By and by Santa Claus distributed the presents. In her ante-seminary days, Ella had felt rich if she had three or four gifts; but now there was a pearl-handled pen, a little writing-desk with a lock and key; there were new mittens to match the blue hood; there was a real jackknife, just such a one as she had been longing for, big enough to cut things and not too big to go into her pocket; there was a box of candy and another of cassia buds; there was a great package of writing-paper, some little blankbooks, half a dozen lead pencils, and a little matchbox of parian marble. Just why any one should give a small child a matchbox may be questioned, but Ella did not question it. The grapes on the cover were pretty, and that was enough. There was a fine new dress of bright Scotch plaid, and a “jockey cap” of black velvet with trimmings of red and black ribbon; and pinned to the cap was a note from Ella’s dearest little girl friend at the old home, saying that she had a new cap just like this one.
There was a little chinchilla muff; and that muff had a story. The uncle from Andover had rashly promised to buy whatever she liked best in all Boston. He had supposed that he could guide her choice toward the little muff; but of all the glories of Boston her heart had been set upon a box of tin soldiers. The tall uncle from Andover scoffed, pleaded, offered bribes, but the mite of a niece claimed her rights. “You promised I might have what I wanted, and I want the tin soldiers,” was her unchanging reply. At length he started in wrath to return to the study of theology, and the obstinate little niece called after him, “Good-bye, uncle; you broke your promise!” But she had relented sufficiently to send him a gracious note to the effect that a muff would really be very nice to have; he had relented sufficiently to send it to her, and so peace had come to pass between them.
One more present came to Ella’s share, and that was a thin, uninteresting envelop. But it was all glorious within, for here was a bright, fresh two-dollar bill from her professor. “To spend just as you like,” the card said. Fairyland had opened, for never before had Ella owned such an amount of money to spend as she liked. She had never expected to have so much, but she had decided long before this what she would buy if she should ever become a woman of wealth.
The next day she and the mother talked it over. The mother, too, had decided what would be the best way to spend the money. When she was a little girl, money given to girls was always put into silver spoons, and now she held before Ella the advantages of putting the gift into spoons, which she could always keep and which would always be a remembrance of the professor.
“But I’d never forget him, anyway,” declared Ella, “and I don’t want spoons. I want something useful. Spoons aren’t useful. People just have them on the table to eat with, and then they go away and forget them. I want something I’d really use and like to use and think about using; I want a pair of skates.”
SHE MADE SNOW MEN
It was against the mother’s inherited ideas of the desirable, and she was afraid of broken bones and thin ice and air holes, but the skates were bought. They had such a multiplicity of green straps as would arouse a skater of to-day to wrath; but to Ella they seemed the most beautiful things in the world, and before long she was gliding over the frozen lake in perfect bliss.
CHAPTER IV
GRADUATION DAY AND ITS MISFORTUNES
The winter was a delight, but the spring and summer were even more enchanting. The seminary did not close until late in July, and there was time for the blooming of more kinds of wild flowers than the little city girl had ever dreamed of. It was on one of her fishing trips with Ned that she saw her first lady’s-slipper. She had left the big rock and was roaming about under the pines when in a dusky little hollow she caught sight of a stately pink flower veined with a darker pink. It rose from two large green leaves, a queen with her courtiers bowing low before her. There it stood, elegant, dignified, quietly at ease, although no other of its kind was in sight. Ella wanted to break it off and carry it home to show to the mother, but there was something in the weird grace of the flower that held her back. She still believed that there might be a fairyland, and maybe this was the queen of the fairies. However this might be, she would not break the stem; she would ask the mother to come and see the blossom.