Not Quite Eighteen

"I say," began Reuben, who, if he had lived to-day, would have put on his cards "Reuben Marsh, 4th," "what do you think? We're going to have our little candles to-night. Aunt Doris said that mother said so. Isn't that famous!"

"Are we really?" cried Cynthia, clasping her hands. "How glad I am! It's more than a year since we had any little candles, and though I've tried to be good, I was so afraid when you broke the oil-lamp, the other day, that it would put them off. I do love them so!"

"How many candles may we have?" asked little Eunice.

"Oh, there are only three, – one for each of us. Mother gave the rest away, you know. Have you made up any story yet, Eunice?"

"I did make one, but I've forgotten part of it. It was a great while ago, when I thought we were surely going to get the candles, and then Reuben had that quarrel with Friend Amos's son, and mother would not let us have them. She said a boy who gave place to wrath did not deserve a little candle."

"I know," said Reuben, penitently. "But that was a great while ago, and I've not given place to wrath since. You must begin and think of your story very hard, Eunice, or the candle will burn out while you are remembering it."

These "little candles," for the amusement of children, were an ancient custom in New England, long practised in the Marsh family. When the great annual candle-dipping took place, and the carefully saved tallow, with its due admixture of water and bayberry wax for hardness, was made hot in the kettle, and the wicks, previously steeped in alum, were tied in bunches so that no two should touch each other, and dipped and dried, and dipped again, at the end of each bundle was hung two or three tiny candles, much smaller than the rest. These were rewards for the children when they should earn them by being unusually good. They were lit at bedtime, and, by immemorial law, so long as the candles burned, the children might tell each other ghost or fairy stories, which at other times were discouraged, as having a bad effect on the mind. This privilege was greatly valued, and the advent of the little candles made a sort of holiday, when holidays were few and far between.

"I suppose Reuben will have his candle first, as he is the oldest," said Eunice.

"Mother said last year that we should have them all three on the same night," replied Cynthia. "She said she would rather that we lay awake till half-past nine for once, than till half-past eight for three times. It's much nicer, I think. It's like having plenty to eat at one dinner, instead of half-enough several days running. Eunice, you'd better burn your candle first, I think, because you get sleepy a great deal sooner than Reuby or I do. You needn't light it till after you're in bed, you know, and that will make it last longer. When it's done, I'll hurry and go to bed too, and then we'll light mine; and Reuben can do the same, and if he leaves his door open, we shall hear his story perfectly well. Oh, what fun it will be! I wish there were ever and ever so many little candles, – a hundred, at the very least!"

"Hepsy, ain't supper nearly ready? We're in such a hurry to-night!" said Eunice.

"Why, what are you in a hurry about?" demanded Hepsy, giving a last stir to the mush, which had grown deliciously thick.

"We want to go to bed early."

"That's a queer reason! You're not so sharp set after bed, as a general thing. Well, the mush is done. Reuby, ring the bell at the shed door, and as soon as the men come in, we'll be ready."

It was a good supper. The generous heat of the great fireplace in the Marsh kitchen seemed to communicate a special savor of its own to everything that was cooked before it, as if the noble hickory logs lent a forest flavor to the food. The brown bread and beans and the squash pies from the deep brick oven were excellent; and the "pumpkin sweets," from the same charmed receptacle, had come out a deep rich red color, jellied with juice to their cores. Nothing could have improved them, unless it were the thick yellow cream which Mrs. Marsh poured over each as she passed it. The children ate as only hearty children can eat, but the recollection of the little candles was all the time in their minds, and the moment that Reuben had finished his third apple he began to fidget.

"Mayn't we go to bed now?" he asked.

"Not till father has returned thanks," said his mother, rebukingly. "You are glad enough to take the gifts of the Lord, Reuben. You should be equally ready to pay back the poor tribute of a decent gratitude."

Reuben sat abashed while Mr. Marsh uttered the customary words, which was rather a short prayer than a long grace. The boy did not dare to again allude to the candles, but stood looking sorry and shamefaced, till his mother, laying her hand indulgently on his shoulder, slipped the little candle in his fingers.

"Thee didn't mean it, dear, I know," she whispered. "It's natural enough that thee shouldst be impatient. Now take thy candle, and be off. Cynthia, Eunice, here are the other two, and remember, all of you, that not a word must be told of the stories when once the candles burn out. This is the test of obedience. Be good children, and I'll come up later to see that all is safe."

