"'We won't grind any gold yet,' said the captain, 'because gold is heavy, and we can do it better on the desert island. We'll just grind some little thing now for fun.' Then he called out to the cook, and said, 'Hollo, cook, is there any thing wanting there in your kitchen?'
"'Yes, sir, please,' said the cook, 'we're out of salt; we sailed so quick that I couldn't get any.'
"So Carl fetched the mill, and set it on the cabin table, and said, 'Little mill, grind salt, open sesame.'
"And immediately a stream of beautiful white salt came pouring out, till two bags which the cook had brought were quite full, and then the captain said, 'That's enough, now stop it.'
"Just at that moment Carl recollected that he didn't know how to stop the Mill."
Here Eyebright made a dramatic pause.
"Oh, what next? What did he do?" cried the others.
"He said all the words he could think of," continued Eyebright; "'Shut, sesame!' and 'Stop!' and 'Please stop!' and 'Don't!' and ever so many others; but he couldn't say the right one, because he didn't know it, you see! So the salt kept pouring on, and it filled all the bags, and boxes, and barrels, and and all the salt-cellars, in the ship, and it ran on to the table, and it ran on to the floor; and the pirate captain caught hold of the handle and tried to keep it from turning; and it gave him such a pinch that he put his fingers into his mouth, and danced with pain. Then he was so mad that he got an axe and chopped the mill in two, to punish it for knocking him. But immediately another handle sprouted out on the half which hadn't any, and that made two mills, and the salt came faster than ever. At last, when it was up to their knees, Carl and the pirate captain ran to the deck to consult what they should do; and, while they were consulting, the mills went on grinding. And the ship got so full, and the salt was so heavy, that, all of a sudden, down they all sank, ship and Carl and the pirates and the mills and all, to the bottom of the sea."
Eyebright came to a full stop. The children drew long breaths.
"Didn't anybody ever get the mill again?" asked Bessie.
"No, never. There they both are at the bottom, grinding away as hard as they can; and that's the reason why the sea is so salt!"
"Is it salt?" asked little Rosy, who never had seen the sea.
"Why, Rosy, of course. Didn't you ever eat codfish? They come out of the sea, and they're just as salt as salt can be," said Tom, who was about a year older than Rosy.
"Now, Molly, you tell one," said Eyebright. "Tell us that one which your grandma told you, the story about the Indian. Don't you recollect?"
"Oh, yes; the one I told you that day in the pasture. It's a true story, too, every bit of it. My grandma knew the lady it happened to. It was ever and ever so long ago, when the country was all over woods and Indians, you know, and this lady went to the West to live with her husband. He was a pio-nary, no, pioneer, no, missionary, that was what he was. Missionaries teach poor people and preach, and this one was awfully poor himself, for all the money he had was just a little bit which a church in the East gave him.
"Well, after they had lived at the West for a year, the missionary had to come back, because some of the people said he wasn't orthodox. I don't know what that means. I asked father once, and he said it meant so many things that he didn't think he could explain them all; but ma, she said, it means 'agreeing with the neighbors.' Anyhow, the missionary had to come back to tell the folks that he was orthodox, and his wife and children had to stay behind, in the woods, with wolves and bears and Indians close by.
"The very day after he started, his wife was sitting by the fire with her baby in her lap, when the door opened, and a great, enormous Indian walked in and straight up to her.
"I guess she was frightened; don't you?
"'He gone?' asked the Indian in broken English.
"'Yes,' she said.
"Then the Indian held out his hands and said, 'Pappoose. Give.'"
"Oh, my!" cried Romaine. "I'd have screamed right out."
"Well, the lady didn't," continued Molly. "What was the use? There wasn't any one to scream to, you know. Beside, she thought perhaps the Indian was trying her to see if she trusted him. So she let him take the child, and he marched away with it, not saying another word.
"All that night, and all next day, she watched and waited, but he did not come back. She began to think all sorts of dreadful things, that perhaps he had killed the child. But just at sunset he came with the baby in his arms, and the little fellow was dressed like a chief, in a suit of doe-skins which the squaws had made, with cunning little moccasins on his feet and a feather stuck in his hair. The Indian put him in his mother's lap, and said,
"'Now red man know white squaw friend, for she not afraid give child.'
"And after that, all the time her husband was gone, the Indians brought venison and game, and were real kind to the lady. Wasn't it nice?"
The children drew long breaths of relief.
"I don't think I could have been so brave," declared Kitty.
"Now I'll tell you a story which I made up myself," said Romaine, who was of a sentimental turn. "It's called the Lady and the Barberry Bush.
"Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a lady who loved a barberry bush, because its berries were so pretty, and tasted so nice and sour. She used to water it, and come at evening to lay her snow-white hand upon its leaves."
"Didn't they prick?" inquired Molly, who was as practical as Romaine was sentimental.
"No, of course they didn't prick, because the barberry bush was enchanted, you know. Nobody else cared for barberry bushes except the lady. All the rest liked roses and honeysuckles best, and the poor barberry was very glad when it saw the lady coming. At last, one night, when she was watering it, it spoke, and it said, 'The hour of deliverance has arrived. Lady, behold in me a Prince and your lover!' and it changed into a beautiful knight with barberries in his helmet, and knelt at her feet, and they were very happy for ever after."
"Oh, how short!" complained the rest. "Eyebright's was a great deal longer."
"Yes, but she read hers in a book, you know. I made mine up, all myself."
"I'll tell you a 'tory now," broke in little Rosy. "It's a nice 'tory, a real nice one. Once there was a little girl, and she wanted some pie. She wanted some weal wich pie. And her mother whipped her because she wanted the weal wich pie. Then she kied. And her mother whipped her. Then she kied again. And her mother whipped her again. And the wich pie made her sick. And she died. She couldn't det well, 'cause the dottor he didn't come. He couldn't come. There wasn't any dottor. He was eated up by tigers. Isn't that a nice 'tory?"
The girls laughed so hard over Rosy's story that, much abashed, she hid her face in Kitty's lap, and wouldn't raise it for a long time. Eyebright tried to comfort her.
"It's a real nice story," she said. "The nicest of all. I'm so glad you came, Rosy, else you wouldn't have told it to us."
"Did you hear me tell how the dottor was eated up by tigers?" asked Rosy, peeping with one eye from out of the protection of Kitty's apron.
"Yes, indeed. That was splendid."
"I made that up!" said Rosy, triumphantly revealing her whole face, joyful again, and bright as a full moon.
"Who'll be next?" asked Eyebright.
"I will," said Laura. "Listen now, for it's going to be perfectly awful, I can tell you. It's about robbers."
As she spoke these words, Laura lowered her voice, into a sort of half-groan, half-whisper.
"There was once a girl who lived all alone by herself, with just one Newfoundland dog for company. He wasn't a big Newfoundland, he was pretty small. One night, when it was all dark and she was just going to sleep, she heard a rustle underneath her bed."
The children had drawn closer together since Laura began, and at this point Romaine gave a loud shriek.
"What was that?" she asked.
All held their breaths. The loft was getting a little dusky now, and sure enough, an unmistakable rustle was heard among the hay in a distant corner!
"This loft would be a very bad place for a robber," said Eyebright, in a voice which trembled considerably, though she tried to keep it steady. "A robber wouldn't have much chance with all our men down below. James, you know, girls, and Samuel and John."
"Yes, and Benjamin and Charles," chimed in the quick-witted Molly; "and your father, Eyebright, and Henry, all down there in the barn."
While they recited this formidable list, the little geese were staring with wide-open, affrighted eyes into the corner where the rustle had been heard.
"And, " continued Eyebright, her voice trembling more than ever, "they have all got pitchforks, you know, and guns, and oh, mercy! what was that? The hay moved, girls, it did move, I saw it!"
All scrambled to their feet prepared to fly, but before any one could start, the hay in the corner parted, and, cackling and screaming, out flew Mrs. Top-knot, tired of her hidden nest, or of the story-telling, and resolved on escape. Eyebright ran after, and shoo-ed her downstairs. Then she came back laughing, and said,
"How silly we were! Go on, Laura."
But the nerves of the party were too shaky still to enjoy robber-stories, and Eyebright, perceiving this, made a diversion.
"I know what we all want," she said; "some apples. Stay here all of you, and I'll run in and get them. I won't be but a minute."
"Mayn't I come too?" asked the inseparable Bessie.
"Yes, do, and you can help me carry 'em. Don't tell any stories while we're gone, girls. Come along, Bess."
Wealthy happened to be in the buttery, skimming cream, so no one spied them as they ran through the kitchen and down the cellar stairs. The cellar was a very large one. In fact, there were half a dozen cellars opening one into the other, like the rooms of a house. Wood and coal were kept in some of them, in others vegetables, and there was a swinging shelf where stood Wealthy's cold meat, and odds and ends of food. All the cellars were dark at this hour of the afternoon, very dark, and Bessie held Eyebright's hand tight, as, with the ease of one who knew the way perfectly, she sped toward the apple-room.
