Jewel's Story Book Part 24

One morning as they smiled and nodded to her on the way to school, she called out and beckoned.

"Apples for the little baskets?"

"Not to-day," answered Emilie.

She beckoned to them again with determination, and the children approached.

"We forgot to brush our teeth last night," explained Franz, "so we haven't any penny."

"I forgot it," said Emilie, "and Franz didn't remind me, so we neither of us got it. That's the way Anna makes us remember."

"Never you mind, honey, here's apples for love," replied the colored woman, holding up two rosy beauties.

The children looked at one another and shook their heads.

"Thank you," said Emilie, "but we can't. Papa said the last time you gave them to us that if we ate your apples without paying for them we mustn't come to visit you any more."

"Now think o' that!" exclaimed the apple woman when the children had gone on. She was much touched and pleased to know that Franz and Emilie would rather come and sit and talk to her and listen to her stories than to eat her apples.

She was right; they were nice children; but they had their naughty times, and good old Anna was often greatly troubled by them. She felt her responsibility of the whole family very deeply, and tried to talk no more German. These children must grow up to be good Americans, and she must not hold them back. It was very hard for the poor woman to remember always to speak English, and funny broken English it was; so that little Peter, hearing it all the time, had a baby talk of his own that was very comical and different from other children. He talked about the "luckle horse" he played with, and the "boomps" he got when he fell down, and he was very brave and serious, as became a fat baby boy who had to take care of himself a great deal.

Anna was so busy cooking and mending for a family of five she was very glad of the hours when Mr. Wenzel worked at home at his desk and baby Peter could stay in the same room with him and play with his toys.

Mr. Wenzel was a kind father and longed as far as possible to fill the place of mother also to his children, who loved him dearly. To little Peter he was all-powerful. A kiss from papa soothed the hardest "boomp" that his many tumbles gave him; but even Peter realized that when papa was at his desk he was very busy indeed, and though any of the children might sit in the room with him, they must not speak unless it was absolutely necessary.

Emilie was now eight years old, and she might have helped her father and Anna more than she did; but she never thought of this. She loved to read, especially fairy stories, and she often curled up on the sofa in her father's room and read while Peter either played about the room with his toys, or went to papa's desk and stood with his round eyes fixed on Mr.

Wenzel's face until the busy man would look up from his papers and ask: "What does my Peter want?"

Especially did Emilie fly to this refuge in papa's room after a quarrel with Franz, and I'm sorry to say she had a great many. The apple woman found out that the little brother and sister were not always amiable. Anna had confided in her; and then one day the children approached her stand contradicting each other, their voices growing louder and louder as they came, until at last Franz made a face at Emilie, giving her a push, and she, quick as a kitten, jumped forward and slapped him.

What Franz would have done after this I don't know, if the apple woman hadn't said, "Chillen, chillen!" so loud that he stopped to look at her.

"Ah, listen at that fairy Slap-back a-laughin'!" cried the apple woman.

"The fairy Flapjack?" asked Franz, as he and his sister forgot their wrath and ran toward the stand.

"_Flapjack!_" repeated the apple woman with scorn, as the children nestled down, one each side of her. "Yo' nice chillen pertendin' not to know yo'

friends!"

"What friends? What?" asked Emilie eagerly.

"The fairy Slap-back. P'raps I didn't see her jest now, a-grinnin' over yo'

shoulder."

"Is she anybody to be afraid of?" asked Emilie, big-eyed.

"To be sho' she is if you-all go makin' friends with her," returned the apple woman, with a knowing sidewise nod of her head. Then drawing back from the children with an air of greatest surprise, "You two don't mean to come here tellin' me you ain't never heerd o' the error-fairies?" she asked.

"Never," they both replied together.

"Shoo!" exclaimed the apple woman. "If you ain't the poor igno'antest w'ite chillen that ever lived. Why, if you ain't never heerd on 'em, yo're likely to be snapped up by 'em any day in the week as you was jest now."

"Oh, tell us. Do tell us!" begged Franz and Emilie.

"Co'se I will, 'case 't ain't right for them mis'able creeturs to be hangin' around you all, and you not up to their capers. Fust place they're called the error-fairies 'case they're all servants to a creetur named Error. She's a cheat and a humbug, allers pertendin' somethin' or other, and she makes it her business to fight a great and good fairy named Love.

Now Love--oh, chillen, my pore tongue can't tell you of the beauty and goodness o' the fairy Love! She's the messenger of a great King, and spends her whole time a-blessin' folks. Her hair s.h.i.+nes with the gold o' the sun; her eyes send out soft beams; her gown is w'ite, and when she moves 'tis as if forget-me-nots and violets was runnin' in little streams among its folds. Ah, chillen," the apple woman shook her head, "she's the blessin' o'

the world. Her soft arms are stretched out to gather in and comfort every sorrowin' heart.