Mrs. Marsh was of Quaker stock, but she only reverted to the once familiar thee and thou at times when she felt particularly kind and tender. The children liked to have her do so. It meant that mother loved them more than usual.

The bedrooms over the kitchen, in which the children slept, were very plain, with painted floors and scant furniture; but they were used to them, and missed nothing. The moon was shining, so that little Eunice found no difficulty in undressing without a light. As soon as she was in bed, she called to the others, who were waiting in Reuben's room, "I'm all ready!"

A queer clicking noise followed. It was made by Reuben's striking the flint of the tinder-box. In another moment the first of the little candles was lighted. They fetched it in; and the others sat on the foot of the bed while Eunice, raised on her pillow, with red, excited cheeks, began: —

"I've remembered all about my story, and this is it: Once there was a Fairy. He was not a bad fairy, but a very good one. One day he broke his wing, and the Fairy King said he mustn't come to court any more till he got it mended. This was very hard, because glue and things like that don't stick to Fairies' wings, you know."

"Couldn't he have tied it up and boiled it in milk?" asked Cynthia, who had once seen a saucer so treated, with good effect.

"Why, Cynthia Marsh! Do you suppose Fairies like to have their wings boiled? I never! Of course they don't! Well, the poor Fairy did not know what to do. He hopped away, for he could not fly, and pretty soon he met an old woman.

"'Goody,' said he, 'can you tell me what will mend a Fairy's broken wing?'

"'Is it your wing that is broken?' asked the old woman.

"'Yes,' said the Fairy, speaking very sadly.

"'There is only one thing,' said the old woman. 'If you can find a girl who has never said a cross word in her life, and she will put the pieces together, and hold them tight, and say, "Ram shackla alla balla ba," three times, it will mend in a minute.'

"So the Fairy thanked her, and went his way, dragging the poor wing behind him. By and by he came to a wood, and there in front of a little house was the prettiest girl he had ever seen. Her eyes were as blue as, as blue as – as the edges of mother's company saucers! And her hair, which was the color of gold, curled down to her feet.

"'A girl with hair and eyes like that couldn't say a cross word to save her life,' thought the Fairy. He was just going to speak to her. She couldn't see him, you know, because he was indivisible – "

"'Invisible,' you mean," interrupted Reuben.

"Oh, Reuben, don't stop her! See how the tallow is running down the side of the candle! She'll never have time to finish," put in Cynthia, anxiously.

"I meant 'invisible,' of course," went on Eunice, speaking fast. "Well, just then a woman came out of the house. It was the pretty girl's mother.

"'Estella,' she said, 'I want you to go for the cows, because your father is sick.'

"'Oh, bother!' said the pretty girl. 'I don't want to! I hate going for cows. I wish father wouldn't go and get sick!' Just think of a girl's speaking like that to her mother! And the Fairy sighed, for he thought, 'My wing won't get mended here,' and he hopped away.

"By and by he came to a house in another wood, and there was another girl. She wasn't pretty at all. She had short stubby brown hair like Cynthia's, and a turn-up nose like me, and her freckles were as big as Reuben's, but she looked nice and kind.

"The Fairy didn't have much hope that a girl who was as homely as that could mend wings. But while he was waiting, another woman came out. It was the turned-up-nose girl's mother, and she said, 'I want you to go for the cows to-night, because your father has broken his leg.'

"And the girl smiled just as sweet, and she said, 'Yes, mother, I'll be glad to go.'

"Then the Fairy rejoiced, and he came forward and said – Oh, dear!"

This was not what the Fairy said, but what Eunice said; for at that moment the little candle went out.

"Well, I am glad you got as far as you did," whispered Cynthia, "for I guess the turned-up-nose girl could mend the wing. Now, Reuby, if you'll go into your room I'll not be two minutes. And then you can light my candle."

In less than two minutes all was ready. This time there were two little girls in bed, and Reuben sat alone at the foot, ready to listen.

"My story," began Cynthia, "is about that girl in the window-pane in the ell. Her name was Mercy Marsh, and she lived in this house."

"Is it true?" asked Eunice.

"No, it's made up, but I'm going to make believe that it's true. She slept in the corn chamber, – it was a bedroom then, – and she had that yellow painted bedstead of Hepzibah's.

"There was a hiding-place under the floor of the room. It was made to put things in when Indians came, or the English, – money and spoons, and things like that.

"One day when Mercy was spinning under the big elm, a man came running down the road. He was a young man, and very handsome, and he had on a sort of uniform.

