On Angels' Wings

by Mrs. Greene

And he had promised to try; but he had not proved much more successful than Kate. The buttons of his coat had hurt her, and the strings of the little petticoats were to him an impossibility. He was a great big man, with hands like a giant; and he had a willing loving heart, bigger than his whole body, and yet the knots perplexed him even more than they did Kate; and after one trial even Violet said with a smile,—

"I am afraid father is not a very good dresser, is he?"

To which he replied with a laugh,—

"No; I am afraid father is a regular old botch." But she saw as he turned away that there were tears in his eyes.

After this she made no further lamentations over her dressing. It was not that Kate improved much, but she felt that the traces of her tears and her heavy eyes pained her father to his very heart. She saw it in his face each day as he entered the room at dinner time. She saw the anxious look of inquiry, and then the smile of relief as their eyes met, when there were no blistered cheeks or heavy eyelids to cause him sorrow.

Her father was by trade a wood-carver, or perhaps more strictly speaking a toy-maker. He was wonderfully clever, and could make lovely boxes with carved fruit and flowers on their lids; and he could design and execute panels of cedar and walnut covered with the most delicate traceries; but his chief employment was making toys, jack-in-the-boxes, Noah's arks, sheep-folds, wooden soldiers, and wooden cannon, nine-pins, and heaps of other playthings; for the town was famous for its toy-shops, and John worked for one of the largest stores, and was well known to be the most skilful hand at the trade. He had a little workshop on the ground-floor of the house, where he had his lathe and where he kept all his tools, and the wooden boxes also into which, when the toys were finished, he packed them for the foreign market.

In the old days, when the little mother was upstairs, and he knew that his Violet was happy, he used to sit in this little den for hours at a time, carving and singing; while the toys which were to fill the hearts of the foreign children with delight grew under his hands in a marvellous way. But now John never sang, and the work he formerly delighted in seemed to have lost its interest. At last he thought he would bring some of his work upstairs and sit of an evening in the window of Violet's room. Of course all the lathe-work and the coarser wood-carving must be done downstairs, but he could generally find some occupation which would not litter the room above, and which did not require noisy hammering or filing.

Violet was enchanted at this new arrangement. She loved to see her father at his work, and to watch the piece of shapeless wood grow gradually under his hand into the form he wished it to assume.

Above all, she loved to see him carving the animals for the Noah's arks. When he had this work to do he always sat close up beside her in the window; and as he finished each animal he used to place it for her approval on the window-sill, until sometimes all the narrow ledges were covered with elephants and ducks and pigs, apparently walking along in very solemn array.