The Golden House

by Sarah S. Baker

Now Alma had something she liked to talk about. Perhaps she was willing that even Nono should know that her own dear mother had been intimately acquainted with a princess, and had loved her devotedly, and been as warmly loved in return. Alma even condescended to tell Nono that it was the princess who had first led her dear mother to a true Christian life; which high origin for religious influence Alma seemed to look upon as if it were a sort of superior aristocratic form of vaccination. Alma went on to describe the saintly princess as she had heard her spoken of by both her father and her mother, whose respect and affection she had so justly won.

How the image grew and fixed itself in Nono's mind of a real, living princess who sold her rich jewels to build and sustain a home for the sick poor! He heard how she, in her own illness, surrounded by every luxury, could have no rest until she had planned a home where they too could have comfort and tender care. The dark eyes of the listener grew moist as he heard of the hospital the princess now had for crippled and diseased children, where they were made happy and had real love as well as a real home.

Nono was a happy boy when he went out from Alma's room with a little engraved likeness of the princess in his hand, and a glow of warm feeling for her in his fresh young heart. For certain private reasons of his own, she seemed very near to him, and the thought of her was peculiarly precious.

When old Pelle and Nono were going home that evening, he produced his little likeness of the princess, and told Pelle all about her.

Pelle's eyes sparkled, and he said as he rubbed his hands together, "That princess does belong to the royal family! She is a daughter of the great King!"

"May I put her up in your room, Uncle Pelle?" asked Nono. "I do not quite like to have her in the cottage, where the children can get at her. They might not understand that this is not like any other picture."

"That you may," said Pelle; "and come in to see her, too, as often as you please. A sick princess and a Christian too! She wouldn't mind having her likeness put up in my poor place, if she is like what you say. God bless her!"

Nono had a way of taking what was precious to him to Pelle to keep, and curious were the boyish treasures he had stored away in Pelle's room. It had been a bare little home when the old man went into it, but he had made it a cosy nest in his own fashion. Pelle had been for a time a sailor in his youth, and had learned to make himself comfortable in narrow quarters. A fever caught in a foreign port had laid him by, and left sad traces behind it in his before strong body. Other and better traces had been left in his life, even repentance for past misdoings and resolutions for a faithful Christian course. As a gardener's "helping hand" he had long gotten on comfortably; but illness and old age had come upon him, and there had seemed no prospect for him but the poorhouse, when Karin's hospitable door opened for him.

The lawsuit was not settled, but it was well known in the neighbourhood that Jan Persson had said Uncle Pelle should not go to the poorhouse while he had a home.

Pelle felt quite independent now, and he held his head straight as he walked by Nono and talked about the good princess. Had not the young lady at Ekero said she should need him straight on in the garden? for she saw he knew all about flowers, and could be of real use to her. Alma wanted to be a friend to Nono too, but she did not yet exactly see how. There was something about the boy she did not quite understand.