"'Hide me!' he cried. 'They will kill me if they catch me. Hide me, quick!'

"'Who will kill you?' asked Mercy.

"Then the young man told her that he had accidentally shot a man who was out hunting with him, and that the man's brothers, who were very bad people, had sworn to have his blood.

"Then Mercy took his hand, and led him quickly up to her room, and lifted the cover of the hiding-place, and told him to get in. And he got in, but first he said, 'Fair maiden, if I come out alive, I shall have somewhat to say to thee.' And Mercy blushed."

"What did he mean?" asked Eunice, innocently.

"Oh, just love-making and nonsense!" put in Reuben. "Hurry up, Cynthia! Come to the fighting. The candle's all but burned out."

"There isn't going to be any fighting," returned Cynthia. "Well, Mercy pulled the bedside carpet over the cover, and she set that red candle-stand on one corner of it and a chair on the other corner, and went back to her spinning. She had hardly begun before there was a rustling in the bushes, and two men with guns in their hands came out.

"'Which way did he go?' they shouted.

"'Who?' she said, and she looked up so quietly that they never suspected her.

"'Has no one gone by?' they asked her.

"'No one,' she said; and you know this wasn't a lie, for the young man did not go by. He stopped!

"'There is the back door open,' she went on, 'and you are welcome to search, if you desire it. My father is away, but he will be here soon.' She said this because she feared the men.

"So the men searched, but they found nothing, and Mercy's room looked so neat and peaceful that they did not like to disturb it, and just looked in at the door. And when they were gone, Mercy went up and raised the cover, and the youth said that he loved her, and that if the Lord willed, he – "

Pop! The second candle went suddenly out.

"It's a shame!" cried Reuben, dancing with vexation. "It seems as if the blamed things knew when we most wanted them to last!"

"Oh, Reuben! don't say 'blamed.'"

"I forgot. Well, blame-worthy, then. There's no harm in that."

"We shall never know if the young man married Mercy," said little Eunice, lamentably.

"Oh, of course he did! That's the way stories always end."

"Now, Reuben, hurry to bed, and when you are all ready, light your candle, and if you speak loud we shall hear every word."

This was Reuben's story: "Once there was a Ghost. He had committed a murder, and that was the reason he had to go alone and fly about on cold nights in a white shirt.

"He used to look in at windows and see people sitting by fires, and envy them. And he would moan and chatter his teeth, and then they would say that he was the wind."

"Oh, Reuben! is it going to be very awful?" demanded Cynthia, apprehensively.

"Not very. Only just enough to half-scare you to death! He would put his hand out when girls stood by the door, and they would feel as if a whole pitcher of cold water had been poured down their backs.

"Once a boy came to the door. He was the son of the murdered man. The Ghost was afraid of him. 'Thomas!' said the Ghost.

"'Who speaks?' said the boy. He couldn't have heard if he hadn't been the son of the murdered man.

"'I'm the Ghost of your father's slayer,' said the Ghost. 'Tell me what I can do to be forgiven.'

"'I don't think you can be forgiven,' said the boy. Then the Ghost gave such a dreadful groan that the boy felt sorry for him.

"'I'll tell you, then,' he said. 'Go to my father's grave, and lay upon it a perfectly white blackberry, and a perfectly black snowdrop, and a valuable secret, and a hair from the head of a really happy person, and you shall be forgiven!'

"So the Ghost set out to find these four things. He had to bleach the blackberry and dye the snowdrop, and he got the hair from the head of a little baby who happened to be born with hair and hadn't had time to be unhappy, and the secret was about a goldmine that only the Ghost knew about. But just as he was laying them on the grave, a cold hand clutched – " The sentence ended in a three-fold shriek, for just at this exciting juncture the last candle went out.

"Children," said Mrs. Marsh, opening the door, "I'm afraid you've been frightening yourselves with your stories. That was foolish. I am glad there are no more little candles. Now, not another word to-night."

She straightened the tossed coverlids, heard their prayers, and went away. In a few minutes all that remained of the long-anticipated treat were three little drops of tallow where three little candles had quite burned out, three stories not quite told, and three children fast asleep.

UNCLE AND AUNT

UNCLE and Aunt were a very dear and rather queer old couple, who lived in one of the small villages which dot the long indented coast of Long Island Sound. It was four miles to the railway, so the village had not waked up from its colonial sleep on the building of the line, as had other villages nearer to its course, but remained the same shady, quiet place, with never a steam-whistle nor a manufactory bell to break its repose.

