A Round Dozen

That same afternoon Mrs. Sands went on to Philadelphia, and next morning early Helen and her father started for their journey to Vermont. It was gray, blustering weather, but neither of them cared for that. Papa was in high spirits, and full of fun as a school-boy. Their baggage comprised, besides two valises, a big hamper full of all sorts of nice things for grandmother, game and fruit and groceries, and Helen carried a flat basket in her hand, in which, wrapped in a snowy napkin, reposed one of the precious pies.

"Bless me, how raw it is! It looks as though it were going to snow," said Mr. Sands, as he came in from a walk up and down the platform of one of the little stations at which the train stopped; and five minutes later Helen, with a little scream of surprise, cried out, "Why, papa, it is snowing!" Sure enough it was, – in fine snow-flakes, which before long thickened into a heavy fall.

"It will only be a squall," Mr. Sands said; but the conductor shook his head, and remarked that up there so near the mountains there was no calculating on weather. It might stop in half an hour, or it might go on all night: no one could pretend to say beforehand which it would do.

By the time they reached Asham, their stopping-place, the ground was solid white. The wind, too, had risen, and was drifting the snow in all directions. The tavern-keeper at Asham, to whom Mr. Sands went for "a team," advised them to stay all night, but this both Helen and her father agreed was not to be thought of. It was only fourteen miles. Grandmamma was expecting them, and must not be disappointed. So, well wrapped in carriage blankets and buffalo robes, they set out in a light covered rockaway, with a stout horse, their baggage packed in behind them.

Fourteen miles may seem a very short distance or a very long one, according to circumstances. Before they had gone half-way both of them began to think it an extremely long one. The road lay up hill for the greater part of the way. Night was coming on fast, and every moment the drift grew thicker and more confusing. Mr. Sands in his secret heart repented that he had not taken the tavern-keeper's advice, and stayed at Asham. At last the horse, which had halted several times and been urged on again, came to a dead stop. Mr. Sands touched him with the whip, but he would not stir. He jumped up to see what was the matter, and found the poor animal up to his chest in snow. He had wandered from the road a little and plunged into a drift. Mr. Sands tried to turn him toward the road, when, lo, a loud and ominous crack was heard, and Helen gave a scream. One of the shafts had snapped in two.

Matters now looked serious. Mr. Sands undid the harness as fast as possible, for he feared the horse might flounder to release himself, and upset the carriage. Then he climbed into the rockaway again, and stood up to see if he could anywhere see the light of a house. No; a twinkling beam was visible farther up the hill, about a quarter of a mile away.

"Helen," he said, "I'll have to ask you to sit here quietly for ten minutes or so, while I ride on to a house which I see up there, and get some one to help us. Will you be afraid to be left alone? It's only for a little while."

"N-o; but O papa! must you go? I'm so afraid the horse will kick, or you'll tumble off."

"Never fear," – trying to laugh, – "I really must go, dear; it's our only chance of getting out of this scrape. Promise me to sit perfectly still, and on no account to leave the carriage."

It seemed much longer than ten minutes before papa got back, but there he was at last, with another man carrying a lantern, both of them white with snow up to their waists.

"All right, Helen," he cried cheerily. "Wrap all the blankets round your shoulders; I'm going to set you on the horse, and Mr. Simmons and I – this is Mr. Simmons, my dear – will walk on either side and hold you on; we'll have you up the hill in a trice."

Helen did not like it at all. The horse felt dreadfully alive under her, and jerked so, as he plunged up hill through the snow, that she was constantly afraid of tumbling off. It did not last long, however. In five minutes her father had lifted and carried her in, and set her down in a kitchen, where a woman with a candle in her hand stood waiting for them.

"This is Mrs. Simmons," he said. "She is so kind as to say that she will keep us till to-morrow morning, when perhaps the snow will have stopped, and, at all events, we shall have daylight to find our way with. Mr. Simmons and I are going back now to fetch up the luggage. The rockaway will have to take care of itself till to-morrow, I fancy."

Left alone, Helen looked curiously about her. The kitchen was a bare-looking place to her eyes. There was a stove with a fire in it, a rocking-chair covered with faded "patch," some wooden chairs, a table, and a sort of dresser with dishes. A large wheel for spinning wool stood in one of the windows. Everything was clean, but there was an air of poverty, and to Helen it seemed a most dismal place. She could not imagine how people could live and be happy there.

