Kitabı oku: «A Round Dozen», sayfa 10

HOW THE STORKS CAME AND WENT

WHEN the storks came, the spring came too. Till then the skies had been gray and the air cold and raw, while the leaf-buds on the branches seemed afraid to peep from their coverings. But when the call of the storks was heard, and the click of their large white wings, the leaves took courage, unrolled their woolly blankets, and presently the trees were green. Soon other birds came too. The doves went to housekeeping in their cote under the peak of the roof-gable. Just beneath, a pair of swallows built a nest of plastered clay: the cherry-tree in the garden was chosen as home by a colony of lively sparrows. All the air was astir with wings and songs, and the world, which for months had seemed dead or asleep, waked suddenly into life and motion.

"What a droll house Mother Stork seems to be building!" said the saucy swallow, cocking up one eye at the long-legged pair on the roof above. "I shouldn't like such an one at all. Sharp sticks everywhere, no conveniences, great holes for eggs to drop into and be broken. And how the wind must blow up there! Give me a cosey place like this of ours."

"Give me a nice, smooth wooden box," cooed the dove. "I don't fancy plaster; it's damp and rheumatic, my mate says. But you needn't worry about Mother Stork's eggs. They're too large to drop through the holes in the branches and be broken."

"What coarse things they must be!" remarked the swallow, looking complacently at the tiny clouded spheres beneath her own wings.

"They are big," agreed the dove. "But then, Mother Stork is big too."

"Listen to those absurd creatures!" said Mother Stork to her partner. "Coarse, indeed! My eggs! I like that."

"Never mind them," replied Papa Stork, good-humoredly, giving a crooked twig the final shove to the side of the nest.

Below on the grass, which was still winter-brown, three little children stood gazing wistfully up at the storks.

"They flew straight to our roof," said Annchen. "Frau Perl says that means good luck before the year ends."

"What does good luck mean?" asked Carl, the youngest boy.

"It means – oh, all sorts of things," replied Annchen, vaguely: "that the mother should not work so hard; that we should have plenty, – plenty to eat every day, – and money, I suppose, – and my new shoes I've waited for so long; – all sorts of things."

"Perhaps my father'll come back," suggested Fritz, with a joyful leap.

Annchen shook her brown head. The boys were too little to understand, but she knew well that the father would never come back. She recollected the day when he marched away with the other soldiers to fight the French. He had lifted her in his arms. She had played with his beard and kissed him, and Fritz had cried after the glittering helmet-spike, till at last the father took the helmet off and gave it him to play with. Then the drum-tap sounded, and he had to go. The mother had watched awhile from the window, and when she could no longer see anything, had sat down to sob and cry with her apron over her face. Annchen recollected it perfectly, and that other dreadful day when Corporal Spes of the same regiment had come, with his arm tied up and a bandage round his head, to tell how the father had been shot in one of the battles before Paris, and buried in French soil. Everything had been sad since. There was less black bread at dinner-time, less soup in the pot, sometimes no soup at all, and the mother worked all day and far into the night, and cried bitterly when she thought the children were not looking. Annchen was too young to comprehend the full cause of these tears, but she felt the sadness; it was like a constant cloud over her childish sun. Now the stork was come to their roof, which all the neighbors said meant something good. Perhaps the happy days would begin again.

"How I hope they will!" she whispered to herself.

"Hope who will?" asked the mother, passing behind with an armful of wood.

Annchen felt abashed.

"The storks," she murmured. "Frau Perl said when they build on a roof it brings good fortune always." The mother sighed.

"There is no good fortune for us any more," she said sadly. "Even the dear stork cannot undo what is done."

"But aren't the storks lucky birds?" asked Fritz. "Jan Stein said they were."

"Ah, luck, luck!" answered the mother. "That is a word only. People use it, but what does it mean?"

"Isn't there any luck, then?" asked Annchen.

"There is the good God, dear, – that is better," replied the mother, and carried her wood into the house.

"Jan said the stork was God's bird," observed little Carl.

"That's it," said Annchen, brightening. "God's bird; and the good God may let the stork bring us good fortune. Dear storkie, do! If only you would!"