Sparlings-Neck was the name of the place. No hotel had ever been built there, so no summer visitors came to give it a fictitious air of life for a few weeks of the year. The century-old elms waved above the gambrel roofs of the white, green-blinded houses, and saw the same names on doorplates and knockers that had been there when the century began: "Benjamin," "Wilson," "Kirkland," "Benson," "Reinike," – there they all were, with here and there the prefix of a distinguishing initial, as "J. L. Benson," "Eleazar Wilson," or "Paul Reinike." Paul Reinike, fourth of the name who had dwelt in that house, was the "Uncle" of this story.

Uncle was tall and gaunt and gray, of the traditional New England type. He had a shrewd, dry face, with wise little wrinkles about the corners of the eyes, and just a twinkle of fun and a quiet kindliness in the lines of the mouth. People said the squire was a master-hand at a bargain. And so he was; but if he got the uttermost penny out of all legitimate business transactions, he was always ready to give that penny, and many more, whenever deserving want knocked at his door, or a good work to be done showed itself distinctly as needing help.

Aunt, too, was a New Englander, but of a slightly different type. She was the squire's cousin before she became his wife; and she had the family traits, but with a difference. She was spare, but she was also very small, and had a distinct air of authority which made her like a fairy godmother. She was very quiet and comfortable in her ways, but she was full of "faculty," – that invaluable endowment which covers such a multitude of capacities. Nobody's bread or pies were equal to Aunt's. Her preserves never fermented; her cranberry always jellied; her sponge-cake rose to heights unattained by her neighbors', and stayed there, instead of ignominiously "flopping" when removed from the oven, like the sponge-cake of inferior housekeepers. Everything in the old home moved like clock-work. Meals were ready to a minute; the mahogany furniture glittered like dark-red glass; the tall clock in the entry was never a tick out of the way; and yet Aunt never appeared to be particularly busy. To one not conversant with her methods, she gave the impression of being generally at leisure, sitting in her rocking-chair in the "keeping-room," hemming cap-strings, and reading Emerson, for Aunt liked to keep up with the thought of the day.

Hesse declared that either she sat up and did things after the rest of the family had gone to bed, or else that she kept a Brownie to work for her; but Hesse was a saucy child, and Aunt only smiled indulgently at these sarcasms.

Hesse was the only young thing in the shabby old home; for, though it held many handsome things, it was shabby. Even the cat was a sober matron. The old white mare had seen almost half as many years as her master. The very rats and mice looked gray and bearded when you caught a glimpse of them. But Hesse was youth incarnate, and as refreshing in the midst of the elderly stillness which surrounded her as a frolicsome puff of wind, or a dancing ray of sunshine. She had come to live with Uncle and Aunt when she was ten years old; she was now nearly eighteen, and she loved the quaint house and its quainter occupants with her whole heart.

Hesse's odd name, which had been her mother's, her grandmother's, and her great-grandmother's before her, was originally borrowed from that of the old German town whence the first Reinike had emigrated to America. She had not spent quite all of the time at Sparlings-Neck since her mother died. There had been two years at boarding-school, broken by long vacations, and once she had made a visit in New York to her mother's cousin, Mrs. De Lancey, who considered herself a sort of joint guardian over Hesse, and was apt to send a frock or a hat, now and then, as the fashions changed; that "the child might not look exactly like Noah, and Mrs. Noah, and the rest of the people in the ark," she told her daughter. This visit to New York had taken place when Hesse was about fifteen; now she was to make another. And, just as this story opens, she and Aunt were talking over her wardrobe for the occasion.

"I shall give you this China-crape shawl," said Aunt, decisively.

Hesse looked admiringly, but a little doubtfully, at the soft, clinging fabric, rich with masses of yellow-white embroidery.

"I am afraid girls don't wear shawls now," she ventured to say.

"My dear," said Aunt, "a handsome thing is always handsome; never mind if it is not the last novelty, put it on, all the same. The Reinikes can wear what they like, I hope! They certainly know better what is proper than these oil-and-shoddy people in New York that we read about in the newspapers. Now, here is my India shawl," – unpinning a towel, and shaking out a quantity of dried rose-leaves. "I lend you this; not give it, you understand."

"Thank you, Aunt, dear." Hesse was secretly wondering what Cousin Julia and the girls would say to the India shawl.

