by Jane Andrews
LOUISE, THE CHILD OF THE WESTERN FOREST.
There are many things happening in this world, dear children,--thingsthat happen to you yourselves day after day, which you are too youngto understand at the time. By and by, when you grow to be as old as Iam, you will remember and wonder about them all.
Now, it was just one of these wonderful things, too great for theyoung children to understand, that happened to our little Louise andher brothers and sister when the Christmas time had come around again,and the baby was more than a year old.
It was a cold, stormy night; there were great drifts of snow, andthe wind was driving it against the windows. In the beautiful greatparlor, beside the bright fire, sat the sweet, gentle mother, andin her lap lay the stout little Hans. The children had their littlechairs before the fire, and watched the red and yellow flames, whileLouise had already taken out her knitting-work.
They were all very still, for their father seemed sad and troubled,and the children were wondering what could be the matter. Their motherlooked at them and smiled, but, after all, it was only a sad smile. Ithink it is hardest for the father, when he can no longer give to wifeand children their pleasant home; but, if they can be courageous andhappy when they have to give it up, it makes his heart easier andbrighter.
"I must tell the children' to-night," said the father, looking at hiswife, and she answered quite cheerfully: "Yes, tell them; they willnot be sad about it I know."
So the father told to his wondering little ones that he had lost allhis money; the beautiful great house and gardens were no longer his,and they must all leave their pleasant home near the Rhine, and crossthe great, tossing ocean, to find a new home among the forests or theprairies.
As you may suppose, the children didn't fully understand this. Idon't think you would yourself. You would be quite delighted with thepacking and moving, and the pleasant journey in the cars, and the newand strange things you would see on board the ship, and it would bequite a long time before you could really know what it was to loseyour own dear home.
So the children were not sad; you know their mother said they wouldnot be. But when they were safely tucked up in their little beds, andtenderly kissed by the most loving lips, Louise could not go to sleepfor thinking of this strange moving, and wondering what they shouldcarry, and how long they should stay. For she had herself once been ona visit to her uncle in the city, carrying her clothes in a new littlesquare trunk, and riding fifty miles in the cars, and she thought itwould be quite a fine thing that they should all pack up trunks fullof clothing, and go together on even a longer journey.
A letter had been written to tell Christian, and the next day he camehome from the school. His uncles in the city begged him to stay withthem, but the boy said earnestly: "If my father must cross the sea, Itoo must go with him."
They waited only for the winter's cold to pass away, and when thefirst robins began to sing among the naked trees, they had left thefine large house,--left the beautiful gardens where the childrenused to play, left the great, comfortable arm-chairs and sofas, thebookcases and tables, and the little beds beside the wall. Besidestheir clothes, they had taken nothing with them but two great woodenchests full of beautiful linen sheets and table-cloths. These had beengiven to the mother by her mother long ago, before any of the childrenwere born, and they must be carried to the new home. You will see, byand by, how glad the family all were to have them.
Did you ever go on board a ship? It is almost like a great house uponthe water, but the rooms in it are very small, and so are the windows.Then there is the long deck, where we may walk in the fresh air andwatch the water and the sea-birds, or the sailors at work upon thehigh masts among the ropes, and the white sails that spread out like awhite bird's wings, and sweep the ship along over the water.
It was in such a ship that our children found themselves, withtheir father and mother, when the snow was gone and young grasswas beginning to spring up on the land. But of this they could seenothing, for in a day they had flown on the white wings far out overthe water, and as Louise clung to her father's hand and stood upon thedeck at sunset, she saw only water and sky all about on every side,and the red clouds of the sunset. It was a little sad, and quitestrange to her, but her younger brothers and sisters were alreadyasleep in the small beds of the ship, which, as perhaps you know, arebuilt up against the wall, just as their beds were at home. Louisekissed her father and went down, too, to bed, for you must know thaton board ship you go _down_ stairs to bed instead of _up_ stairs.
After all, if father, mother, brother, and sister can still cling toeach other and love each other, it makes little difference where theyare, for love is the best thing in the universe, and nothing is goodwithout it.
They lived for many days in the ship, and the children, after a littletime, were not afraid to run about the deck and talk with the sailors,who were always very kind to them. And Louise felt quite at homesitting in her little chair beside the great mast, while she knit uponher stocking,--a little stocking now, one for the baby.
