The New-Year's Bargain/Chapter 4

by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey

CHAPTER IV.

"MARIA."

SUCH colds! Never was any thing like them. Day after day Max sat by the fire with a splitting headache, cold chills running down his back; while night after night Thekla awoke, coughing and choking from a spot in her throat which burned like a live coal. I can tell you, when March gives a present he does it in real earnest.

They were so miserable you might have thought that even March must pity them a little. But he didn't,—not a bit. As he told the children, he was any thing but a "tender-hearted person." "When they were at the very worst, they could hear him astride the roof, roaring and whooping down the chimney in the most unfeeling way; and he regularly banged the door open
"One day in an old garret I found the doll, who, as I said, was living
in a closet."

on cold nights to let the wind in; so that, at last, Max never thought of sitting down to supper without first putting a heavy chair against it to keep it shut. So blustering and ill-tempered a Month was never known. But at last his turn came to go; and, by that time, what with patience and catnip tea the children had begun to get better.

There is a great difference, however, between being better and being well. Thekla's hands were still too weak and thin to twirl the spindle, and for many a day the wood-carving had lain untouched in the cupboard. It seemed as if they were too languid to enjoy any thing; and, when the evening came for April's visit, Max would hardly take the trouble to rise and fetch the can, though Thekla reminded him. After it was brought out, however, and the fire poked into a blaze, they felt a little brighter. Poor things, it was a long time since any thing pleasant had happened to them!

The night was still. The noisy winds had fallen asleep, so that you could hear the least sounds far away in the forest. By and by light footsteps became audible, drawing nearer; and Max had time to run for a chair and place it in the cosiest corner, before a soft tap fell upon the door.

"May I come in?" said a voice, very gently and politely. How different from rude March!

This was April. She looked very young and small; and, as Thekla went forward to greet her, she felt as if it were some little visitor of her own age come to tea. It was with a sense of protection and hospitality that she took from her hand a great bundle, which seemed heavy. April sat down, and then she put her arm round Thekla's waist and pulled her nearer, bundle and all. She had an odd, pretty face when you came to look at it. The lips laughed of themselves; but the eyes, which were blue and misty, seemed to have tears behind them all ready to fall. Or if, as sometimes happened, the lips took ^ fancy to pout, then the eyes had their turn, and brightened and twinkled so that you could not help smiling. It would have puzzled anybody whether to call the countenance most sad or most merry. April's hair was all wavy and blowsy, as if she had been out in a gale of wind. Two or three violets were stuck in it; and the voice with which she spoke sounded like the tinkle of rain-drops on the leaves.

"Look," she said, "what I have brought you!" and she unfastened the bundle, which was pinned together with a long red thorn.

O mercy! It seemed as if the sun, which went to bed three hours ago, had got up again, and was pouring over April's lap on to the kitchen floor. For there lay a great heap of dandelions, golden and splendid, which perked up their heads, and laughed and winked on all around. The whole room seemed to brighten from their glorious color. And, what was funny, these dandelions had voices, as it seemed; for out of the middle of the heap came queer sounds of peeping and chirping, which the children could not at all understand.

April laughed. She parted the flowers, and there were two little new-born chicks, as yellow as the yolk of an egg. They were soft and downy; and their cunning black eyes and little beaks gave them a knowing look, which was astonishing, when you recollected how short a time they had been in the world. "Cheep! cheep!" they cried, and one ran directly into Thekla's outstretched hands. The warm fingers felt to it like a nest; and the little creature cuddled down contentedly, with a soft note which expressed comfort. The other, April handed to Max.

"They are for you," she said. "If you like them and take care of them, you may have a whole poultry-yard some day. My broods are not always lucky; but these will be."

"Like them," indeed! You should have seen the happy fuss which went on over the new pets. Max ran for a basket; Thekla brought flannel to line it, and meal and water; and the chicks were kissed, fed, and tucked away as if they had been babies. By and by they fell fast asleep under their warm coverlet; and then the children went back to the fire, and, while Max made ringlets of the dandelion-stalks and stuck them in Thekla's hair, April began:—

"My story isn't much," she said. "I've told so many in the course of my life that I'm quite exhausted, for I make it a rule never to tell the same twice. Some are so sad that it makes me cry merely to think of them,"—and as she said this April's tears suddenly rained down her face,—"and others so jolly that I should split my sides if I tried." Here April giggled like a school-girl, and her eyes seemed to send out rays of sun which danced on the wet tear-stains. "So it must always be new," she went on; "and, ever since I saw you, I've been trying to decide what it should be. There was a delightful one about ducklings which I thought of,—but no!" and she solemnly shook her head.

