The Golden House

by Sarah S. Baker

Nono felt as if common Swedish words were hardly fit to express his thankfulness, so he astonished Alma by dropping on one knee and kissing her hand, as he had seen "a courtier saluting a queen" in a "history book" he studied at school.

Old Pelle, meanwhile, was looking on with the sharp twinkle in his eye with which he watched many of Alma's proceedings. She knew he had been consulting-architect as to the little cottage, but she could not help calling on him now to admire it, saying, "Is it not a beauty, and just like Karin's home?"

Pelle leaned on his rake as he stood, and answered, "It is like it, and it is not like it. People's faces can look like them even when they are dead. That is a kind of a dead house to me with the door tight shut. That isn't the way at the cottage. The door is always open, in a way, there. It says, 'Come in; you're welcome.' If the Master up there," and he raised his thin finger towards the skies, "was to say to Karin, 'Where is the guest-room?' she'd likely point to the house, all one great room inside. She'd make a mistake, though. Her guest-room is in here, where she let the Master in long ago." Pelle laid his hand on his breast, where he supposed his honest old heart to be beating. He may not have located it right physiologically, but something whispered to Alma that the old man spoke the truth as he added emphatically, "The guest-room is the heart, to my thinking; and when the right Guest gets in there, sharing is easy, and a man or a woman grows free and friendly like."

Pelle began to work very diligently, raking the newly-cut grass as if he had had his say in the matter and had no more time for talking.

Alma went into the house with the savings-bank in her hand. A savings-bank it proved to be as the months went on, with a very strong draught down the little chimney. Alma had been in earnest when she had said she meant to be economical. Her firm will was now set in that direction. Coin after coin was dropped into the chimney, as swallow after swallow sinks into similar quarters when a summer night comes on. The accumulating store lay in secrecy and in stillness, save when Alma now and then made the little house shake as if an earthquake threatened it with destruction, while she listened delightedly to the jingling and rattling within. She wished often that she had asked Nono to make real windows with glass in them, through which she might have feasted on her treasure. She did not like those little black pasteboards based with white, and the pots of flowers painted behind them to simulate Karin's geraniums.

Every Saturday evening Pelle came to be paid for his labours of the week. His gains were duly handed over to Karin, and then Pelle went to his little room, where he walked up and down, holding his head as high as the ceiling would permit, in the comfortable consciousness that he had turned his back on the poorhouse, and yet was not a burden at the cottage.

The colonel had provided the money for Pelle from the first, and now Alma had asked him to do the same for Nono, as she had something particular in view for which she was saving all she could spare. The colonel looked inquiringly, but received no answer to his questioning glance. He was accustomed to Alma's having her plans and her whims and fancies; and as they generally did no harm, he was not in the habit of examining particularly into them. It would even be a pleasure to him to pay Nono's wages personally. He liked the little brown boy who made him think of the sunny south, and could not pass him in the garden without giving him a pleasant word or a friendly nod. It pleased him to think there would now be a new link between them. A silver link it proved in a small way to Nono, who had no reason to complain of the change. The little Italian did, however, half realize that Miss Alma did not notice him quite in the same way as at first; but he was thankful for the friendliness of the past, for his pleasant home, and for steady work, and life was very bright to him now that the twins were more his protectors than his tyrants.

Frans was not at all pleased with the new system of economy. Alma had always been ready to give or to lend to him from her own private purse when he was "short of money," for the construction of his machines or for any of his various undertakings. She had often scolded him for being thriftless and reckless, but had been as liberal with her loans and gifts as with her reproaches. He was fairly astonished when his birthday came round to receive from her an old book of her own, with the fly-leaf torn out, and an inscription written on the title-page, "Frans. From his devoted sister."

"Much devoted!" he said with a shrug, as he looked at his present, a nicely-bound book, truly, and containing much good advice, but conveyed in such long words and long sentences and such very small print that Alma herself had never been able to read it. "What's got into you, Alma?" he added hastily; "you seem to be drawing off from me, every way, as fast as you can. I wonder if you will stop calling me Frans one of these days, and pretend you are no sister of mine. You know I don't care for this thing! I'm not much of a reader, any way, and books are not much in my line, unless they are about travels or machines or something that grows or crawls. You are all the sister I have, and I wish sometimes you would find it out!"

Frans did not wait for an answer, but ran off to thank the housekeeper for the big cake she had made for him, and the flower-decked table on which it had been placed. He wanted to thank his father, too, for the neat little cupboard that had been placed in his room for his cabinet, with lock and key, glass doors, and plenty of shelves, just as he would have wished it.