Mamma Stork looked solemnly down on the children, and wagged her head gravely up and down. Annchen thought it was in answer to her appeal.

"See, Fritz! see, Carl! She says she will!" The stork kept on nodding, and Annchen went in to supper, feeling happy.

Days grew into weeks, and spring into full summer. The big eggs and the little eggs had in turn cracked and given place to young birds, who sat in the nests clamoring for food, and being fed, caressed, and kept warm by their mothers. At first the nestlings were ugly, featherless creatures, and seemed all beaks and appetites; but presently they began to grow, to put out plumage, and become round and fat. Soon they could hop; then they could flutter their wings; the air was full of their calls and their swift-moving bodies. Mother Stork's babies were white like herself, and had long legs and big bills. The swallow thought them awkward, and contrasted them proudly with her own brisk, glancing brood; but in Mother Stork's eyes they were perfect in every way, and graceful as birds should be. The dove thought the same of her plump squabs, – each parent was entirely satisfied with the kind of child which the Lord had sent her; and that was a happy thing, was it not?

Summer was over, and now it was September, but Annchen had not ceased to hope for the good fortune which the stork's coming prophesied. Each morning, when she woke, she ran to the window to see if the lucky birds were still in the nest. There they were, but nothing else happened, and the mother worked harder than ever, and the black loaf grew smaller. Still Annchen hoped.

"Do you notice what a kind bird the stork is?" said the mother one night, as she was putting the children to bed. "She never gets tired of taking care of her babies, nor beats them with her wings, nor scolds them. Do you not love her for being so amiable?"

"Sometimes the babies scold her," remarked Fritz from his corner.

"I don't think that is scolding. What they say is, 'Mother, we are hungry. We want a fish or a couple of young frogs; when will the father bring them?' The little storks do not like to wait for their dinners any more than you children do. I heard once a story about a good Mother Stork. Shall I tell it you?"

"Oh, yes!" cried the children; but the mother went first for her knitting-work, for even at the twilight hour she dared not let her fingers be idle for a moment.

"Once there was a Frau Stork," she began, "who built a nest in the roof of an old shed, and in it laid three blue eggs. Presently out of the eggs came three baby storks, large and hungry. Then was Frau Stork very proud and glad. All day she sat in the nest, keeping her little ones warm under her feathers, while Papa Stork flew to and fro, seeking places where were ponds with fish and frogs; and these he fetched home in his beak, and with them fed his brood, who sat always with open mouths ready for anything good which should come along.

"One day when Papa Stork was absent, and Mother Stork had hopped from the nest to the roof, she heard a crackling sound which she did not at all understand. Then the air grew thick and smoky, and there was a smell of burning wood. The shed was on fire! Frau Stork became uneasy, and called loudly for her mate, but he was too far away to hear her voice. Presently the smoke became more dense, and a little red tongue of flame crept through the thatch. When it felt the air it grew large, swelled, and at last, like a fiery serpent, darted at the nest and the screaming brood within."

"Oh dear! oh dear!" cried the children, sitting up in their beds. "What did the poor stork do?"

"She could easily have flown away, you know," continued the mother. "There were her strong wings, which would have borne her faster than the fire could follow. But she loved her babies too well to leave them like that. She seized them with her beak, and tried to drag them from the nest. But they were too heavy, and flapped and struggled, hindering her, for they did not understand what she wished to do. The flames drew nearer, the branches began to blaze. Then Mother Stork took her usual place in the nest, gathered her brood under her wings as if to shield them, bent her poor head, and – "

"Oh, she didn't burn up! – please don't say she did!" interrupted Annchen.

"Yes. When Papa Stork came from the pond with a fresh fish in his beak, there was no roof there, no nest, no little storks, – only a heap of ashes and curling smoke. Frau Stork loved her children too well to desert them, and they all died together."

There was silence for a minute or two. Annchen was sobbing softly, and a suspicious sniff was heard from the direction of Fritz's pillow.

"I hope our stork won't burn up," said Carl, solemnly.