"Oh, why not? Do, pray do!" cried Max.

"Couldn't," said April. "That story—the first half of it at least—I told to a little girl in England last year. I didn't finish because something came along and set me crying, but half is just as bad as the whole. I couldn't tell that again. Don't look so disappointed, though! I've got one for you; and, though it isn't one of my best, I dare say you '11 like it well enough. It's about a doll."

"A doll! Pshaw!" said Max, impolitely.

"Why, what a rude boy you are!" cried April, beginning to sob. "I declare, I ne—never was t—treated so before."

"Max!" exclaimed Thekla, "how could you? You've hurt her feelings. Don't cry any more, dear," she went on, for somehow Thekla felt older and bigger than this fascinating little maiden who laughed and cried by turns,—"he didn't mean to. He is a real kind boy, only sometimes he speaks before he thinks. And I like dolls—oh, so much!"

"Do you?" said April, brightening. "Then it's all right. As for you," she added, turning sharply round on Max, "you can go out and sit on the steps, if you don't want to hear it."

"Oh!" stammered Max, dreadfully ashamed of himself, "I do. I'd just as lief hear it as not. And I beg your pardon, if I spoke rudely."

"Very well then," said April, pacified. "If you feel that way, I'll proceed. This doll lived in a closet. I should never have come across her probably if it hadn't been for the house-cleaning.

"You must know that there are countries in the world where every spring and fall the houses are all turned upside down and inside out, and then downside up and outside in, all for the sake of being clean. The women do it. What becomes of the men I don't know: they climb trees or something to be out of the way, I suppose. I like these times, of all things. I like to swing the heavy carpets to and fro on the lines, and flap the maids' aprons into their faces as they stand on the ledge outside to wash the windows. It is great fun. And I love to creep into holes and corners, and rummage and poke about to see what folks have got. And one day, when doing this in an old garret, I found the doll, who, as I said, was living in a closet. They had put her there to be out of the way of the cleaning.

"Her name was Maria. She was big, but not very beautiful. Her head was dented, and there were marks of finger-nails on her cheeks, which were faded and of a purplish-pink. But her arms and legs were bran new, and white as snow, and her body was round and full of sawdust. I couldn't understand this at all until she explained it. Her head, it seemed, was twenty-five years old; and her body had only been in the world six weeks!

"Once, she said, she had possessed a body just the same age as her head, and then she belonged to a person she called 'Baby May.' Baby May used to bump her on the floor, and dig the soft wax out of her cheeks with her nails. This treatment soon ruined her good looks; and when she mentioned this, Maria almost cried,—but not quite, because, as she said, years had taught her self-command. I don't know what she meant," added April, reflectively. "I'm sure years never taught me any thing of the sort. However, that is neither here nor there! If she hadn't had a fine constitution, Maria never could have endured all this cruelty. Her body didn't. It soon sank under its sufferings and, after spitting sawdust for some months, wasted away so much that May's mother said it must go into the ragbag. People make a great fuss about having their heads cut off, but Maria said it was quite easy if the scissors were sharp. Snip, snip, rip, rip, and there you are. The head was put carefully away in a wardrobe because it was so handsome, and May's mamma promised to buy a new body for it; but somehow she forgot, and by and by May grew so big that she didn't care to play with dolls any more. So Maria's head went on living in the wardrobe. Having no longer any cares of the body to disturb it, it gave itself up to the cultivation of the intellect. A wardrobe is a capital place for study, it appears. People keep their best things there, and rarely come to disturb them. At night, when the house is asleep, they wake up and talk together, and tell secrets. The silk gowns converse about the fine parties they have gone to, and the sights they have seen. There were several silk gowns in the wardrobe. One of them had a large spot of ice-cream on its front breadth. She used to let the other things smell it, that they might know what luxury was like; and once Maria got a chance, and licked it with her tongue, but she said it didn't taste as she expected. There was an India shawl, too, which would lift the lid of its box, and relate stories—oh, so interesting!—about black faces and white turbans and hot sunshine. The laces in the drawer came from Belgium. That was a place to learn geography! And the Roman pearls had a history too. They were devout Catholics, and would tell their beads all night if nobody seemed to be listening. But the Coral in the drawer below was Red Republican in its opinions, and made no attempt to hide it. Both hailed from Italy, but they were always quarrelling! Oh, Maria knew a deal! As she grew wise, she ceased to care for tea-parties, and being taken out to walk as formerly. All she wanted was to gain information, and strengthen her mind. At least so she said; but for all that," remarked April, with a sly smile, "she had some lingering regard for looks still, for she complained bitterly of the change in her complexion. Perhaps it was putting so much inside her head made the outside so dull and shabby!

