Just Sixteen.

"Sister, sister!" clamored eager voices through the closed door, "hasn't the Christ-child come yet?"

"No, dears, not yet. Go away and play quietly in the kitchen. I'll call you when he comes."

The little footsteps retreated, and Hilda seated herself before the fire with a weary sigh. It would be an hour or more before her father would return, and the lighting of the tree begin; so, leaning back in the high carved chair, she gave herself up to rest of body, leaving her mind to rove listlessly as it would.

The basket of cones stood beside the hearth. Half mechanically she stooped for a handful, and threw them on the blaze. Then a certain drowsy peace came over her, broken only by the flickering noise of the burning cones. They did not burn like other cones, she thought, and even as the idea floated through her brain, a strange, phantasmal change passed over them. Moving and blending, they began to build a picture in the heart of the fire, – the picture of a tree, drawn in flaming lines. Hilda knew the tree. It was the old fir of Brelau, complete in limb and trunk. And, as she gazed, figures formed themselves beneath the boughs, – figures as of people sitting there, which moved and scintillated, and, swaying toward each other, seemed to clasp and kiss. She uttered a low cry of pain. At the sound the scene shifted, the tree dissolved as in fiery rain, and the cones, raising themselves and climbing upward, stood ranged in a group on the topmost log, like a choir of musicians about to play. Strange notes seemed to come from the blaze, low and humming, like a whispered prelude, then voices began to speak, or to sing – which was it? – in tones which sounded oddly near, and yet infinitely far away. It was like a chorus of elves sung to the accompaniment of rustling leaves. And all the time it went on, certain brightly flaming cones, which took precedence, emphasized the music with a succession of quick, glancing sparks, darting out like tiny finger-points, as if to attract attention.

"Look at us! look at us!" were the words of the strange staccato chant which sounded from the fire. "We are all light and glorious as your love used to be, – used to be. It isn't so any longer." Then other cones, half burned and crusted over with white ashes, pushed forward and took up the strain in sad recitative: "Look at us! look at us, Hilda! We are as your love is now, – is now. Ah, there will be worse to come ere long!" And all the time they sang, glowing strongly from within, they fixed what seemed eyes, red and winking, on Hilda's face. Then the ashes from below, drifting upward in an odd, aimless way, formed themselves into a shadowy shape, and began to sing in low, muffled tones, full of sadness. "We are dead, Hilda," was their song; "all dead! dead as your love will be – will be – before long." And at the close of the strain all the cones closed together, and emitted a sigh so profound and so melancholy that Hilda started from her chair. Tears stood upon her cheeks. She stared at the fire with strange excitement. It was burning quietly now, and without noise. She was certainly awake. Had she been dreaming?

Just at that moment the latch of the door clicked slightly, and somebody entered, slowly, hesitatingly, propelled from behind by a childish figure. "Hilda," said Gretchen's voice, "here's Wilhelm wanting to see the father. I told him to come in, because perhaps the father was here, or else the mother." And Gretchen's eyes explored the room in search of the Christ-child, for a glimpse of whom she had resorted to this transparent device. Then, alarmed by Hilda's stony silence, she suddenly hung her head, and, rushing out, clapped the door behind her, and left the two alone.

Hilda gave a gasp of bewilderment. She could not move. Was this part of the vision? Wilhelm stole one furtive glance at her face, then dropped his eyes. For a moment perfect stillness prevailed, then, shifting uneasily from one leg to the other in his embarrassment, the young man muttered something undistinguishable, and turned. His hand was on the door, – a moment more and he would be gone. Hilda started forward.

"Wilhelm!" she exclaimed, with the hoarse utterance of one who seeks to escape from some frightful dream.

Wilhelm turned. He saw the pale, agitated face, the eyes brimmed with tears, the imploring, out-stretched hands. Another second and he held her in his arms. The familiar touch melted the ice of Hilda's heart, her head sank upon his breast, and in a few broken words all was spoken and explained.