"Yes, – because then she won't bring us good luck, you know," added Fritz.

"Do you think the stork has forgotten?" whispered Annchen to her mother. "I've waited and waited for her so long that I'm tired. Do they forget sometimes?"

"She will have to bestir herself if she is to do anything for us this year," said the mother; and though her heart was heavy enough just then, she smiled into Annchen's eager eyes. "Autumn is here; the winter will come before long. Frau Stork and her family may fly off any day."

"I shall have to remind her," murmured Annchen, sleepily.

She remembered this resolution next morning, and went out into the yard. The day was chilly; the blue sky, all dappled with gray, looked as if a storm were coming. Mother Stork was alone on the roof. Her young ones could fly now, and they and their father were off somewhere together.

"Mother Stork," said Annchen, standing close to the wall, and speaking in a loud, confidential whisper, "you won't forget what you promised, will you – that day when you nodded your head, you know? The mother says you will fly away soon, but please bring us our good luck first. Poor mother works so hard and looks so pale, and sometimes there is almost no dinner at all, and the cold winter is coming, and I don't know what we shall do, if you don't help us. Please do, Mother Stork. We can't wait till you come again, it's such a long time. Pray fetch our good luck before you go."

Mother Stork, perched on one leg on the roof's edge, nodded her head up and down, as if considering the point. Then she rose on her large wings and flew away. Annchen marked her course through the air, and her eyes grew large and eager with delight.

"She has gone to the fen!" she cried. "That's where she keeps it. Oh, the dear stork!"

"What is it? Who has gone where?" asked the boys, running into the yard.

"Frau Stork," explained Annchen. "I reminded her about it, – our good luck, you know, – and she flew straight off to fetch it. She went to the fen, the beautiful fen, where I went once with the father —such a place! How I should like to go there again! You never saw such a place, boys!"

"I want to go to the fen too," said Carl.

"I wonder if we might!" went on Annchen, thoughtfully. "It isn't so very far. I didn't get tired at all that day when I went before. And we could help Frau Stork, perhaps. I wonder if we might."

"I'll go in and ask the mother," said Fritz, running to the door with an eager demand: "Mother, may we go for a walk, – Annchen and Carl and I?"

The mother, who was very busy, nodded.

"Don't go too far," she called after him.

"Mother says we may," shouted Fritz, as he ran again into the yard; and the children, overjoyed, set forth at once.

It was quite a distance to the fen, but the road was a plain one, and Annchen had no difficulty in following it. When she went there before, not only her father had been along, but Ernst the wood-cutter, with his donkey; so, when tired, she had rested herself by riding on top of the fagots. She was three years older now, and the sturdy lads did not mind the distance at all, but ran forward merrily, encouraging each other to make haste.

The sun had broken through the clouds, and shone hotly on the white road. But as they neared the fen, they passed into shade. Softly they lifted the drooping branches of the trees, and entered, moving carefully, that they might not disturb the stork. A little farther, and the ground grew wet under foot. Bright streams of water appeared here and there. But between the streams were ridges and island-like tufts of moss and dried grasses, and stepping from one of these to the other, the little ones passed on, dry-shod. Tall reeds and lance-shaped rushes rose above their heads as they crept along, whispering low to each other. The air was hushed and warm, there was a pleasant fragrance of damp roots and leaves. The children liked the fen extremely. Their feet danced and skipped, and they would gladly have shouted, had it not been for the need of keeping quiet.

Suddenly a beautiful glossy water-rat, with a long tail, glanced like a ray of quick sunshine from under a bank, and at sight of the intruders flashed back again into his hole. Fritz was enchanted at this sight. He longed to stay and dig into the bank in search of the rat. What fun it would be to take him home and tame him! But Annchen whispered imploringly, and Carl tugged at his fingers; so at last he gave up searching for the rat, and went on with the others. They were near the middle of the fen now, and Mother Stork, they thought, must be close at hand.