Christian had brought his flute, and at night he played to them as heused at home, and, indeed, they were all so loving and happy togetherthat it was not much sorrow to lose the home while they kept eachother.
Sometimes a hard day would come, when the clouds swept over them, andthe rain and the great waves tossed the ship, making them all sick,and sad too, for a time; but the sun was sure to come out at last, asI can assure you it always will, and, on the whole, it was a pleasantjourney for them all.
It was a fine, sunny May day when they reached the land again. Notime, though, for them to go Maying, for only see how much is tobe done! Here are all the trunks and the linen-chests, and all thechildren, too, to be disposed of, and they are to stop but two days inthis city. Then they must be ready for a long journey in the cars andsteamboats, up rivers and across lakes, and sometimes for miles andmiles through woods, where they see no houses nor people, exceptinghere and there a single log cabin with two or three ragged children atplay outside, or a baby creeping over the doorstep, while farther onamong the trees stands a man with his axe, cutting, with heavy blows,some tall trees into such logs as those of which the house is built.
These are new and strange sights to the children of the River Rhine.They wonder, and often ask their parents if they, too, shall live in alittle log house like that.
How fresh and fragrant the new logs are for the dwelling, and howsweet the pine and spruce boughs for a bed! A good new log house inthe green woods is the best home in the world.
Oh, how heartily tired they all are when at last they stop! They havebeen riding by day and by night. The children have fallen asleep withheads curled down upon their arms upon the seats of the car, and themother has had very hard work to keep little Hans contented and happy.But here at last they have stopped. Here is the new home.
They have left the cars at a very small town. It has ten or twelvehouses and one store, and they have taken here a great wagon withthree horses to carry them yet a few miles farther to a lonely, thoughbeautiful place. It is on the edge of a forest. The trees are verytall, their trunks moss-covered; and when you look far in among themit is so dark that no sunlight seems to fall on the brown earth. Butoutside is sunshine, and the young spring grass and wild flowers,different from those which grow on the Rhine banks.
But where is their house?
Here is indeed something new for them. It is almost night; no house isnear, and they have no sleeping-place but the great wagon. But theircheerful mother packs them all away in the back part of the wagon,on some straw, covering them with shawls as well as she can, and bidsthem good-night, saying, "You can see the stars whenever you open youreyes."
It is a new bed and a hard one. However, the children are tired enoughto sleep well; but they woke very early, as you or I certainly shouldif we slept in the great concert-hall of the birds. Oh, how thosebirds of the woods did begin to sing, long before sunrise! AndChristian was out from his part of the bed in a minute, and
off fourmiles to the store, to buy some bread for breakfast.
An hour after sunrise he was back again, and Louise had gatheredsticks, of which her father made a bright fire. And now the mother isteaching her little daughter how to make tea, and Fritz and Gretchenare poking long sticks into the ashes to find the potatoes which werehidden there to roast.
To them it is a beautiful picnic, like those happy days in the grapeseason; but Louise can see that her mother is a little grieved athaving them sleep in the wagon with no house to cover them. And whenbreakfast is over she says to the father that the children must betaken back to the village to stay until the house is built. He, too,had thought so; and the mother and children go back to the littletown.
Christian alone stays with his father, working with his small axe ashis father does with the large one; but to both it is very hard workto cut trees; because it is something they have never done before.They do their best, and when he is not too tired, Christian whistlesto cheer himself.
After the first day a man is hired to help, and it is not a greatwhile before the little house is built--built of great, rough logs,still covered with brown bark and moss. All the cracks are stuffedwith moss to keep out the rain and cold, and there is one window and adoor.
It is a poor little house to come to after leaving the grand old oneby the Rhine, but the children are delighted when their father comeswith the great wagon to take them to their new home.
And into this house one summer night they come--without beds, tables,or chairs; really with nothing but the trunks and linen-chests. Thedear old linen-chests, see only how very useful they have become! Whatshall be the supper-table for this first meal in the new house? Whatbut the largest of the linen-chests, round which they all gather, somesitting on blocks of wood, and the little ones standing! And aftersupper what shall they have for beds? What but the good old chestsagain! For many and many a day and night they are used, and the motheris, over and over again, thankful that she brought them.