"You must have a pelisse, of some sort," continued her aunt; "but perhaps your Cousin De Lancey can see to that. Though I might have Miss Lewis for a day, and cut over that handsome camlet of mine. It's been lying there in camphor for fifteen years, of no use to anybody."

"Oh, but that would be a pity!" cried Hesse, with innocent wiliness. "The girls are all wearing little short jackets now, trimmed with fur, or something like that; it would be a pity to cut up that great cloak to make a little bit of a wrap for me."

"Fur?" said her aunt, catching at the word; "the very thing! How will this do?" dragging out of the camphor-chest an enormous cape, which seemed made of tortoise-shell cats, so yellow and brown and mottled was it. "Won't this do for a trimming, or would you rather have it as it is?"

"I shall have to ask Cousin Julia," replied Hesse. "Oh, Aunt, dear, don't give me any more! You really mustn't! You are robbing yourself of everything!" For Aunt was pulling out yards of yellow lace, lengths of sash ribbon of faded colors and wonderful thickness, strange, old-fashioned trinkets.

"And here's your grandmother's wedding-gown – and mine!" she said; "you had better take them both. I have little occasion for dress here, and I like you to have them, Hesse. Say no more about it, my dear."

There was never any gainsaying Aunt, so Hesse departed for New York with her trunk full of antiquated finery, sage-green and "pale-colored" silks that would almost stand alone; Mechlin lace, the color of a spring buttercup; hair rings set with pearls, and brooches such as no one sees, nowadays, outside of a curiosity shop. Great was the amusement which the unpacking caused in Madison Avenue.

"Yet the things are really handsome," said Mrs. De Lancey, surveying the fur cape critically. "This fur is queer and old-timey, but it will make quite an effective trimming. As for this crape shawl, I have an idea: you shall have an overdress made of it, Hesse. It will be lovely with a silk slip. You may laugh, Pauline, but you will wish you had one like it when you see Hesse in hers. It only needs a little taste in adapting, and fortunately these quaint old things are just coming into fashion."

Pauline, a pretty girl, – modern to her fingertips – held up a square brooch, on which, under pink glass, shone a complication of initials in gold, the whole set in a narrow twisted rim of pearls and garnets, and asked:

"How do you propose to 'adapt' this, Mamma?"

"Oh," cried Hesse, "I wouldn't have that 'adapted' for the world! It must stay just as it is. It belonged to my grandmother, and it has a love-story connected with it."

"A love-story! Oh, tell it to us!" said Grace, the second of the De Lancey girls.

"Why," explained Hesse; "you see, my grandmother was once engaged to a man named John Sherwood. He was a 'beautiful young man,' Aunt says; but very soon after they were engaged, he fell ill with consumption, and had to go to Madeira. He gave Grandmamma that pin before he sailed. See, there are his initials, 'J. S.,' and hers, 'H. L. R.,' for Hesse Lee Reinike, you know. He gave her a copy of 'Thomas à Kempis' besides, with 'The Lord do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me,' written on the title-page. I have the book, too; Uncle gave it to me for my own."

"And did he ever come back?" asked Pauline.

"No," answered Hesse. "He died in Madeira, and was buried there; and quite a long time afterward, Grandmamma married my grandfather. I'm so fond of that queer old brooch, I like to wear it sometimes."

"How does it look?" demanded Pauline.

"You shall see for yourself, for I'll wear it to-night," said Hesse.

And when Hesse came down to dinner with the quaint ornament shining against her white neck on a bit of black velvet ribbon, even Pauline owned that the effect was not bad, – queer, of course, and unlike other people's things, but certainly not bad.

Mrs. De Lancey had a quick eye for character, and she noted with satisfaction that her young cousin was neither vexed at, nor affected by, her cousins' criticisms on her outfit. Hesse saw for herself that her things were unusual, and not in the prevailing style, but she knew them to be handsome of their kind, and she loved them as a part of her old home. There was, too, in her blood a little of the family pride which had made Aunt say, "The Reinikes know what is proper, I hope." So she wore her odd fur and made-over silks and the old laces with no sense of being ill-dressed, and that very fact "carried it off," and made her seem well dressed. Cousin Julia saw that her wardrobe was sufficiently modernized not to look absurd, or attract too much attention, and there was something in Hesse's face and figure which suited the character of her clothes. People took notice of this or that, now and again, – said it was pretty, and where could they get such a thing? – and, flattery of flatteries, some of the girls copied her effects!