So brief an interval and all life changed! The same intense feeling which drove them asunder drew them as inevitably together now that once the returning tides had chance to flow. Clasped in close embrace, with tears and smiles and loving self-reproachings, they stood before the fire; and as they bent for their first reconciled kiss, the fir cones, flashing once more into life and activity, rose upon the topmost log. Even the burned and blackened ones glowed with fresh fire. Hand in hand, as it were, they climbed into position, and leaped and capered side by side as if merrily dancing, while little jubilant cracks and clicks and sounds, as of small hands clapped for joy, accompanied the movement. Then suddenly the splendor faded, and sinking with one consent into ashes, the cones sifted through the logs and vanished forever, their mission accomplished, their work done.

With eyes of amazement the lovers gazed upon the spectacle to its close. As the last spark faded, Hilda laid her head again on Wilhelm's breast.

"Ah!" she said, tenderly sighing, "the dear old fir! He loved us well, Wilhelm, and that was his 'good-by.'"

Perhaps it was!

A BALSAM PILLOW

NOW that fir-needles and hemlock-needles have become recognized articles of commerce, and every other shop boasts its row of fragrant cushions, with their inevitable motto, "Give Me of Thy Balm, O Fir-tree," I am reminded of the first pillow of the sort that I ever saw, and of what it meant to the girl who made it. I should like to tell you the little story, simple as it is. It belongs to the time, eight or nine years since, before pine pillows became popular. Perhaps Chateaubriand Dorset may be said, for once in her life, to have set a fashion.

Yes, that was really her name! Her mother met with it in a newspaper, and, without the least idea as to whether it appertained to man or woman, adopted it for her baby. The many syllables fascinated her, I suppose, and there was, besides, that odd joy in a piece of extravagance that costs nothing, which appeals to the thrifty New England nature, and is one of its wholesome outlets and indulgences.

So the Methodist elder baptized the child "Chateaubriand Aramintha," making very queer work of the unfamiliar accents; and then, so far as practical purposes are concerned, the name ceased to be. How can a busy household, with milk to set, and milk to skim, and pans to scald, and butter to make, and pigs to feed, find time for a name like that? "Baby," the little girl was called till she was well settled on her feet and in the use of her little tongue. Then she became "Brie," and Brie Dorset she remained to the end. Few people recollected that she possessed any other name, unless the marriage, birth, and death pages of the family Bible happened to be under discussion.

The Dorsets' was one of those picturesque, lonely, outlying farms, past which people drive in the summer, saying, "How retired! how peaceful!" but past which almost no one drives in the winter. It stood, with its environment of red barns and apple-orchards, at the foot of a low granite cliff whose top was crowned with a fir wood; and two enormous elm-trees met over its roof and made a checker-work of light and shade on its closely blinded front. No sign of life appeared to the city people who drew their horses in to admire the situation, except, perhaps, a hen scratching in the vegetable-beds, or a lazy cat basking on the doorstep; and they would drive on, unconscious that behind the slats of the green blinds above a pair of eyes watched them go, and a hungry young heart contrasted their lot with its own.

Hungry! There never was anything like the starvation which goes on sometimes in those shut-up farmhouses. Boys and girls feel it alike; but the boys are less to be pitied, for they can usually devise means to get away.

How could Brie get away? She was the only child. Her parents had not married young. When she was nineteen, they seemed almost elderly people, so badly does life on a bleak New England farm deal with human beings. Her mother, a frail little woman, grew year by year less fit for hard labor. The farm was not productive. Poverty, pinch, the inevitable recurrence of the same things to be done day after day, month after month, the same needs followed by the same fatigues, – all these Brie had to bear; and all the while the child had that love and longing for the beautiful which is part of the artist's equipment, and the deprivation of which is keen suffering. Sweet sights, sounds, smells, – all these she craved, and could get only in such measure as her daily work enabled her to get them from that world of nature which is the satisfaction of eager hearts to whom all other pleasures are denied.

The fir wood on the upper hill was the temple where she worshipped. There she went with her Bible on Sunday afternoons, with her patching and stocking-mending on other days. There she dreamed her dreams and prayed her prayers, and while there she was content. But all too soon would come the sound of the horn blown from below, or a call from the house, "Brie, Brie, the men are coming to supper; make haste!" and she would be forced to hurry back to the workaday world.

