The old man fixed upon him a fiery eye. “Don’t meddle with that, boy!” said he, in a severe tone: “nobody can touch those drops safely but myself. That is water from the stream of Time.”
“And these?” asked Thekla, pointing to the second jar.
“Those are what you know as ‘moments,’” was the reply. “They are really the dust of dead years, though somebody or other has given them the name of ‘sands of Time.’ Pretty things they are, but they won’t keep. Everybody in the world can have one at a time, but nobody can lay up a stock for next day. I’m the only person to whom that is allowed.”
Just then a naughty idea entered into Max’s head. “We’ll see whether that is true,” he muttered; and, watching till the old man’s back was turned, he plunged his fingers into the jar, stole a double handful of the sand, and hid it in the tin can which was slung to his side, and in which his dinner and Thekla’s had been. Old Time was too busy to heed him. Pretty soon after, Max took Thekla’s hand, and, without saying “Good-by,” dragged her away down the narrow path towards home. It was almost nightfall when at last they got there.
It was not till after supper when Grandfather had gone to bed that Max confessed what he had done. Thekla felt dreadfully about it; but he wouldn’t say he was sorry, and was sitting by the fire letting the shining particles drift through his fingers, when suddenly voices were heard out of doors as if a large company was approaching. He had just time to hurry the can into a safe hiding-place when the latch rattled, the door flew open, and in long procession streamed in the very figures they had seen that afternoon in the wood.
No longer lifeless however, but angry, noisy, reproachful. “Ah, little thief!” cried January. “Where are the stolen moments?”
“Yes,” shouted March, a blustering fellow with wild hair and eyes. “Where’s the third finger of my left hand? Where are my Brother February’s thumb-nail and right ear-tip?”
“And my roses,” wept June, a fair young woman. “See, I ought to have a whole lap full, and there are only five. Oh, naughty, naughty boy!”
“And my holly sprig?” vociferated December. “Who’s to know which I am without it? Not a child in the world will hang up his stocking at the right time.”
“Didn’t you know,” sobbed April, “that the jar only held just enough to make us complete, and no more? And here all of us but January are ugly, maimed creatures, and the New Year will be so disgusted with us.”