"Well, for twenty-three long years Maria lived in the wardrobe at the head of polite society. She was treated with great respect. The dresses always bowed to her when they went in and out. When their time came for being ripped up and pieced into bedquilts, they said farewell with many tears. All this gratified her feelings, of course. So you can imagine what a shock it was when, one day, the wardrobe door was suddenly opened, and she was lifted down and laid in a pair of little clutching hands, which grasped her eagerly. A small thumb-nail pierced her left cheek. 'l could have screamed,' said Maria; 'but where would have been the use? Dolls have positively no rights.'"

"Who was it took her down?" asked Max, quite forgetful of his original scorn about Maria's history.

"It was Baby May. Not the same May, but another as like her as two peas. In fact, the first May was grown up; and this was her little girl. Grandmamma had bought a beautiful new body, and now Maria's head had to be sewed on to it. Her feelings when the stitches were put in, she said, she could never describe. They were like those of a poor old soldier, who, after living fifty years on his pension, finds himself dragged from pipe and chimney-corner, and obliged to begin again as a drummer-boy."

"It was really cruel, I think," said Thekla, indignantly.

"Yes," said April; "but you haven't heard the worst. Think of being suddenly united to such a young body! There was Maria, elderly and dignified, full of wisdom and experience, longing for nothing so much as to be left alone to think over the facts she had learned. And there were her arms and legs always wanting to be in motion. New, impulsive, full of sawdust, it was misery to them to be still. They wanted to dance and frisk all the time, to wear fine clothes, to have other dolls come on visits, to drink tea out of the baby-house tea-set, and have a good time generally. When Maria assured them that she was tired of these things, and had seen the vanity of them, they said they wanted to see the vanity too! And if ever she got a quiet chance, and had fallen into a reverie about old times and friends,—the silk stockings in the wardrobe, for instance, and the touching story they had told her; or the shoe-buckles, who were exiles from their country,—all of a sudden her obstreperous limbs would assert themselves, out would flourish her legs, up fly her hands and hit her in the eye, and the first thing she knew she would be tumbled out on to the floor. Just think what a trial to a lady of fine education and manners! It was enough to vex a saint. She assured me she had lost at least three scruples of wax. But nobody cared in the least about her scruples."

"And what became of the poor thing in the end?" asked Thekla.

"That I can't say," replied April: "I had to come away, you know; and I left her there. One of two things, she told me, was pretty sure to happen: either her arms and legs would sober with time, or she would get so hideous from unhappiness that May's mamma would buy a new head to match them. 'Then, ah then!' said she, 'I may perhaps be allowed to go back to my beloved top-shelf in the wardrobe. Never, never will I quit it again so long as I live!' She ended with a sigh. I bade her farewell, but on the way downstairs I met a little girl coming up and calling out, 'Where dolly? me want dolly?' And I fear poor Maria was not left any longer in peace in the attic closet."

April closed her story. She took her moments from the can, poured the dandelions into Thekla's lap, and rose to go.

"I am late," she said: "all my violets must be made before midnight. I have none but these few in my hair."

"Not yet,—stay a little longer!" pleaded the children.

"Ah, no!" said April: "I must go. You won't miss me long: May is coming, my sister May. Everybody loves her better than they do me," and she wiped her eyes dolefully as she shut the door.

"What a goose I am!" she cried, flinging it open again, with a merry laugh. "Don't mind my nonsense. Good-by, dears, good-by!"

Oh, how cheerful the kitchen seemed now! Where were the colds and the disconsolate looks? All gone; and Max and Thekla laughed gayly into each other's faces.

"I'll tell you what," said Max, "if April didn't cry so easily, she'd be one of the jolliest girls in the world."
"Good-by, dears!"

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