In the blackest corner of all, Eyebright paused, fumbled a little on an almost invisible shelf with a jar which had a lid and clattered, and then handed to her friend a dark something whose smell and taste showed it to be a pickled butternut.
"Wealthy keeps her pickles here," she said, "and she lets me take one now and then, because I helped to prick the butternuts when she made 'em. I got my fingers awfully stained too. It didn't come off for almost a month. Aren't they good?"
"Perfectly splendid!" replied Bessie, as her teeth met in the spicy acid oval. "I do think butternut pickles are just too lovely!"
The apple-room had a small window in it, so it was not so dark as the other cellars. Eyebright went straight to a particular barrel.
"These are the best ones that are left," she said. "They are those spotty russets which you said you liked, Bessie. Now, you take four and I'll take four. That'll make just one apiece for each of us."
"How horrid it would be," said Bessie, as the two went upstairs again with the apples in their aprons, "how horrid it would be if a hand should suddenly come through the steps and catch hold of our ankles."
"Good gracious, Bessie Mather!" cried Eyebright, whose vivid imagination represented to her at once precisely how the hand on her ankle would feel, "I wish you wouldn't say such things, at least till we're safely up," she added.
Another moment, and they were safely up and in the kitchen. Alas, Wealthy caught sight of them.
"Eyebright," she called after them, "tea will be ready in ten minutes. Come in and have your hair brushed and your face washed."
"Why, Wealthy Judson, what an idea! It's only twenty minutes past five."
"There's a gentleman to tea to-night, and your pa wants it early, so's he can get off by six," replied Wealthy. "I'm just wetting the tea now. Don't argue, Eyebright, but come at once."
"I've got to go out to the barn for one minute, anyhow," cried Eyebright, impatiently, and she and Bessie flashed out of the door and across the yard before Wealthy could say another word.
"It's too bad," she said, rushing upstairs into the loft and beginning to distribute the apples. "That old tea of ours is early to-night, and Wealthy says I must come in. I'm so sorry now that I went for the apples at all, because if I hadn't I shouldn't have known that tea was early, and then I needn't have gone! We were having such a nice time! Can't you all stay till I've done tea? I'll hurry!"
But the loft, with its rustles and dark corners, was not to be thought of for a moment without Eyebright's presence and protection.
"Oh, no, we couldn't possibly; we must go home," the children said, and down the stairs they all rushed.
Brindle and old Charley and the strange horse raised their heads and stared as the little cavalcade trooped by their stalls. Perhaps they were wondering that there was so much less laughing and talking than when it went up. They did not know, you see, about the "perfectly awful" robber story, or the mysterious rustle, or how dreadfully Mrs. Top-knot in the dark corner had frightened the merry little crowd.
CHAPTER III.
MR. JOYCE
Wealthy was waiting at the kitchen-door, and pounced on Eyebright the moment she appeared. I want you to know Wealthy, so I must tell you about her. She was very tall and very bony. Her hair, which was black streaked with gray, was combed straight, and twisted round a hair-pin, so as to make a tight, solid knot, about the size of a half-dollar, on the back of her head. Her face was kind, but such a very queer face that persons who were not used to it were a good while in finding out the kindness. It was square and wrinkled, with small eyes, a wide mouth, and a nose that was almost flat, as if some one had given it a knock when Wealthy was a baby, and driven it in. She always wore dark cotton gowns and aprons, as clean as clean could be, but made after the pattern of Mrs. Japhet's in the Noah's arks, straight up and straight down, with almost no folds, so as to use as little material as possible. She had lived in the house ever since Eyebright was a baby, and looked upon her almost as her own child, to be scolded, petted, ordered about, and generally taken care of.
Eyebright could not remember any time in her life when her mother was not ill. She found it hard to believe that mamma ever had been young and active, and able to go about and walk and do the things which other people did. Eyebright's very first recollections of her were of a pale, ailing person always in bed or on the sofa, complaining of headache and backache, and general misery, coming downstairs once or twice in a year perhaps, and even then being the worse for it. The room in which she spent her life had a close, dull smell of medicines about it, and Eyebright went past its door and down the entry on tiptoe, hushing her footsteps without being aware that she did so, so fixed was the habit. She was so well and strong herself that it was not easy for her to understand what sickness is, or what it needs; but her sympathies were quick, and though it was not hard to forget her mother and be happy when she was rioting out-of-doors with the other children, she never saw her without feeling pity and affection, and a wish that she could do something to please or to make her feel better.