Mrs. Simmons herself looked very ill and tired.

"I enjoy such poor health," she explained to Helen, as she took some plates and bowls down from the dresser. "I got the ague down to Mill Hollow, where we lived, and we moved up here, hoping to get rid of it. I am some better, but it took me powerful hard yesterday, and I suppose I'll have it bad again to-morrow. Mr. Simmons, he's got behindhand somehow, and it's hard work trying to catch up in these times. What with one thing and another, both of us have felt clean discouraged this fall. Glory, fetch the milk."

"Yes, mother." And out of the buttery came a girl of about Helen's age, with a pan in her hands. She had apparently tumbled out of bed to help in the entertainment of the strangers, for her hair was flying loose, and she looked only half dressed; but she had pretty brown eyes and a bright smile.

"I feel real bad to think I'm out of tea," said Mrs. Simmons. "Father, he was calculating to get some later on, when he'd finished a job of lumber-hauling. And the hens have 'most stopped laying, too; I hain't but four eggs in the house."

"Oh, don't give us the eggs!" cried Helen; "you'll want them yourself for Thanksgiving, I'm sure."

"Thanksgiving! Dear me, so it is!" said Mrs. Simmons. "I'd forgot all about that. Not that it'd have made much difference, any way. You can't make something out of nothin', and that's about what we've come to."

"I've got a pie," cried Helen, with a sudden generous impulse, but feeling a little pang meanwhile, as she recalled her vision of putting the pie into grandmamma's own hands. But where was the pie? She recollected now, – the basket was in her lap when papa lifted her out of the carriage. It must have fallen out, and probably was now buried deep in snow.

A great stamping of boots just then announced the entrance of the two men with the valises and hamper. Mrs. Simmons renewed her apologies about the tea. Hot milk, a little fried pork, two of the eggs, and a loaf of saleratus bread were all she had to offer, but it was very welcome to the hungry travellers. There was some choice tea in grandmother's hamper, but Mr. Sands very rightly judged it better to say nothing about it just then, as it might have seemed that he and Helen were not satisfied with their supper. They ate heartily, and soon after went to bed in two chilly little lofts upstairs, where all the buffalo robes and blankets from the carriage could not quite keep them warm.

Helen lay awake a long time, thinking of her own disappointment and grandmamma's, but more still about the Simmons family. How hard and melancholy their life seemed, struggling with poverty and ague up here among the lonely hills, with no doctor near them, and no neighbors! A great sympathy and pity awoke in her heart. Her first impulse, when she roused next morning, was to hurry to the window. It was still snowing, and the drifts seemed deeper than ever! "Oh, dear!" she thought, "we shall have to stay in this forlorn place another day, I am afraid." A more generous thought followed: "If it seems so hard to me to have to spend one day here, what must it be to live here always?" And she made up her mind that, if they were forced to stay, she would do all she could to make Thanksgiving a little less forlorn than it seemed likely to be to Mrs. Simmons and Glory.

It did look forlorn downstairs in the bare little kitchen. Mrs. Simmons's chill was coming on. She was up and dragging herself about, but she looked quite unfit to be out of bed. Two little children, a boy and a girl, whom Helen had not seen the night before, clung close to her dress, and followed wherever she moved, hiding their shy faces from the strangers. They got over their shyness gradually as Helen laughed, and coaxed them, and by the time breakfast was over had grown good friends.

"Now," said Helen, gayly, after a last glance at the window, which showed the snow-storm still raging, "I am going to propose a plan. You shall go to bed, Mrs. Simmons, – I'm sure you ought to be there at this moment, – and Glory and I will wash the dishes, and we will cook the Thanksgiving dinner."

"Oh, dear! there ain't nothing worth cooking," sighed poor Mrs. Simmons, but she was too ill to make objections. So Glory, or Glorvina, put the kitchen to rights with Helen's help, and then the two girls sat down to consult over dinner.

"Could you roast a turkey, do you think?" asked Helen.

"There ain't no turkey to be roasted," objected Glory.

"Yes, but could you if there were? Because I think there's one in the hamper, papa, and I know grandmamma would let us have it if she knew."

