The Angel Children<br />or, Stories from Cloud-Land, Charlotte M. Higgins [e books for reading .txt] 📗

"How silly to mind a bird!" cried one; and, picking up a stone, he hurled it at the Dove, who was hovering in the air, and broke its wing, so it could not fly.

Then, indeed, it seemed as though her grief was very great, and she could not help wishing she were already in the Great King's palace, or that he would send his servant for her, who was dressed in the black robe, and wore the crown of stars. She often saw this servant now; he came to bear many away; but the crown of stars was not on his brow, and his face shed no light around, only gloom.

Well, Maggie was obliged to stop and bind up the Dove's wing, and tend it a little before she could proceed on her journey. All delay was unwelcome to her; for, as the journeying thus far had been in pain, the true journey was still to begin. She was so hungry and thirsty, too! So it seemed impossible she could proceed when once she had started forward. There was no one to give her a crust of bread, or offer her a cup of[Pg 80] cold water; nevertheless, she wouldn't tell the poor Dove, who was moaning with pain, for she thought, and well enough, that he had as much of his own trouble as he could well endure.

She had another trouble, too; there were some people whom she could not think desired to go away from the King's palace, and so she would tell them how they were going altogether in the wrong path; but they would either laugh or stare at her in wonder. Then she would almost have stood weeping in the road at their strange conduct, but the Dove would incessantly warn her to go on. At last, between grief and hunger, she fell sick, and thought she should die there, without ever seeing her mother or the Great King. But, lo! a gentle being, clothed in a white, spotless garment, came and put to her lips a cup of medicine, which she told Maggie, if she would but drink, would make her quite well again, and protect her against hunger and thirst for the rest of the journey. Upon this, Maggie drank it all but the dregs, and she found it so bitter that she thought it far worse than any cold she had ever endured. But, when the bright being saw she left the dregs[Pg 81] in her cup, she was not satisfied, and bade her drink those, even with tears in her eyes. Maggie drank them as she bade her, and then the bright one vanished, leaving the child quite well and vigorous. The weariness vanished from her frame, the parching thirst from her mouth, and, what was yet more amazing, she found the little Dove quite well, and she stood with it in her arms before the two roads again.

So she commenced her journey upon the road she had so long ago rejected, and soon found that the snow vanished from the ground and shook itself from the tree-tops; the grass sprang up, the flowers played beneath her footsteps, and gay birds hopped among the boughs of the trees, making the air melodious with their songs; the brooklets ran murmuring by the road-side, and Maggie's Dove cooed with joy.

O, Maggie knew this was the road leading to the palace of the Great King—the very one her mother had travelled—the road, too, which she had been told did not exist! She met many children here, who sought the same she did; and they talked with Maggie, and she loved them, and with[Pg 82] them thanked the King who had made for them such a lovely road to his palace.

At last, one day, there came the same servant who had carried away her brother, and gently, softly, took her in his arms. So often had she thought of his coming that she felt no kind of fear. He told her that the Great King wanted her, and that her mother was all ready to receive her. O, how her heart leaped at this, to hear a real word from her mother, and to think the Great King wanted her! As she lay in his arms, the servant, who wore on his head his bright stars, kissed her eyes and her brow. He carried her a long distance, sped through many a long, dark valley, and then they came out upon a bright shore, where were many people dressed in shining clothes.

Maggie looked at herself, and saw, with amazement, that she too was dressed likewise, and that the servant who had brought her hither had no longer a black robe, but a silver one, which sparkled so, Maggie was scarce able to look upon it. She had soon crossed the sea, and then her mother caught her in her arms, and wept for joy.[Pg 83]

"O, Maggie, Maggie!" she said; "I have watched your journey all along, and my sorrow was so deep when I saw you mistake the roads. It was I whom the Great King sent when you was sick, that I might bear his love to you, and make you well. Come, now, and go with me before his throne."

Upon this they joined the crowd who were entering the palace;—but we cannot enter it,—we must first finish our journey.[Pg 84]

Ruth had two sisters,—Grace and Jessie. Now Grace and Jessie were twins, and everybody praised their blue eyes and rosy cheeks, and when they laughed, people said, "How sweetly they smile!"—and when they wept, people said, "Poor little ones!" and immediately took them in their arms, and strove to bring back the dimpling smile to their faces.

Grace and Jessie played together always, and little Ruth, who was younger than either of them, was left often alone. No one ever called her beautiful, nor stroked her hair, nor kissed her brow; and when she stood by the side of the twin sisters at the gate, and the people, in passing, praised the flaxen curls of Grace and Jessie, then they would turn towards her, and, their smiles[Pg 85] vanishing, they would regard her with a pitiful air, turning silently away. Then she would creep off by herself into some favorite nook of the garden, thoroughly ashamed that she should so far have forgotten herself as to stand by the side of her beautiful sisters.

