper.
"More!" he cries, and with trembling hands, with joy at heart, he unfolds it. Only a tiny fragment, and on one side a few words awkwardly traced with pencil:
"Now I know what it is to be sad. Have you quite forgotten your Rowan?
I think of you every night when I go to sleep."
The apple falls into his lap, the paper trembles in his hand, and a moisture dims his eyes.
He looks up. Great soft snowflakes are dropping slowly to the ground.
Minutes pa.s.s. The twilight deepens, till at last all is darkness, but he sits there still looking out, with the paper in his hand.
He can no longer see--but he feels how the great soft snowflakes are still falling....
DAISY
The daisy bloomed on the window-sill ... in the window of a little room.
In spring and summer the daisy blooms--this one bloomed in the winter too.
"And I know, and you know why you bloom in the winter," said the girl.
""Tis to smile at him in greeting."
The daisy blooms only a few months together ... this one was in flower already when Christmas came, and flowered the rest of the winter through, more beautiful every day.
"And I know, and you know how long you will bloom. "Twas when I set you here at first it all began ... and when he is gone, and there"s none for you to smile at any more, then it will all be over.""
The girl bent lower over the flower.
"She has but a single flower--so neat and sweet," she whispered, pressing her delicate lips to the pale posy petals just unfolded.
"She has but a single friend--so tender and dear," smiled the flower in answer, nodding slowly over toward the fields.
A tall youth on ski came gliding by, his cap at the back of his head, and a knapsack strapped at his shoulders.