"Why, of course she would. Use everything in the hamper if you like; grandma would never think of objecting, and there's plenty more to be had where those came from," said her father.

So the hamper was unpacked, and the turkey extracted, and a package of tea and another of lump sugar, and a tumbler of currant jelly; and Helen filled a big dish with oranges and white grapes, and the preparations went merrily on. There proved to be half a squash in the cellar, and Glory, wading out in the snow, fetched in a couple more eggs from the barn, so pies were possible. Helen produced her recipe-book.

"Now I'm going to show you just how to make pies," she said; "I only learned myself day before yesterday." And she thought, "How lucky it is that I did learn, for now I can show Glory, and she'll always know. But wouldn't Morrison open her eyes if she could see me?"

The spices and lemons came out of the hamper, of course, and the crust had to be made of salt butter and no lard; but the pies turned out very good, for all that, and no one was in the least disposed to find fault with their flavor. Really, the little dinner was a great success. Glory's potatoes were a little underdone, but that was the only failure. The children ate as though they could never be satisfied. Mr. Simmons cheered up and cracked one or two feeble jokes; and even Mrs. Simmons, propped high in bed to survey the festive scene, called out that it "looked something like," and she didn't know when there had been so much laughing going on in their house before.

The clock struck three just as the last nicely washed plate was set away on the dresser. Helen quite jumped at the sound. How short, after all, the day had seemed which promised to be so long and dismal! And just then a bright yellow ray streamed through the window, and, looking out, she saw blue sky.

"Papa," she screamed, "it has cleared up! I do believe we shall get to grandmamma's to-night, after all!"

And so they did. Mr. Sands, with Mr. Simmons's assistance, fitted the rockaway on to a pair of old sledge-runners, and, with many warm good-byes from the whole family, they drove off. Just at sunset they reached Morrow Hill, and grandma was so glad to see them, and they so glad to get there, that it was easy to forget all their disappointment and delay. In fact, after a little while Helen convinced herself that the whole thing was rather a piece of good fortune than otherwise.

"For, don't you see, papa," she exclaimed, "we had all Thanksgiving evening with grandmother, you know, and she had it with us, so we only lost part of our pleasant time? But if it hadn't been for the snow and the breakdown, the poor Simmonses wouldn't have had any Thanksgiving at all – not a bit; so it really was a great deal better, don't you see that it was, papa?"

AT FIESOLE

FIESOLE is a quaint old town which perches on a hill-top above the valley of the Arno and the city of Florence. You must not pronounce it as it is spelt, but like this – Fee-es-o-lee. From the Florence streets people catch glimpses of its bell-towers and roofs shining above the olive orchards and vineyards of the hillside. A white road winds upward toward it in long, easy zigzags, and seems to say, "Come with me and I will show you something pretty."

Not long ago there were two girls in Florence to whom, plainly as road could speak, the white road seemed to utter these very words. Pauline and Molly Hale were the names of these girls. It was six months since they had left America with their father and mother, and it seemed much longer, because so much had happened in the time. First, the sea voyage, not pleasant, and yet not exactly unpleasant, because papa got better all the way, and that made mamma happy. Now papa would be quite well at once, they thought. His people (for papa was a clergyman) had sent him away for that purpose. They were not a rich people, but each gave a little, and all together it made enough to carry the pastor and his family across the sea and keep them there one year, with very prudent management. The Hales, therefore, did not travel about as most people do, but went straight to Italy, where they hoped to find that sun and warm air which are an invalid's best medicines.

"Going straight to Italy" means, however, a great many pleasant things by the way. Molly was always reminding Maria Matilda, her doll, of the sights she had seen and the superior advantages she enjoyed over the dolls at home.

After this mention of a doll, what will you say when I tell you that Molly was almost thirteen? Most girls of thirteen scorn to play with dolls, but Molly was not of their number. She was childish for her years, and possessed a faithful little heart, which clung to Maria Matilda as to an old friend whom it would be unkind to lay aside.