As the summer days go by, the children pick berries in the woods andmeadows, and Fritz is feeling himself a great boy when his fatherexpects him to take care of the old horse, blind of one eye, bought todrag the loads of wood to market.
Louise is learning to love the grand old trees where the birds andsquirrels live. She sits for hours with her work on some mossy cushionunder the great waving boughs, and she is so silent and gentle thatthe squirrels learn to come very near her, turning their heads everyminute to see if she is watching, and almost laughing at her withtheir sharp, bright eyes, while they are cramming their cheeks full ofnuts--not to eat now, you know, but to carry home to the storehousesin some comfortable hollow trees, to be saved for winter use. When thesnow comes, you see, they will not be able to find any nuts.
One day Louise watched them until she suddenly thought, "Why don't we,too, save nuts for the winter?" and the next day she brought abasket and the younger children, instead of her knitting-work. Theyfrightened away the squirrels, to be sure, but they carried home afine large basketful of nuts.
Oh, how much might be seen in those woods on a summer day!--birds andflowers, and such beautiful moss! I have seen it myself, so soft andthick, better than the softest cushion to sit on, and then so lovelyto look at, with its long, bright feathers of green.
Sometimes Louise has seen the quails going out for a walk; the motherwith her seven babies all tripping primly along behind her, the wee,brown birds; and all running, helter-skelter, in a minute, if theyhear a noise among the bushes, and hiding, each one, his head under abroad leaf, thinking, poor little foolish things, that no one can seethem.
Christian whistles to the quails a long, low call; they will look thisway and that and listen, and at last really run towards him withoutfear.
Before winter comes the log house is made more comfortable; beds andchairs are bought, and a great fire burns in the fireplace. But do thebest they can the rain will beat in between the logs, and after thefirst snowstorm one night, a white pointed drift is found on thebreakfast-table. They laugh at it, and call it ice-cream, but theyalmost feel more like crying, with cold blue fingers, and toes thateven the warm knit stockings can't keep comfortable. Never mind, theswift snowshoes will make them skim over the snow-crust like birdsflying, and the merry sled-rides that brother Christian will give themwill make up for all the trouble. They will soon love the winter inthe snowy woods.
Their clothes, too, are all wearing out. Fritz comes to his motherwith great holes in his jacket-sleeves, and poor Christian's knees areblue and frost-bitten through the torn trousers. What shall be done?
Louise brings out two old coats of her father's. Christian is wrappedin one from head to foot, and Fritz looks like the oddest little manwith his great coat muffled around him, crossed in front and buttonedaround behind, while the long sleeves can be turned back almost to hisshoulders. Funny enough he looks, but it makes him quite warm; and inthis biting wind who would think of the looks? So our little friendis to drive poor old Major to town with a sled-load of wood every day,while his father and brother are cutting trees in the forest.
Should you laugh to see a boy so dressed coming up the street with aload of wood? Perhaps you wouldn't if you knew how cold he would bewithout this coat, and how much he hopes to get the half-dollar forhis wood, and bring home bread and meat for supper.
How wise the children grow in this hard work and hard life! Fritzfeels himself a little man, and Louise, I am sure, is as useful asmany a woman, for she is learning to cook and tend the fire, whileeven Gretchen has some garters to knit, and takes quite good care ofthe baby.
Little Hans will never remember the great house by the Rhine; he wastoo little when they came away; but by and by he will like to hearstories about it, which, you may be sure, Louise will often tell herlittle brother.
The winter is the hardest time. When Christmas comes there is not evena tree, for there are no candles to light one and no presents to give.But there is one beautiful gift which they may and do all give to eachother,--it makes them happier than many toys or books,--it is love. Itmakes even this cold dreary Christmas bright and beautiful to them.
Next winter will not be so hard, for in the spring corn will beplanted, and plenty of potatoes and turnips and cabbages; and theywill have enough to eat and something to sell for money.
But I must not stay to tell you more now of the backwoods life ofLouise and her brothers and sister. If you travel some day to theWest, perhaps you will see her yourself, gathering her nuts under thetrees, or sitting in the sun on the doorstep with her knitting. Thenyou will know her for the little sister who has perhaps comeclosest to your heart, and you will clasp each other's hands in trueaffection.