Her mother, too, often took her in her lap, and, kissing her brow sorrowfully, would exclaim, in sad tones:

"My poor, plain child,—my dear homely Ruth!"

Her father never caressed her. His love seemed to be kept for the twins, whose two bright faces peered over his chair, and whose glad voices were always ready to greet him on his return home.

And still Ruth loved her father so much, and, nestling close in the corner of the garden away off by herself, mourned that he never kissed her, nor called her his dear, pretty Ruth.

"O," thought the child, "how I do wish I could do something for my father, which might please him, so that only once he might call me his[Pg 86] dear child! O, why was not I made a twin?" Thus the poor child mourned to herself.

She had a doll, which she made her constant companion, and she played it was very lovely like Grace and Jessie; she told it all her griefs, and really came to feel that the doll understood all she said to it.

She had also another pleasure; it was that of reading. Her mother had given her many books, and she loved to sit among the rose-bushes, and read their beautiful stories. She liked to read about a man who lived off alone upon an island, and had only some cats and monkeys for his companions; how the cave was his house, and the skins of beasts were his garments; how he looked off upon the ocean, and saw not one sail, and wandered about upon his island, without hearing one human sound.

This story had a wild fascination for our little Ruth, so that she read it again and again; yet still the book was as new to her in its interest as at first.

Then there were other stories she loved to read; some about lonely, patient, lovely young girls,[Pg 87] who went out into the world alone to seek their fortunes, and returned home with wealth and honor. She often wished she might go forth in this way, so that when she came back no one should dare call her plain or unlovable. Then she longed to hold some secret charm, so that whoever she should desire to do so, should love and caress her. But still no bright fairy stooped down from the skies to change her black, stiff hair into shining ringlets, or her dark-brown skin into the fairness of that of her sisters; and so Ruth only read, and wondered, and wished.

One day when, as usual, Ruth had found herself quite alone,—Grace and Jessie had gone to take a walk, and her mother was reading by herself,—she had taken her book, and sat down beneath the shade of a broad tree in the garden. She was reading the story of a fair princess, who had many suitors and splendid gifts, and who was called the Queen of Beauty.

"Alas!" she cried, "why was not I beautiful, so I might be loved! Then I should not be the sober, odd thing I am now!"

"Would you, then, so much like to be beauti[Pg 88]ful, dear child?" said a voice close at her side, and, when Ruth looked up, she saw an old woman whom she never had seen before. She was clothed in a long blue dress, and her face was full of motherly love. Ruth's heart was filled with gladness, for seldom had so affectionate a glance been shed on her; and when the old woman bent down and kissed her, how all remembrance of the indifference of father, mother, friends, vanished from her mind, and it seemed that her whole life was given to her new friend, that she might do with her whatever she willed!

All strangeness at her sudden appearance vanished, too, as soon as she had kissed her. Ruth felt under the control of a great power, and watched her movements with as much love as confidence.

When the old woman had looked into Ruth's eyes, and had seen the thoughts which beamed there, she looked up into the sky, and beckoned to a very light, beautiful cloud, which was sailing carelessly along.

THE OLD WOMAN AND THE ENCHANTED SONG.

She had no sooner done this than the cloud began to descend slowly towards them, just as though it understood her summons, and, when it had [Pg 89]reached the place where she stood, it remained motionless.

Then she took up little Ruth in her arms, and stepped on to the cloud and sat down; and, after arranging herself and Ruth quite comfortably, she said something, which Ruth could not understand, and then the cloud began to rise, moving as easily as it had done before it came down from the sky.

While they were going up, Ruth was amazed to see how the garden and the beloved tree below became continually smaller and smaller; how, by-and-by, she could only distinguish the house, and how that became dimmer and dimmer, until it entirely disappeared from her sight.

Then she turned towards the old woman, and saw that her kind blue eyes lovingly regarded her; and so she still more forgot the home below, where, without doubt, her departure would pass unnoticed.

New objects began to attract her attention. The cloud on which they sat did not, like the others, just float over the earth, but it went proudly on, and came among the stars, and constellations of[Pg 90] stars, and she saw how many were clustered together, and no tongue could describe their beauty; and then the deep blue was ever about her, and she saw it away off in the distance, growing to a darker and darker shade, until it became like the air of midnight; while ever from its darkness shone out those immense stars, and clusters of stars.

Then the most beautiful sight of all was when some