Harder times followed. When she was just twenty, her father fell from his loaded hay-wagon, and fractured his thigh. There was no cure for the hurt, and after six months of hopeless tendance, he died. Brie and her mother were left together on the lonely farm, with the added burden of a large bill for doctoring and medicines, which pressed like a heavy weight on their honorable hearts.

The hired man, Reuben Hall, was well disposed and honest, but before Mr. Dorset's death he had begun to talk of going to the West, and Brie foreboded that he might not be willing to stay with them. Mrs. Dorset, broken down by nursing and sorrow, had become an invalid, unable to assist save in the lightest ways. The burden was sore for one pair of young shoulders to bear. Brie kept up a brave face by day, but at night, horrors of helplessness and apprehension seized her. The heavens seemed as brass, against which her feeble prayers beat in vain; the future was barred, as it were, with an impassable gate.

What could they do? Sell the farm? That would take time; for no one in particular wanted to buy it. If Reuben would stand by them, they might be able to fight it out for another year, and, what with butter and eggs and the corn-crop, make enough for his wages and a bare living. But would Reuben stay?

Our virtues sometimes treat us as investments do, and return a dividend when we least expect it. It was at this hard crisis that certain good deeds of Brie's in the past stood her friend. She had always been good to Reuben, and her sweet ways and consideration for his comfort had gradually won a passage into his rather stolid affections. Now, seeing the emergency she was in, and the courage with which she met it, he could not quite find the heart to "leave the little gal to make out by herself." Fully purposing to go, he stayed, putting off the idea of departure from month to month; and though, true to his idea of proper caution, he kept his good intentions to himself, so that the relief of having him there was constantly tempered by the dread lest he might go at any time, still it was relief.

So April passed, and May and June. The crops were planted, the vegetables in. Brie strained every nerve. She petted her hens, and coaxed every possible egg out of them, she studied the tastes of the two cows, she maintained a brave show of cheer for her ailing mother, but all the time she was sick at heart. Everything seemed closing in. How long could she keep it up?

The balsam firs of the hill grove could have told tales in those days. They were Brie's sole confidants. The consolation they gave, the counsel they communicated, were mute, indeed, but none the less real to the anxious girl who sat beneath them, or laid her cheek on their rough stems. June passed, and with early July came the answer to Brie's many prayers. It came, as answers to prayer often do, in a shape of which she had never dreamed.

Miss Mary Morgan, teacher in grammar school No. 3, Ward Nineteen, of the good city of Boston, came, tired out from her winter's work, to spend a few days with Farmer Allen's wife, her second cousin, stopped one day at the Dorset's door, while driving, to ask for a drink of water, took a fancy to the old house and to Brie, and next day came over to propose herself as a boarder for three months.

"I can only afford to pay seven dollars a week," she said; "but, on the other hand, I will try not to make much trouble, if you will take me."

"Seven dollars a week; only think!" cried Brie, gleefully, to her mother after the bargain was completed, and Miss Morgan gone. "Doesn't it seem like a fortune? It'll pay Reuben's wages, and leave ever so much over! And she doesn't eat much meat, she says, and she likes baked potatoes and cream and sweet baked apples better than anything. And there's the keeping-room chamber all cleaned and ready. Doesn't it seem as if she was sent to us, mother?"

"Your poor father never felt like keepin' boarders," said Mrs. Dorset. "I used to kind of fancy the idea of it, but he wasn't willin'. I thought it would be company to have one in the house, if they was nice folks. It does seem as if this was the Lord's will for us; her coming in so unexpected, and all."

Two days later Miss Morgan, with a hammock and a folding canvas chair and a trunk full of light reading, arrived, and took possession of her new quarters. For the first week or two she did little but rest, sleeping for hours at a time in the hammock swung beneath the shadowing elms. Then, as the color came back to her thin face and the light to her eyes, she began to walk a little, to sit with Brie in the fir grove, or read aloud to her on the doorstep while she mended, shelled peas, or picked over berries; and all life seemed to grow easier and pleasanter for the dwellers in the solitary farmhouse. The guest gave little trouble, she paid her weekly due punctually, and the steady income, small as it was, made all the difference in the world to Brie.

