Karl Krinken, His Christmas Stocking

“How did you get there?”

“He came to buy a purse, and so a number of us were thrown out upon the counter, and he looked at us and tried us, and bought me and put me in his pocket.”

“What did you do there?”

“There my business was to hold guineas and half-guineas, and crowns and half-crowns, and all sorts of beautiful pieces of silver and gold.”

“And cents?” said Carl.

“Not such a thing. My master hadn’t any. He threw all his pennies away as fast as he got ’em.”

“Threw ’em where?” said Carl.

“Anywhere—to little boys, and beggars, and poor people, and gate-openers, and such like.”

“Why didn’t he keep ’em?”

“He had enough besides—gold and silver. He didn’t want pennies and halfpennies.”

“I wish you had kept some of them,” said Carl.

“I never had them to keep. I couldn’t keep but what he gave me, nor that either. He was always taking out and putting in.”

“Did he wear the red off?” said Carl.

“No. I didn’t stay long enough with him. He was travelling in some part of England with a friend, riding over a wide lonely plain one day; and they saw a little distance ahead a cow in the road, lying down, right across their path. ‘Stapleton,’ said my master, ‘let us clear that cow.’ ‘Can’t your servant do that?’ said Mr. Stapleton. ‘Do what?’ said my master. ‘Clear that beast from the road,’ said his friend. ‘Pshaw!’ said my master,—‘I mean, let us clear her at a bound. Leave her in quiet possession of the road, and we take an air-line over her back.’ ‘Suppose she took a stupid notion to get out of our way just as we are in hers?’ said Mr. Stapleton. ‘I don’t suppose anything of the kind,’ said my master; ‘we shall be too quick for her.’ With that they put spurs to their horses, but it happened that Mr. Stapleton’s horse got the start and was a little ahead. He cleared the cow well enough, but, unluckily it gave her an impression that just where she was it was a poor place to be; and she was throwing up her hind legs at the very minute my master came to take the leap. He was flung over and over, he and his horse, over and under each other—I don’t know how. I only know my master was killed.

“His friend and his servant picked him up and laid him by the roadside; and while Mr. Stapleton went full speed to the nearest town to get help, the other stayed behind to take care of his master, and do what could be done for him. But he very soon found that nothing could be done for him; and then, as nobody was in sight, he took the opportunity to do what he could for himself, by rifling his master’s pockets. He pulled out several things which I suppose he didn’t dare to keep, for he put them back again after a careful look at them, and after carefully taking off some seals from the watch-chain. I did not fare so well. He had me in his hands a long time, taking out and putting in silver and gold pieces,—afraid to keep too much, and not willing to leave a crown that might be kept safely; when a sudden step heard near, and the bursting out of a loud whistle, startled him. He jumped as if he had been shot; which was natural enough, as he was running a pretty good chance of getting hanged. I was dropped, or thrown behind him, in the grass; and before the countryman who came up had done asking questions, the horses of Mr. Stapleton and assistants were seen over the rising ground. They carried away my unfortunate first master, and left me in the grass.

“I knew I shouldn’t stay there long, but I was found sooner than I hoped. Before the evening had closed in, the sun was shining yet, I heard the tread of light feet,—somebody nearing the road and then crossing it. In crossing, this somebody came just upon me; and a kind sunbeam touching one of my silver points, I embraced the opportunity to shine as hard as I could. People say it is dangerous to have bright parts; I am sure I never found it out. I shone so she could not help seeing me. It was a girl about fifteen or sixteen years old: a slim figure, very tidy in her dress, with light brown hair nicely put back from her face; and her face a very quiet, sweet one. She looked at me, inside and out, looked up and down the road, as if to see where I had come from, and finally put me in her pocket. I was very glad nobody was in sight anywhere, for I knew by her face she would have given me up directly. She left the road then, and went on over the common, which was a wide, lonely, barren plain, grass-grown, and with here and there a bunch of bushes, or a low stunted tree. She was going after her cows, to bring them home; and presently, seeing them in the distance, she stood still and began to call them.”

“How did she call them?” said Carl.

“‘Cuff, cuff, cuff!’ That was while they were a good way off; when they came near,—‘Sukey’ and ‘Bessie,’ and ‘Jenny.’”

“And did they come when she called?”

“Left off eating as soon as they heard her; and then, when they had looked a little while to make sure it was she, they walked off slowly to come up to her.”

“How many cows were there?” said Carl.

