The Angel Children<br />or, Stories from Cloud-Land by Charlotte M. Higgins (most read book in the world .txt) 📖

"I don't know how to do anything else," replied Cybele, the blood rushing to her cheeks; "my aunt is sick, and I want to get some money."

"Tush!—always sick!" replied the boy, contemptuously; "how silly! I wonder the beggars don't all die some day, they've been sick so long!"

"We are not beggars!" said Cybele, raising her head somewhat proudly, and preparing to move away. "If you don't want the broom, I'll take it, if you please."

The boy seemed half pleased, as he looked at her, and said:

"Proud, too—if it isn't funny! Here, don't go away—I want to hear your tambourine."

So she laid down her bundle of brooms, and, arranging her tambourine, played him some merry tunes.

"Can't you dance, too?" asked the boy, when she had finished. So she danced and played to[Pg 50] him; and, when she stopped, he placed a penny in her hand, and coolly walked away.

She looked at the penny lying in her hand, and then after the boy, who was walking up the street, and she couldn't help thinking how very little it was, and how she hoped he would have given her more. She looked at the little broom he had ruined, and everything seemed sadder than before. Then, by some strange freak, her mind ran off to the gardens where her mother slept, as it always did when darkness gathered round her, and she longed, more than ever before, to throw herself on the ground there, and quietly sleep a long, long time. During the whole day she had received but a few pennies; so few, they would not induce a doctor to go down to her sick aunt. If she only could have met some kind heart, which would have gone home with her, and given kind words and soothing draughts to the sick one! But it was not brought into her path.

When she came home and saw how much worse her aunt was than when she had left her in the morning, her little heart grew sick; and Cybele, who had seen her mother grow thin and die,[Pg 51] began to be terrified, lest the aunt too would be taken.

So, she went up to her gently, and kissed her brow, and the poor aunt opened her eyes and smiled mournfully; and when she heard how little money the tambourine had brought that day, she tried to conceal her sorrow lest the little child should be grieved.

Then Cybele lighted a small fire in their bit of a fireplace, and made a little tea for her aunt. It was the very last she had; but when she thought how much her aunt needed it, and how she would need still more on the morrow, hope whispered, quite cheerfully, that with the tambourine she would win from people's pockets many a bright cent. With these thoughts, she looked very lovingly towards the tambourine, which lay quietly upon the floor in the corner, its gay bells silent, as if it, too, felt sorrow for the aunt's sickness.

After Cybele had toasted a bit of bread, and given it, with the tea, to the aunt—had received the kind kiss, and saw her close her eyes—she thought she slept, and new courage filled her heart; she began to think of the pleasant people[Pg 52] she should see to-morrow. What a kind crowd she drew about her! They looked on her with loving eyes, and the sweet smiles played about their lips. There were the groups of pretty children, in gay frocks and rosy cheeks, which should gather about the parlor-window, when she should stop before it and strike the tambourine with her hand; and they would smile upon her, and then the elder sister, who should be so mild and gentle, would come and throw up the sash, and speak with her; and, perhaps, even she would throw down to her a sprig of the geranium which stood near by on the flower-stand. Then she was lured further on, to think of a great fortune which was to be obtained, that she might go back to the laughing skies of Italy, and spend her days in the lovely garden where her mother slept.

But when Cybele arose in the morning, and told her aunt how she was going out to gather in the pennies, the poor aunt sighed, and bade her stay at home a while, for she could not bear to be alone.

So Cybele sat down upon the floor, and, taking the tambourine, sang and played the softest and[Pg 53] sweetest airs she could remember; and, as she played, it seemed as though new tones, and words even, were given to speak out of it.

She astonished herself, and a kind of sorrowful ecstasy came into her soul. She played on, and on, and forgot that the day was passing off, in which she was to earn so many bright pennies, in order to bring home the kind physician who was to make the dear aunt well at once. She went to the far-off land, and sang of the vineyards and the soft, warm air; of the gently-moving waters, and the fragrant blossoms around the banks of the lakes. O, the moon rose up before her, and she drank from its loving beams; the stars sent down their misty light, as if shrouded because of their great beauty! Once in that land, how had she forgotten all things else! A holy inspiration had come down over her; an angel of light appeared to her enchanted eyes, beckoning her to rest her head upon his bosom.

"Fear not!" he said, "for I will yet take you to the lovely gardens where your mother dwells."

But, when she eagerly stretched out her arms[Pg 54] and cried, "Take me now," he disappeared, and she found the song stayed upon her lips, the room hushed, and only the glory, which the angel's presence had shed about, still lingered there. The holy stillness came into her heart also, and she sat quietly upon the floor a long time; and when, at last, she rose and went up to her aunt's bedside, she found the brow she kissed was cold, the hand she clasped was chilly; and, in looking with fear upon the aunt's face, she found the dews of death resting there.

The aunt was dead! Those songs, which flowed so easily from Cybele's lips, had become the requiem of the dead, and those soft tones had been the last sigh of a passing soul.

Cybele knew that when the angel had over-shadowed her, as she sang, he had borne hence her aunt's spirit.

But, O, it was so hard to be left all alone! And when the people from the other room came in and prepared her aunt for the burial; when they took her from the bed and put her in the rude coffin, the child's heart felt like breaking, and, had it not been for the words the angel had spoken to her[Pg 55] when he came to bear hence the dear aunt, she would have wept without ever smiling again.

Then they carried away the coffin into a dismal place, where was neither green grass nor pleasant brook, nor even a flower, might it be ever so little; and there was a row of square, black doors against the walls, one of which they opened, and shoved the coffin into a dark place.

O, it was so dreary a place, with the high fence all about it, and the cold, dismal, gray clouds above! It did not seem to Cybele that she could leave the aunt there. Could she only lie away in the beautiful land where the mother slept, where the birds rested their wings upon the lemon-trees, and the blue sky smiled in quiet peacefulness!

But the people who stood around could not understand her grief, and so they hurried her from the yard and locked up the gate.

That night Cybele lay alone upon the bed on which her aunt had died, and the lonely grief came so fast upon her that she could not sleep, and the morning found her weary and heart-broken.

Then there came into her room a coarse man,[Pg 56] who told her she must go out, for she could no longer live there; that she might be allowed to take her tambourine with her, but all the rest,—and there was little enough, the two chairs, the bed, the kettle and the few things in the cupboard,—were his, to pay for the rent of the room and he told her, if she brought a few pennies to the people who lived in the next room, when night was come, they would take care of her.

Now the man had no sooner spoken these words, than Cybele decided to have nothing to do with the people in the next room, for she could not love them. The father and mother were so coarse and cross, and the boys were so rude and big;—they had often refused to help her aunt, and while she was sick they had never come with kind words to smooth her pillow. Even after she had died, they had but come to put her in a rude coffin, and carry her to a dismal place, from which they thrust out the only heart who yearned for her.

So Cybele did not think of going to them. She tied the large silk handkerchief over her head, which had served her for a bonnet since she had[Pg 57] left Italy, and, taking her dear tambourine in her hand, and the poor, neglected brooms, she went away out of the rooms where she had lived so long, where she had seen the angel, and where her aunt had died. Then, after standing upon the sill of the door a few moments, looking down the long staircase, out into the world to which she was going, she raised her gray eyes, and sweetly said, as though replying to the angel's admonition, "I'm not afraid." Ah, dearest one, you need not fear when the heavenly Father is so near unto your heart!

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