As the summer went by, and she grew at home with her new friend, she found much relief in confiding to her the perplexities of her position.

"I see," Miss Morgan said; "it is the winter that is the puzzle. I will engage to come back next summer as I have this, and that will help along; but the time between now and then is the difficulty."

"Yes," replied Brie; "the winter is the puzzle, and Reuben's money. We have plenty of potatoes and corn and vegetables to take us through, and there's the pig to kill, and the chickens will lay some; if only there were any way in which I could make enough for Reuben's wages, we could manage."

"I must think it over," said Miss Morgan.

She pulled a long branch of the balsam fir nearer as she spoke, and buried her nose in it. It was the first week of September, and she and Brie were sitting in the hill grove.

"I love this smell so," she said. "It is delicious. It makes me dream."

Brie broke off a bough.

"I shall hang it over your bed," she said, "and you will smell it all night."

So the fir bough hung upon the wall till it gradually yellowed, and the needles began to drop.

"Why, they are as sweet as ever, – sweeter," declared Brie, smelling a handful which she had swept from the floor. Then an idea came into her head.

She gathered a great fagot of the branches, and laid them to dry in the sun on the floor of a little-used piazza. When partly dried, she stripped off the needles, stuffed with them a square cotton bag, and made for that a cover of soft sage-green silk, with an odd shot pattern over it. It was a piece of what had been her great-grandmother's wedding gown.

Voilà! Do you realize the situation, reader? Brie had made the first of all the many balsam pillows. It was meant for a good-by gift to Miss Morgan.

"Your cushion is the joy of my life," wrote that lady to her a month after she went home. "Every one who sees it, falls in love with it. Half a dozen people have asked me how they could get one like it. And, Brie, this has given me an idea. Why should you not make them for sale? I will send you up some pretty silk for the covers, and you might cross-stitch a little motto if you liked. I copy some for you. Two people have given me an order already. They will pay four dollars apiece if you like to try."

This suggestion was the small wedge of the new industry. Brie lost no time in making the two pillows, grandmother's gown fortunately holding out for their covers. Then came some pretty red silk from Miss Morgan, with yellow filoselle for the mottoes, and more orders. Brie worked busily that winter, for her balsam pillows had to be made in spare moments when other work permitted. The grove on the hill was her unfailing treasury of supply. The thick-set twigs bent them to her will; the upper branches seemed to her to rustle as with satisfaction at the aid they were giving. In the spring the old trees renewed their foliage with vigorous purpose, as if resolved not to balk her in her purpose.

The fir grove paid Reuben's wages that winter. Miss Morgan came back the following June, and by that time balsam pillows were established as articles of commerce, and Brie had a munificent offer from a recently established Decorative Art Society for a supply of the needles, at three dollars the pound. It was hard, dirty work to prepare such a quantity, but she did not mind that.

As I said, this was some years since. Brie no longer lives in her old home. Her mother died the third year after Miss Morgan came to them, the farm is sold, and Brie married. She lives now on a ranch in Colorado, but she has never forgotten the fir-grove, and the memory of it is a help often in the desponding moments that come at times to all lives.

"I could not be worse off than I was then," she says to herself. "There seemed no help or hope anywhere. I felt as if God didn't care and didn't hear my prayers; and yet, all the time, there was dear Miss Morgan coming to help us, and there were the trees, great beautiful things, nodding their heads, and trying to show me what could be made out of them. No, I never will be faithless again, nor let myself doubt, however dark things may look, but remember my balsam pillows, and trust in God."

COLONEL WHEELER

COLONEL WHEELER, as any one might see at a glance, had been a gallant officer in his day. It was true that he no longer had anything to do with military movements, but his very face suggested a martial past. So did his figure, which, though thin to an almost incredible degree, was unmistakably that of a military man, and also his dress, for the colonel invariably appeared in full uniform, with a scarlet, gold-laced coat, epaulettes, and a cocked hat and feathers, seldom removed even at meal-times. His moustache waved fiercely half-way across his cheeks, his eyes were piercing, and his eyebrows black and frowning; in short, it would be difficult to imagine a more warlike appearance than he presented on the most peaceful occasions.

