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Page 21 text:
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In Scandinavia HENRY WAJENBERG OR many years it has been the beautiful custom of Scandinavian children to spend a few golden harvest days in gleaning grain from the fields to feed to the sparrows on Christmas day. [ach little harvester provides a feast for his songsters, and the birds never fail to be present on that particular day, when a tall pole, crowned with clustering grain, is set up before them. On this festal day it is really difficult to decide which are happier, the birds who share in the Christmas feast or the children. Little Elsie had also a large sheaf put away for the birds. Elsie was not a fair-haired little maiden of the North. The soft locks that fell freely over her shoulders were of a deep, lustrous black; her eyes, too, were dark and soft and expressed such a depth of feeling that they always appeared humid as with a tear either of joy or sorrow. On seeing her one felt impelled to place a hand upon her head and kiss the plump little cheek that seemed aflame with health. She was the only child of loving par- ents who had drifted here a year since from some more southern clime. She was living a happy, care-free life in this sheltered nook on the wild coast of Scandinavia. The winter, thus far, had been unusually mild, for there had been no frost severe enough to close the harbors. It was well towards noon of the day before Christmas that the father an- nounced his intention of going to the village, no great distance off, to purchase a few things for the morrow. On hearing this, Elsie ran up to him with the request that he first set up the bird poles, as he had before promised. This the father gladly did according to her direction. A hole of the right size had been chiseled into a flat stone, and in this the pole was easily lowered or raised, as Elsie might wish. Having completed his work, the father stepped into his boat and rowed away, as Elsie ran up to the house. Here the fond mother was working with a view to the morrow. The room was filled with an odor of good things, which seemed to exert magical influence over Elsie, for she began im- mediately to help her mother. However, seeing that her efforts were not seriously appreciated, she decided to turn her attention elsewhere. For a while she was quiet. Suddenly she startled her mother by the cry, “Oh, mother! look! It’s snowing. The soft, white flakes were, indeed, beginning to drift down and settle in sheltered places. After a hasty glance, the mother continued her work. But Elsie, perched on a chair, remained gazing out of the window, apparently fascinated by the tiny, whirling, drifting, never-resting flakes. Suddenly her eye caught sight of a little dark speck far out on the sea, battling with the waves that were ever growing larger and more threatening. She turned to her mother: ‘‘I think I see father coming back. My! but he’s having a time out there on those waves.”” The mother left her work. Busy as she had been, no thought of a storm had entered her mind.
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Page 22 text:
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Throwing a shawl over her shoulders, she started to run down to the beach; but before she had gone twenty steps from the door of the cottage, she found herself caught in a gale that seemed bent on bearing her bodily down into the heaving, churning, green and white waves that broke on the rocks at her feet and covered her with icy spray. Numb with cold, almost unable to stand, and with an awful terror now in her heart, she made her way to a more sheltered spot with great difficulty. Here, in a little space, she walked to and fro, moaning and wringing her hands, and trying to catch a glimpse through the white mists of that tiny speck so far out on the heaving seas. The little craft bore up well, considering the conditions; but the last ray of hope died out in the heart of the fisher when the stinging particles of snow and ice shut out from his blurred vision all traces of the landscape. Though the little boat was half filled with water, and he himself drenched from head to foot, he still worked on the oars and strove to reach the shore. Little Elsie, thus left alone, tried to amuse herself by playing housewife and arranging a row of little cakes before the blazing hearth-fire. Her childish attention was easily diverted, and it was dark before she realized it. Then it was, for the first time, that a fear for her mother arose in her breast. But she threw some more wood on the fire, went over to the bed, and was soon lost in the land of dreams. Outside the storm raged on. How long the almost insane mother wandered about, she never knew; but it was past midnight when, chilled to the bone and utterly despairing, she staggered into the little room and sank in a senseless heap on the bed beside her little daughter. The slight disturbance awoke Elsie. She arose and looked about her. The fire seemed to have been out for a long time, and she felt strangely numb. Outside it was so bright and white that she felt sure it must be morning. Her desire had been to hang out the sheaf of wheat the first thing in the morning and now, it seemed, was the time to do it. Without stopping to put on any wraps, she picked up the sheaf of wheat and started for the bird pole. It had ceased snowing and the moon shone brightly, but the wind still blew furiously and the waves dashing on the rocks could be heard a long way off. Elsie soon reached the pole, but it was with difficulty that she lowered it to put on the food for the birds, which she thought must soon be coming. ‘That strange feeling of numbness seemed to increase and she felt dizzy after she had set the pole up again. Suddenly, it seemed, a sound of music fell on her ear and at the same instant she sank to her knees. With folded hands, she listened attentively. The sound was repeated and before her eyes there came, not a flock of birds, but a vision of angels wrapped all in a glorious cloud of light. For a brief moment the cloud hung over the little kneeling form and then Elsie felt herself borne up, as on wings, amid a host of singing cherubim. When the sun rose that Christmas morning, it spread its long rays along the rocky coast that was still being assailed by thundering waves that had shaken it the night before. Great rocks were rolled high up on the beach; masses of sea-weed were strewn everywhere; and piece by piece the great waves were tossing up high and dry on the sandy beach the remains of a fisher’s boat. Farther up the beach stood the little cottage. The door was open and a warm sunbeam shone through and fell upon the still form of a woman lying just as she had thrown herself on the bed a few hours before. Farther yet up the beach, a flock of noisy sparrows was twittering and flut- tering about a sheaf of grain that hung on a tall pole, and at the foot of the pole was the form of a little girl, kneeling as in an attitude of worship to the birds which she loved so well. ae a ee — —- —
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