"Well, 'case she was so lovely an' the great King trusted her, Error thought she'd try her hand; but she hadn't any king, Error hadn't. There wa'n't n.o.body to stand for her or to send her on errands. She was a low-lifed, flabby creetur," the apple woman made a scornful grimace; "jest a misty-moisty n.o.body; nothin' to her. Her gown was a cloud and she wa'n't no more 'n a shadder, herself, until she could git somebody to listen to her. When she did git somebody to listen to her, she'd begin to stiffen up and git some backbone and git awful sa.s.sy; so she crep' around whisperin'

to folks that Love was no good, and 'lowin' that she--that mis'able creetur--was the queen o' life.

"Some folks knowed better and told her so, right pine blank, an' then straight off she'd feel herself changin' back into a shadder, an' sail away as fast as she could to try it on somebody else. She was ugly to look at as a bad dream, but yet there was lots o' folks would pay 'tention to her, and after they'd listened once or twice, she kep' gittin' stronger and pearter, an' as she got stronger, they got weaker, and every day it was harder fer 'em to drive her off, even after they'd got sick of her.

"Then, even if she didn't have a king, she had slaves; oh, dozens and dozens of error-fairies, to do her will. Creepin' shadders they was, too, till somebody listened to 'em and give 'em a backbone. There's--let me see"--the apple woman looked off to jog her memory--"there's Laziness, Selfishness, Backbitin', Cruelty--oh, I ain't got time to tell 'em all; an'

not one mite o' harm in one of 'em, only for some silly mortal that listens and gives the creetur a backbone. They jest lop over an' melt away, the whole batch of 'em, when Love comes near. She knows what no-account humbugs they are, you see; and they jest lop over an' melt away whenever even a little chile knows enough to say 'Go off fum here, an' quit pesterin''!"

Franz and Emilie stared at the apple woman and listened hard. Their cheeks matched the apples.

"What happened a minute ago to you-all? An error-creetur named Slap-back whispered to you. 'Quarrel!' says she. What'd you do? Did you say 'Go off, you triflin' vilyun'?

"Not a bit of it. You quarreled; an' Slap-back kep' gittin' bigger and stronger and stiffer in the backbone while you was goin' it, an' at last up comes this little hand of Emilie's. Whack! That was the time Slap-back couldn't hold in, an' she jest laughed an' laughed over yo' shoulder. Ah, the little red eyes she had, and the wiry hair! And that other one, the fairy, Love, she was pickin' up her w'ite gown with both hands an' flyin'

off as if she had wings. Of course you didn't notice her. You was too taken up with yo' friend."

"But Slap-back isn't our friend," declared Emilie earnestly.

The apple woman shook her head. "Bless yo' heart, honey, it's mean to deny it now; but, disown her or not, she'll stick to you and pester you; and you'll find it out if ever you try to drive her off. You'll have as hard a time as little Dinah did."

"What happened to Dinah?" asked Franz, picking up the apple woman's clean towel and beginning to polish apples.

"Drop that, now, chile! Yo' friend might cast her eye on it. I don't want to sell pizened apples."

Franz, crestfallen, obeyed, and glanced at Emilie. They had never before found their a.s.sistance refused, and they both looked very sober.

"Little Dinah was a chile lived 'way off down South 'mongst the cotton fields; and that good fairy watched over Dinah,--Love, so sweet to look at she'd make yo' heart sing.

"Dinah had a little brother, too, jest big enough to walk; an' a daddy that worked from mornin' till night to git hoe-cake 'nuff fer 'em all; and his ole mammy, she helped him, and made the fire, and swept the room, and dug in the garden, and milked the cow. She was a good woman, that ole mammy, an' 't was a great pity there wa'n't n.o.body to help 'er, an' she gittin'

older every day."

"Why, there was Dinah," suggested Emilie.

The apple woman stared at her with both hands raised. "Dinah! Lawsy ma.s.sy, honey, the only thing that chile would do was look at pictur' books an'

play with the other chillen. She wouldn't even so much as pick up baby Mose when he tumbled down an' barked his s.h.i.+n. Oh, but she was a triflin' lazy little n.i.g.g.e.r as ever you see."

"And that's why the red-eyed fairy got hold of her," said Franz, who was longing to hear something exciting.

"'Twas, partly," said the apple woman. "You see there's somethin' very strange about them fairies, Love and the error-fairies. The error-fairies, they run after the folks that love themselves, and Love can only come near them that loves other people. Sounds queer, honey, but it's the truth; so, when Dinah got to be a likely, big gal, and never thought whether the ole mammy was gittin' tired out, or tried to amuse little Mose, or gave a thought o' pity to her pore daddy who was alone in the world, the fairy Love got to feelin' as bad as any fairy could.

"'Do, Dinah,'" she said, with her sweet mouth close to Dinah's ear, 'do stop bein' so triflin', and stir yo'self to be some help in the house.'