Like all truly brave men, Colonel Wheeler was as gentle as he was valiant, and nothing pleased him better in the piping times of peace than to be detailed on escort duty, and made of use to the ladies of his acquaintance. So it came to pass that again and again he was asked to take charge of large family parties on long journeys. You might see him starting off with a wife or two, half a dozen sisters-in-law, and from eight to fourteen children, all of them belonging to somebody else; not one of them being kith or kin to the gallant colonel. They made really a formidable assemblage when collected, and it took the longest legal envelope which Liz —

There! I have let out the secret. Colonel Wheeler was a paper doll, and these ladies and children who travelled about with him were paper dolls also. They belonged to Lizzie Bruce and her cousin Ernestine, who between them owned several whole families of such. These families were all large. None of the mamma dolls had less than twelve children, and some of them had as many as twenty. Lizzie and Ernestine despised people not made of paper, who had only two or three little boys and girls. In fact, Lizzie was once heard to say of some neighbors with eleven children, "They are the only really satisfactory people I ever knew, – just as good as paper dolls;" and this was meant as the highest possible compliment.

Lizzie lived in Annapolis, Md., and Ernestine in Hingham, Mass., so, as you will see, there was a long distance between their homes. It took a day and a half to make the journey, and the little cousins did not visit each other more than once or twice a year. But the dolls went much oftener. They travelled by mail, in one of those long yellow envelopes which lawyers use to put papers in, and Colonel Wheeler always went in the same envelope to take care of them. When they came back from these trips, Lizzie or Ernestine, whichever it chanced to be, would unpack them, and exclaim delightedly, "How well the dear things look! So much better for the change! See, mamma, how round and pink their faces have grown!"

"I wouldn't advise you to depend so much on Colonel Wheeler," Lizzie's mother would sometimes say. "These military men are rather uncertain characters. I wouldn't send off all the dolls at once with him, if I were you. And really, Lizzie, such constant journeys are very expensive. There is never a stamp in my desk when I want one in a hurry."

"But, mamma, the children really had to have a change," Lizzie would protest, with tears in her eyes. "And as for the colonel, he is such a good man, truly, mamma! He would never steal anybody else's family! He takes beau-tiful care of the dolls, always."

"Very well, we shall see," answered mamma, with a teazing smile. But she saw that Lizzie was in earnest, so she did not say anything more to trouble her, and the very next day contributed seven postage-stamps to pay for the transportation of a large party which Lizzie wanted to send on to Hingham for a Christmas visit.

This party included, besides Colonel Wheeler, who as usual acted as escort, Mrs. Allen, the wife of Captain Allen, her fourteen children, her sister-in-law Miss Allen, her own sister Pauline Gray, – so called because her only dress happened to be made of gray and blue tissue-paper, – and Mrs. Adipose and her little girl. Mrs. Adipose, whose name had been suggested by papa, was the fattest of all the dolls. Her daughter was fat, too, and Ernestine had increased this effect by making her a jacket so much too large for her that it could only be kept on with a dab of glue. Captain Allen was a creature who had no real existence. Lizzie meant to make a doll to represent him some day. Meanwhile, he was kept persistently "at the front," wherever that might be, and Mrs. Allen travelled about as freely as if she had no husband at all. This Lizzie and Ernestine considered an admirable arrangement; for, as Captain Allen never came home and never wrote, he was as little of an inconvenience to his family as any gentleman can ever hope to be.

Well, this large and mixed company started off gayly in the mail-bag, and in due time Lizzie heard of their safe arrival, that they were all well, and that the baby "already looked better for the change." About three weeks later another letter came, and she opened it without the least qualm of anxiety, or any suspicion of the dreadful news it was to bring. It ran thus: —

Dear Liz, – Mrs. Adipose grew a little home-sick. She began to worry about Mr. Adipose. She was afraid he would have trouble with the servants, or else try to clean house while she was away, and make an awful mess all over everything. You never could tell what men would do when they were left alone, she said. So, as I saw she wasn't enjoying herself any more, and as the baby and little Ellen seemed to have got as much good out of the visit as they were likely to get, I sent them back last week Friday, and hope you got them safely.