Helen and Arthur | Page 5

left a household without a gift of the most beautiful,
even, fine, flaxen thread for the family use. Indeed the fame of her
spinning spread far and wide, and people from adjoining towns often
sent orders for quantities of Miss Thusa's marvelous thread.
She was now the guest of Mrs. Gleason, the mother of Helen, who
always appropriated to her use a nice little room in a snug corner of the
house, where she could turn her wheel from morning till night, and
bend over her beloved distaff. Helen, who was too young to be sent to
school by day, or to remain in the family sitting-room at night, as her
mother followed the good, healthy rule of early to bed and early to rise,
seemed thrown by fate upon Miss Thusa's miraculous resources for
entertainment and instruction. Thus her imagination became

preternaturally developed, while the germs of reason and judgment lay
latent and unquickened.
"Please stop spinning Miss Thusa, and tell me a story," said the child,
venturing to put her little foot on the treadle, and giving the crank a
sudden jerk.
"Yes! Don't tease--I must smooth the flax on the distaff and wet the
thread on the spindle first. There--that will do. Come, yellow bird,
jump into my lap, and say what you want me to tell you. Shall it he the
gray kitten, with the big bunch of keys on its neck, that turned into a
beautiful princess, or the great ogre, who killed all the little children he
could find for breakfast and supper?"
"No," replied Helen, shuddering with a strange mixture of horror and
delight. "I want to hear something you never told before."
"Well--I will tell you the story of the worm-eaten traveler. It is half
singing, half talking, and a powerful story it is. I would act it out, too, if
you would sit down in the corner till I've done. Let go of me, if you
want to hear it."
"Please Miss Thusa," said the excited child, drawing her stool into the
corner, and crouching herself upon it, while Miss Thusa rose up, and
putting back her wheel, prepared to commence her heterogeneous
performance. She often "acted out" her stories and songs, to the great
admiration of children and the amusement of older people, but it was
very seldom this favor was granted, without earnest and reiterated
entreaties. It was the first time she had ever spontaneously offered to
personate the Sibyl, whose oracles she uttered, and it was a proof that
an unusual fit of inspiration was upon her.
She was very tall and spare. When in the attitude of spinning, she
stooped over her distaff, she lost much of her original height, but the
moment she pushed aside her wheel, her figure resumed its naturally
erect and commanding position. She usually wore a dress of dark gray
stuff, with immense pockets, a black silk neckerchief folded over her
shoulders, a white tamboured muslin cap, with a black ribbon passed

two or three times round the crown. To preserve the purity of the
muslin, and the lustre of the ribbon, she always wore a piece of white
paper, folded up between her head and the muslin, making the top of
the cap appear much more opaque than the rest.
The worm-eaten traveler! What an appalling, yet fascinating
communication! Helen waited in breathless impatience, watching the
movements of the Sibyl, with darkened pupils and heaving bosom.
At length when a sudden gust of wind blew a naked bough, with a
sound like the rattling of dry bones against the windows, and a falling
brand scattered a shower of red sparks over the hearth-stone, Miss
Thusa, waving the bony fingers of her right hand, thus began--
"Once there was a woman spinning by the kitchen fire, spinning away
for dear life, all living alone, without even a green-eyed cat to keep her
from being lonely. The coals were all burnt to cinders, and the shadows
were all rolled up in black bundles in the four corners of the room. The
woman went on spinning, singing as she spun--
'Oh! if I'd good company--if I'd good company, Oh! how happy should
I be!'
There was a rustling noise in the chimney as if a great
chimney-swallow was tumbling down, and the woman stooped and
looked up into the black flue."
Here Miss Thusa bowed her tall form, and turned her beaked nose up
towards the glowing chimney. Helen, palpitating with excitement
followed her motions, expecting to see some horrible monster descend
all grim with soot.
"Down came a pair of broad, dusty, skeleton feet," continued Miss
Thusa, recoiling a few paces from the hearth, and lowering her voice
till it sounded husky and unnatural, "right down the chimney, right in
front of the woman, who