Pop! glug! An enormous bull-frog leaped from a log, and vanished into the pool with a splash. Next a couple of lovely water-flies, with blue, shining bodies and gauze-like wings, appeared hovering in the air. They rose and sank and circled and whirled like enchanted things; the children, who had never seen such flies before, felt as if they had met the first chapter of a fairy-story, and stood holding their breaths, lest the pretty creatures should take alarm and fly away. It was not till the water-flies suddenly whirled off and disappeared, that they recollected their errand, and moved on.

All at once Annchen, who was in advance of the rest, stopped short and uttered an exclamation. The parting of the reeds had shown her a pool larger than any they had seen before, round which grew a fringe of tall flowering water-plants. Half in, half out of the pool, lay a black log with a hollow end, and beside it, dabbling with her beak as if searching for something, stood a large white bird. At the sound of voices and rustling feet, the bird spread a pair of broad wings and flew slowly upward, turning her head to look at the children as she went.

"It was," cried Annchen. "Oh, Mother Stork, we didn't mean to frighten you. Please come back again. We'll go away at once if you don't like to have us here."

But Mother Stork was no longer visible. She had dropped into some distant part of the fen – where, the children could not see.

"Her eyes looked angry," said little Carl.

"Oh dear!" sighed Annchen. "I hope she isn't angry. That would be dreadful! What will poor mother do if she is? And it would be all our fault."

"I want to go home," whined Carl. "It's dinner-time. I want my dinner very much."

All of them wanted to go home, but it was not an easy or quick task to do so. The children had wandered farther than they knew. It took a long time to find their way out of the fen, and when at last they reached the rushy limits, and stood on open ground, it was an unfamiliar place, and much farther from home than the side where they had entered. Weary, hungry, and disheartened, they trudged along for what to them seemed hours, and it was long past midday when at last they reached the familiar gate.

Frau Stork had got there before them, and stood on the roof beside her mate, gazing down as the sorry little procession filed beneath. Annchen had no heart to greet her as she passed. She was tired, and a dread lest their long absence should have frightened or angered the mother added weight to her fatigue, and made her heart sink heavily as they opened the door.

The mother did not start or run forward to meet them as the children expected she would do. She sat by the table, and some one sat opposite her – a tall, stately officer in uniform, with an order on his breast. His helmet lay on the table, with some papers scattered about it. When the children came in, he turned and looked at them out of a pair of kind blue eyes.

"Ah," he said. "These are the little ones, dame?"

"Yes," said the mother, "these are his children. Take off your hats, boys; and, Annchen, make your reverence. This is the Herr Baron, your father's captain, children."

Carl stared with round eyes at the splendid Herr Baron, while Annchen demurely dropped her courtesy. The captain lifted Fritz and perched him on his knee.

"My fine fellow," he said, "you have your father's face," – and he stroked Fritz's yellow hair, while Fritz played with the bright buttons of the uniform. The captain and the mother went on talking. Annchen did not understand all they said, but she saw that her mother looked happier than for a long time before, and that made her feel happy too.

At last the captain rose to go. He kissed the children, and Annchen saw him put a purse into her mother's hands.

"I take shame to myself that I left you so long without aid," he said; "but keep up heart, dame. Your pension will no doubt be granted you, and I will see that you and the children are cared for, as a brave man's family should be. So good-day, and God bless you!"

"May He bless you, Herr Baron," sobbed the widow, as he went away.

"What is it, mother, – why do you cry?" asked little Carl at last, pulling her sleeve.

"For joy, dear. The good Baron has brought your father's back pay. I can discharge my debts now, and you need hunger no more."

"It is the good luck come at last. I knew it would," said Annchen.

"We will thank God for it," said her mother. And they all knelt down and repeated "Our Father," that beautiful prayer which suits equally our time of joy and our time of sorrow.

But when the prayer was said, and the mother, smiling through her tears, was bustling about to cook such a supper as the little family had not tasted for many a day, dear, superstitious little Annchen stole softly to the door and went into the yard.

The young storks were asleep with their heads under their wings, and Frau Stork, poised on one leg, was gazing about with drowsy eyes. She looked bigger than ever against the dim evening sky.

"Thank you, dear stork!" said Annchen.