“Sukey was a great black cow, and always marched first. Dolly was a beautiful red cow, and always was second. Three more came after her in a line, and when they got up with their little mistress she set off to go home, and the whole five of them followed gravely in order.

“The common was smooth and wide, not much broken with ups and downs and little footpaths—or cow-paths—tracking it in all directions. We wound along, my mistress and the cows, and I in my mistress’s pocket, through one and another of these; passing nothing in the shape of a house but a huge gloomy-looking building at some distance, which I afterwards found was a factory. A little way beyond this, not more than a quarter of a mile, we came to a small brown house, with one or two out-buildings. The house stood in a little field, and the outbuildings in another little field, close beside this one. Everything was small; house, and barn, and shed, and cow-field, and garden-field; but it was all snug, and neat, too.

“My little mistress—for she was slender, fair, and good, and such people we always call little–”

“But she wasn’t large, was she?” said Carl.

“She was not as large as if she had been grown up, but no more was she little for fifteen or sixteen. She was just right. She opened a gate of the barnyard, and held it while all the five cows marched slowly in, looking around them as if they expected to see some change made in the arrangements since they had gone out in the morning. But the old shed and manger stood just where they had left them, and Sukey stopped quietly in the middle of the barnyard and began to chew the cud, and Dolly and Bessie and Beauty took their stand in different places after her example; while Whiteface went off to see if she could find something in the mangers. She was an old cow that never had enough.”

“Was Beauty a handsome cow?” said Carl.

“No, she was the ugliest one of the whole set; one of her horns was broken, and the other lopped down directly over her left eye.”

“What was she called Beauty for, then?”

“Why, I heard say that she was a very pretty calf, and was named then in her youth; but when she grew older she took to fighting, and broke one of her horns, and the other horn bent itself down just in the wrong place. There is no knowing, while they are little, how calves or children will turn out.

“When their mistress had shut the gate upon the five cows, she opened another small gate in the fence of the field where the house stood; and there she went in, through two beds of roses and sweet herbs that were on each side of the narrow walk, up to the door. That stood open to let her in.

“It was the nicest place you ever saw. A clean scrubbed floor, with a thick coarse piece of carpet covering the middle of it; a dark wooden table and wooden chairs, nice and in their places, only one chair stood on the hearth, as if somebody had just left it. There was a big, wide, comfortable fire-place, with a fire burning in it, and over the fire hung a big iron tea-kettle, in the very midst of the flames, and singing already. On each side of the chimney brown wooden cupboards filled up the whole space from the floor to the ceiling. All tidy and clean. The hearth looked as if you might have baked cakes on it.

“The girl stood a minute before the fire, and then went to the inner door and called, ‘Mother!’

“A pleasant voice from somewhere said, ‘Here!’

“‘In the milk-room?’

“‘Yes!’

“And my little mistress went along a short passage—brown it was, walls, and floor, and all, even the beams overhead—to the milk-room; and that was brown, too, and as sweet as a rose.

“‘Mother, why did you put on the tea-kettle?’

“‘’Cause I wanted to have some tea, dear.’

“‘But I would have done it.’

“‘Yes, honey, I know. You’ve quite enough to do.’

“‘Look here what I’ve found, mother.’

“‘Can’t look at anything, daughter. Go along and milk and I will hear you at tea-time.’

“Then my little mistress took up the pails, and went out by another way, through another gate that opened directly into the cows’ yard; and there she stripped the yellow sweet milk into the pails, from every one of the five cows she had driven home. Not one of them but loved to be milked by her hand; they enjoyed it, every cow of them; standing quiet and sleepily munching the cud, except when now and then one of them would throw back her head furiously at some fly on her side; and then my mistress’s soft voice would say,—

“‘So, Beauty!’

“And Beauty was as good as possible to her, though I have heard that other people did not find her so.

“Mrs. Meadow took the milk-pails at the dairy door, and my mistress came back into the kitchen to get tea. She put up a leaf of the brown table and set a tray on it, and out of one of the cupboards she fetched two tea-cups and saucers; so I knew there were no more in the family. Then two little blue-edged plates and horn-handled knives, and the rest of the things; and when the tea was made she dressed up the fire, and stood looking at it and the tea-table by turns, till her mother showed herself at the door, and came in taking off her apron. She was the nicest-looking woman you ever saw.”

“She wasn’t as nice as my mother,” said Carl.

“Mrs. Krinken never was half so nice. She was the best-natured, cheerfullest, pleasantest-faced woman you could find, as bright as one of her own red apples.”

“Mine are bright,” said Carl.