The Seamstress Sweet.

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 45, 16 November 1929, Page 30

The Seamstress Sweet.

By

Lauretta Maud Willoughby

For “The Junior Dominion.”

Away in. the middle of a wood of berry-bearing trees there stood a tiny house. The windows were curtained with rosy damask, and the floor coverings were as soft to tread as the mosscarpeted wood. i' '

A winding path led to the door, pebble-spread with shining stones sifted from a running stream, and the trees that hedged the sides of it were closely clipped in the shape of midget steeples. Every morning a dear little whitehaired old lady . opened the door and stepped into the sun arid hobbled down the pebbled path' on a crotchet stick made of rosewood—-a bent little wrinkled old lady, her treasured youth long blown, yet still so fair to look upon that when she walked through her garden all the birds peered down through the knotted.branches of the tamarisk trees and whispered to each other, “How beautifu she is; yet how much’ more beautiful must she have been at twenty I” The fairies and the gnomes and all the elves of the wood called her tl» Seamstress Sweet, because she was the maker of all. their gay little dancing frocks, and she never scolded when they wriggled at a fitting. She would seat herself in a tiny low-backed, chair in the cool shade of the cedar trees and stitch with gold and silver thread, while hither and thither in the sunshine butterflies danced, as vivid and colourful as the satin silks she sewed.

All day she spent in the garden, until the sun grew weary arid sank to rest behind the rustling trees. And then she gathered, her silken fabrics * and trotted back to the house and closed the door behind her, drew the curtains across the window-pane, lit her rosy hanging lamps, sat down in the shadows, her tiny white hands folded in her lap. Her thoughts, as she sat in the shadows, were sweet and good and holy, so that her face was lit with a peaceful smile and her heart filled with perfect understanding. Now, there came one evening to the tiny house of the seamstress amidst the trees a little, maiden whose heart wept for her dead brother.

"Make me a gown of black jet,” said sb«. “for : I must don the robes of mourning.” The little old lady stooped down and lifted the lid of the chest of satin silks, and, turning them over, took them out one by one and laid them upon the floor. But all the' materials held in the wooden chest were bright and gay—expressions of great happiness and joy. She found nought that expressed sorrow. And she said, turning to the little maid at the door: '

“I have crimsons and jades and purples and deep carmine, but jet I cannot find among my colours.” She moved across the room, and from a saffroncurtained wardrobe drew a flimsy gown of grey tulle and held it before the eyes of the grief maiden, the flickering light of the swinging lamps falling upon its folds.

■“A long, long time ago," she said, her eyes growing as sad as the eyes of the little maid, “twelve beautiful nymphs of the mist came to me with folds of grey tulle to be made into robes for their sister's wedding. Their faces were so fair that I shall never forget them, and their limbs were as white-as. the lily flowers that grow beside. the pond. But only eleven returned when .their gowns were completed. The twelfth had died, they said. So they left her little robe behind them. I have kept.it still. She would have danced'in it, dear, beautiful-thing, and sung and-loved.” She smoothed it caressingly with her dear wee wrinkled hands and placed it back once more amid the confusion of colour in the wardrobe, stretching her arm to draw the curtain.

"Don’t! Don't! Dont!” cried the little m*id, “don't close it away. I will take the frock of grey, for to me it seems far more sad than black.” And she came close to the Seamstress Sweet; • and, gathering the flimsy thing in her arms, she held it to her breast. Loosening her own little gown, she stood and slipped over her ivory-white shoulders the forlorn grey tulle robe of the dead mist nymph. "I will go,” she said. "The night grows late.” And. bending down, she kissed the wrinkled hands of the little old lady with her Ups, and ran through the door into the wood.

The Seamstress Sweet watched aft® her as she paused on her way. stooping over the slender lily flowers, and ahe sighed that one so young should know the grief of death. Gently her little handr plucked the pale blossoms. “Hush! Hush!" murmured the wind-

Tenderly she carried them in her ares* —tenderly, softly—as one carries a little child who sleeps, and through the wood .she bore them to the solitary grave at her brother by the sea. L Close to the little white cross ah* knelt, uppn the blossoms strewn, and. gating across the still, still sleeping ata. die buried her face in her hands and wept, her teats falling upon the flowers he loved and glistening there like some marvelfow jewels in the moonlight.

Now and then she lifted her eyes to the heavens and' prayed, and sought th* friendliness of the Kan for comfort. They seemed like myriads of diamonds nestled in the folds of velvet silk.

For a long time she-knelt there, aad then she rose and walked back through the wood. So light were her footsteps that she made no sound; so still the ait that not even a leaf stirred in tbt tsres above her head, and all around the tired flowers drooped their heads in sleep. She passed on, leaving the shelter of the trees and the slumbering- blossoms. She .knew not where she walkedbut. cool, cool the night—and soft and cool the grass beneath her feet. , -

Suddenly she stood still, knee-deep in a field of crimson poppy flowers. Kneedeep she stood; and drew closer the grey, tulle folds of her robe as it ■ brushed against them. And a little cry made voice from her heart of wonder and cntranccment, and, sinking upon her knees* she stretched her hands in tenderness to caress them. But when her ' finger# touched the frail blossoms the petals quivered-and fell upon her white palms and rested there like crimson pools of blood.

A sudden drowsiness stole over het.. The poppy field seemed as a waving sea* and she swooned and fell' upon the aarth. The poppy fairies had cast a spell upon her, so that she might sleep and rest her sorrow. From all comets of the. field they came, bearing the perfumed breath of sleep. But when they drew close to the little maiden and saw the drops of tears upon her cheeks, they sighed deeply, for they knew that her heart Was broken.:'

So they took her heart and mended it and made it whole again, and there stole into the child’s sleep a marvellous dream. Her brother came to her and took her hands in' his hands that were no longer chilled as in death, and kissed her lips with his lips that were no longer white and cold. For a long while they talked together. . He told her that she must not grieve for him, but rejoice because of his happiness; that she must not fret for him* for he was always close to, her, though she might :not see his face nor hear .bis voice nor touch him with her hands. And he left her. but she no longer wept.

When she awoke, the night had given place to a new day and the sun shone high in the heavens. She sat up and drew, her hand across her eyes to shield them from the dazzling light, and as she rose, the blossoms she had lain upon through the night . rose also, fresh and unharmed. ' She looked down upon them, and het heart laughed gaily, and her lips .smiled, and she cried:. “Nothing ever dies J Nothing ever 'dies!”- ' '-

And'she . left the poppy field and ran nimbly over the moss carpets to the tiny, house of the seamstress amidst the trees. And short was her breath when she reached the garden, because she had rum all the way. ' M “Make me a frock of crimson satin, said she, “for my brother spoke to me and hade me be happy. Make me a pair of golden slippers, for I must rejoice and dance. For he is near by. though I may not see him, nor hear his voice, nor touch him with my hands.” . And she clasped her arms about the little old lady and kissed her hair and her cheeks and her mouth, and vanished into the wood singing a gay song. The birds in the trees harkensd. and even the little rabbits stood still to listen. And the wind took it up and whistled it over the earth for all the world V hear. The End.