Part 7 (1/2)

Mother Huldah was so kind and generous that everybody got in the habit of taking things from her without sometimes so much as a ”thank you,” or an inquiry as to her own health. But the little children loved her because she made them pretty cakes; and told them the stories she used to tell her own children, her two fine sons who were soldiers. These sons sent her the money upon which she lived and out of which she made her little charities, and they wrote her fine brave letters, and every year they came home to see her, bearing beautiful presents from foreign lands, ivory toys and s.h.i.+ning silks (which she always gave to some bride) and workboxes of sweet-scented wood richly carved--to show how much they loved her.

One dreadful year a great war broke out, and not long after Mother Huldah heard that her two sons had been killed, and she herself thought she would follow them through grief. But she lived on and as she grew more sorrowful she went less and less to the village, and people began to forget her. Even the little children stayed away since she had no longer the heart to tell them the tales she had once told her sons; and she must no longer bake the little cakes since every day saw her small h.o.a.rd of money diminis.h.i.+ng.

At last, when the winter tempests were raging, and the sleet was beating upon the thatch, there came a day when no food remained in the cottage; and Mother Huldah felt too weak and sick to go out in quest of it. Nor did she wish to tell her neighbors that no food remained in the cottage.

So full of weary dreams and old sad thoughts she sat down in one of the armchairs before the fire, and whether she nodded from drowsiness, or whether Tommie nodded at her she never knew, but he moved his black head and opened his pink mouth, and said he, ”Suppose I fetch you a bird just this once.”

She was much surprised, for Tommie had never talked to her before, but she did not show how astonished she was because she was always very polite to him. So she replied, ”Bless your whiskers! Tommie! but we won't break through our rule. Maybe some neighbor will fetch me a loaf!”

”Maybe they will and perhaps they won't,” said Tommie, ”they're an ungrateful lot.”

”They think I am still rich, my dear,” she answered.

”So you are, but not in the way they mean,” Tommie said. ”And, Mother Huldah, if they neglect you a day longer it won't be your Tommie's fault.”

Then Mother Huldah shook her finger at him. ”You switch your tail just as if you were going to steal something. Tommie, I brought you up better than that.”

”Steal! nonsense!” cried Tommie. ”Most of 'em have more than they need, anyway.”

”Tommie, I believe you're hungry, or your morals wouldn't be so queer!”

Mother Huldah said reprovingly.

”Hungry!” exclaimed Tommie. ”I dream of lobster claws and chicken wings and blue saucers full of yellow wrinkled cream, twelve in a row. No wonder my morals are queer!”

Then what happened was that poor Mother Huldah dozed off to sleep and when she awoke there was Tommie staring into the fire, his green eyes like two lanterns and his whiskers standing out very stiff and knowing, and at Mother Huldah's' feet was a wicker basket from which issued a most appetizing odor. ”Why, Thomas” (she always called him Thomas in solemn moments), ”what's this?”

”Your dinner,” said Tommie, and yawned like a gentleman who lights a cigarette and says, ”O hang it all! what a beastly bore life is.”

”Thomas,” questioned Mother Huldah solemnly, ”where did you get this dinner?” for she had taken the cover off the basket and found a small roast chicken with vegetables and a bread pudding.

”Why, I was strolling down the gray lane when I met a woman carrying that basket and I smelled chicken; so up I stood on my hind legs, and winked at her and I said, 'Thank you, I know you are taking that to Mother Huldah; let me carry it the rest of the way.'”

But Mother Huldah cried, ”Maybe the dinner wasn't for me, and you frightened her so she had to give it to you.”

Tommie yawned again. ”Don't you think that the best thing you can do with a good dinner is to eat it?”

So Mother Huldah ate her dinner, hoping all the while that she was making an honest meal; then, when she had fed Thomas, she asked him if Charlemagne was on the roof. ”Indeed, no!” cried he. ”Charlemagne has flown to the war country to fetch you a baby!”

”Alas!” cried Mother Huldah. ”I pity the poor babes, but how can I bring up a baby?”

”It is your granddaughter,” said Tommie. ”Charlemagne told me that a year ago your son Rupert married, but he meant to bring his bride home as a surprise to you. Then the war broke out and--”

”O poor little daughter-in-law!” cried Mother Huldah. ”Did she break her heart?”

”Yes, and so she followed Rupert to the Country of the Brave Souls; but Charlemagne is fetching the baby in a warm woolen napkin tied up at the four corners; and when his wings get tired from flying he puts a bit of sugar and a drop of water in the baby's mouth and leans his feathery breast against its little feet to keep them warm!”

”Yes! yes!” said Mother Huldah, ”a baby's feet should be always kept warm--but, dear me, dear me, the Sweet One will need milk before long, and the grain of the whole wheat to help her grow! I have no money to buy her food.”

Tommie looked very wise. ”Mother Huldah,” he said as he drew a black paw knowingly over one ear, ”don't you know that wherever a baby comes, help comes? Open the linen chest and get your s.h.i.+ning shears and begin to make little s.h.i.+rts and dresses. I think I'll take a look at the weather.”