Helen and Arthur | Page 5

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 cried out, while she turned her wheel round and round with her bobbin, 'What makes your feet so big, my friend?' 'Traveling long journeys. Traveling long journeys,' replied the skeleton feet, and again the woman sang--
'Oh! if I'd good company--if I'd good company, Oh! how happy should I be!'
Rattle--rattle went something in the chimney, and down came a pair of little mouldering ankles. 'What makes your ankles so small?' asked the woman. 'Worm-eaten, worm-eaten,' answered the mouldering ankles, and the wheel went