"First, there was Paris," Molly would say to her. "No, first there was Deep, where the people all talked so queerly that we couldn't understand a word. That was funny, Matilda, wasn't it? Then, don't you recollect that beautiful church which we saw when we went past Ruin?" (Molly meant Rouen, but I am sorry to say her pronunciation of French names was rather queer.) "And Paris too, where I took you to walk in the gardens, and papa let us both ride in a whirligig. None of the home dollies have ever ridden in whirligigs, have they? They won't understand what you mean unless I draw them a picture on my slate. Then we got into the cars, and went and went till we came to that great dark tunnel. Weren't we frightened? And you cried, Matilda – I heard you. You needn't look so ashamed, though, for it was horrid. But we got out of it at last, though I thought we never should; and here we are at the padrona's, and it's ever so nice, only I wish papa would come back."

For Florence had proved too cold, and papa had joined a party and gone off to Egypt, leaving mamma and the children to live quietly and cheaply at Signora Goldi's boarding-house. It was a dingy house in the old part of Florence, but for all that it was a very interesting place to live in. The street in which the house stood was extremely narrow. High buildings on either side shut out the sun, the cobblestone pavement was always dirty, but all day long a stream of people poured through it wearing all sorts of curious clothes, talking all sorts of languages, and selling all sorts of things. Men with orange-baskets on their heads strolled along, crying, "Oranges, sweet oranges!" Others, with panniers of flowers, chanted, "Fiori, belli fiori!" Pedlers displayed their wares or waved gay stuffs; boys held up candied fruits, wood-carvings, and toys; women went to and fro bearing trays full of a chocolate-colored mixture dotted with the white kernels of pine-cones. This looked very rich and nice, and the poor people bought great slices of it. Pauline once invested a penny therein, but a single taste proved enough; it was sour and oily at once, and she gave the rest to a small Italian girl, who looked delighted, and gobbled it up in huge mouthfuls. Whenever they went out to walk, there were fresh pleasures. The narrow street led directly to a shining sunlit river, which streamed through the heart of the city like a silver ribbon. Beautiful bridges spanned this river, some reared on graceful arches, some with statues at either end, one set all along its course by quaint stalls filled with gold and silver filigree, chains of amber, and turquoises blue as the sky. All over the city were delightful pictures, churches, and gardens, open and free to all who chose to come. Every day mamma and the children went somewhere and saw something, and, in spite of papa's absence, the winter was a happy one.

Going to and fro in the city, the children had often looked up the Fiesole hill, which is visible from many parts of Florence, and Pauline had conceived a strong wish to go there. Molly did not care so much, but as she always wanted to do what Pauline did, she joined her older sister in begging to go. Mamma, however, thought it too far for a walk, and carriage hire cost something; so she said no, and the girls were forced to content themselves with "making believe" what they would do if ever they went there, – a sort of play in which they both delighted. None of the things they imagined proved true when they did go there, as you shall hear.

It was just as they were expecting papa back, that, coming in one day from a walk with Signora Goldi, Pauline and Molly found mamma hard at work packing a travelling-bag. She looked very pale, and had been crying. No wonder, for the mail had brought a letter to say that papa, travelling alone from Egypt, had landed at Brindisi very ill with Syrian fever. The kind strangers who wrote the letter would stay with and take care of him till mamma could get there, but she must come at once.

"What shall I do?" cried poor Mrs. Hale, appealing in her distress to Signora Goldi. "I cannot take the children into a fever-room, and even if that were safe, the journey costs so much that it would be out of the question. Mr. Hale left me only money enough to last till his return. After settling with you and buying my ticket, I shall have very little remaining. Help me, padrona! Advise me what to do."

Signora Goldi's advertisement said, "English spoken," but the English was of a kind which English people found it hard to understand. Her kind heart, however, stood her instead of language, and helped her to guess the meaning of Mrs. Hale's words.

"Such peety!" she said. "Had I know, I not have let rooms for week after. The signora said 'let' and she sure to go, so I let, else the piccoli should stay wiss me. Now what?" and she rubbed her nose hard, and wrinkled her forehead in a puzzled way. "I have!" she cried at last, her face beaming. "How the piccolini like go to Fiesole for a little? My brother who dead, he leave Engleis wife. She lady-maid once, speak Engleis well as me! – better! She have pensione– very small, but good – ah, so good, and it cost little, with air si buono, si fresco!"

The signora was drifting into Italian without knowing it, but was stopped by the joyous exclamations of the two girls.