LITTLE MITTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1933, 7 December 1888, Page 30

LITTLE MITTS.

There is one night, a winter's night, I shall never forget. It was wild and clattery, and the windows of my little house by the tollgate shook and shuddered with the weathera»ue. After midnight there came in a handsome man, with a soft voice. He wanted to wait for the early morning mail coach, he said. He was showily dressed, wifeh a great glossy plume on his peaked hat. On his j velvet cloak, with cherry-ripe lining, was ! silvery lace. He was very easy and frank, and he pleased me much. " You must be lonesome here, old gentleman," he said, in a musical voice, " since you say you have no wife or child.. If you had a little prattler here, I guess you would be good to it?" •« Of course I would," I returned, and then we both dropped into a drowsy silence, and listened to the low, woodchuck-like singing of the green wood sap. I was the first to speak. " Mister," said I, " it is none of my business, but excuse me if I ask what' is your occupation ? " " Oh, certainly," he replied with gay good nature. "I am a travelling wizard, a conjuror, a tragedian at times. I live upon the whims of the public."

Soon after I stretched out, and was just j going off to sleep when I heard a queer noise, \ a noise like the cry of a child where my fila- j greed gentleman sat. 1 «• What is that, sir 1 " I inquired. 11 1 am doing it for my own diversion," he explained, " so 1 won't drop to sleep and lose the coach. lam also a ventriloquist. I I can imitate a peevish child to perfection." " Go a-head," said I. " Soon " he said ; and presently, if I ever heard a tired child, it seemed as if I heard one then, and the last I remember, before I fell asleep, was hearing faint cries, growing fainter, of " Father I " M Mother ! " When I opened my eyes again the grey face of dawn was at the window, the snow was clicking upon the door, the coaoh had. come and gone, and gone, too, was my fantastic gentleman ! But there was something 1 strangely warm near my face and neck. " Scat 1 " I cried, thinking old puss had crept near, as the room grew colder towardsmorning. But instead of a cat, there lay the brightest little girl in a blue hood and mink wraps— the little girl my fine gentleman had all the while under his cloak, when he was pretending to be a ventriloquist. 11 Hooray I " I shouted, nervous and bewildered. " What door name 7 " demanded Blue-hood. " Caleb Mittens, I replied, as meek before this little babe as if she had been President of the Turnpike Company. v Caleb Mittens, Caleb Mittens," lisped the little thing. " Then I must be Little Mittens—Little Mitts ; doo must call me Little Mitts." " All right ! Little Mitts it is," said I. 11 Doo is doing to be good ? " further inquired Little Mitts. I promised to "be good," and from that moment and this promise the child clung to me like a slender vine with creepers. She went nearly wild over the oddities of: the old tollhouse, the snuff-coloured cat, the brass-headed fire irons, and particularly the tall, moon -faced, old-fashioned clock. " I know," she chirped, " w'y doo make that clock stand up and fold its hands in the corner. It ain't been nice, and it's got to stay there and count ever so many before it can come down and play." I held her to the window, to see the snowflakes sifting steadily down. " 0 Mittens 1" she exclaimed, laying her pink palms together like mated sea shells. "Seel seel The world is filling up with white flies and millers !" In the window light I had a fairer view of her pretty face. Upon the mattei of eyes, Nature seemed to have been undecided, for one was sky-blue and the other a good black. One day I asked her about it. " ' Toss," explained Little Mitts, "my mamma had blue eyes and my papa black, and I was my mamma's and papa's girl both." But beyondthe colour of the eyes, and" a great big, ever so big, house among high trees," her memory did not go in the recall of the events of her mysterious babyhood. From the first time she saw the toll-bar swung, it became to her a source of boundless delight, causing her often to shout and dance with a glee that was almost a lapture. Every passer through the gate, human or animal, interested her, and was interviewed by her. Once a sheep-herder came up, with j several hundred • heads, whereupon she ran | to me, radiant with surprise, and shouting — " 0 Mittens, come out I come out, quick I There's whole big lots of great poodle dogs at the gate, and they are all in a hurry to get doo, 'tos they are all crying, 'bar 1 bar 1' " She thought the "baa" of the sheep was the cry of " bar ! bar !" which fretful people make when they are arixious to get through. Well, the rest is sad enough, and I can but make it short, for it is too dreadful to dwell upon. Little Mitts grew yearly taller and handsomer. Everybody said she would make a splendid woman, even if one eye was black and the other blue. I could never wean her from tending the toll-bar. " Young ladies," said I, " have no business tending toll-gates." "I'm not a young lady," she declared, laughing, until both eyes became the same colour, and that colour of the jolliest blue, " I'm your little Mitts for life and in death." But darkness was nigh. One fearful night Little Mitts sat up with me later than was her wont. There had been robberies in the neighbourhood. " Mittens, dear," she inquired, "am t you afraid of robbers ? You have no help at hand but slender me, and it is generally known that you have saved money, and that it is in the house." " I have not the least fear, Little Mitts, said I, reassuringly ; and then she kissed me good-night, and clung to me with a tenderness unusual even in her, before she went to her bedroom out of the toll-house.

Later than midnight I let in two powerfully built men— detectives, they said they were, searching for deserting soldiers. They had crape drops over their faces, " to keep the sleep from their eyes," one of them explained. t I turned to give the fire a ]og, at which one of them thundered— I " Now, then, old man, pass over all your ready cash ! " I turned and looked at them. Each was covering me with a revolver. "Never l" was my reply. "I had rather die than lose all I have, in my old age and feebleness." " Click t click!" went their pistols, as they slowly pronounced — "One!" A gust down the chimney drove the smoke into the room. " Two I " There was a light step. Some one entered. " Three ! " I saw a flash, I heard a loud report, an oath, and a wild cry, and then there came a swift roll of smoke. The smoke of the chimney and guns was lifted by a gust of wind from the door. I i saw a white figure falling. It was Little ! Mitts, shot through her blessed body. She had come to save her old, worthless fosterfather's life ! Then the fire flared, and the room was still. The ruffians must have fled, for I saw them no more. • Regardless of all else, I earned her to the bed, and bent over her. No one but God, who knows the vast depths that are in stricken human nature, knew how I felt,

••Kiss me, Mittens, dear," she .gasped* " and have no heart of fear, for the road 1 am going stretches out fairer and brighter before me— and oh, the Golden Gates are opening ! Kiss me farewell, dear old father —and "—the Golden Gates had opened. She was dead. I have never been able to unravel the mystery of her abandonment in her early childhood, but still try to keep the promise I made her to "be good," hoping some day her little hands may open the Golden Gates and let the old gate-keeper pass through into that world she saw in her vision.