Bertha Weisser’s Wish. A CHRISTMAS STORY.

BY

M. L. B.

“Lord have mercy upon us, and write all thy laws in our hearts we beseech Thee.—”

BOSTON: E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY. NEW YORK: HURD AND HOUGHTON. 1865.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by E. P. Dutton and Company, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON.

CONTENTS.

[Pg 7]

BERTHA WEISSER’S WISH.

CHAPTER I. BERTHA’S HOME.

It was a dreary, wet October day, and drawing towards the twilight. The dull leaden-looking sky, the wet slippery pavements, the chilly, cross, uncomfortable passengers, gave to even the brightest and most cheerful streets of the great city a very dismal look; and, as for the meaner ones, with their rows of dreary little shops and tumble-down houses, their reeking gutters and dripping wayfarers, they were utterly forlorn.

In one of the meanest of these forlorn streets, in the back attic of one of these tumble-down houses, a little girl sat looking out at the window. It was not a pleasant prospect in the brightest of weather, that little crowded court, upon which everybody’s[Pg 8] back-door opened, and where everybody’s rubbish was collected; but the child was not looking at the court. Neither did she seem to be looking at the sky, though the little pale face was turned wistfully upward; she rather seemed to be thinking intently upon something which occupied all her mind, and shut out for the moment the dreary court below, the dismal sky above, and even the poor little room around her.

A very poor little room it was, indeed,—its only furniture being a ragged, ill-made bed, a rickety stand, two broken chairs, and an old painted chest, near which a rusty stovepipe came up through the floor and passed out again at the low roof. But all the room was brightened somehow by a group of four merry, rosy children, who sat upon this chest, their little bare legs dangling, and their damp garments steaming in the heat, laughing and chattering together in a queer mixture of German and English, which none but an emigrant’s child could understand.

“Bert!” cried the elder of the two boys, glancing towards the window; “what are you looking for, Bert?—the moon?”

[Pg 9]

The children all laughed at this sally, but “Bert” paid no attention; seeing which, the boy sprang down from the chest and, with a vigorous pull at the flaxen curls, turned the wistful face round towards him. “Bert!” said he, “don’t you know, if we don’t pick the rags soon, it’ll be quite dark, and then Moses will be shut up, and we’ll get nothing for das Brod to-morrow? Wake up! wake up!”

The girl made no answer, but, with a weary sigh, picked up an old basket filled with wet rubbish, and, turning the contents out upon the floor, began, with her brother’s help, to sort them carefully into separate little heaps; for Bertha Weisser, my dear children, the dreaming girl by the window, and the heroine of my little story, was nothing more nor less than a poor little German rag-picker.

Poor and little as she was, however, Bertha had arrived at a dignity which few of my young readers have reached, I hope; for Bertha was the head of this little household,—the one whom alone all the children were bound to “mind,” and to whom also, alas! they were bound to look for their daily bread;[Pg 10] for Berty’s father had died at sea, and her mother, not taking kindly to the foreign land, had pined away soon afterward, leaving her helpless family to get their own living as best they could.

And the best way Bertha could think of—for she was not very wise, being only eleven years old—was, to gather the rags and papers, the old bits of iron and copper, and nails and other rubbish, from the gutters, and sell them to Moses, an old Jew who lived near her lodging; or else sometimes to sweep the crossings with a stump of broom, looking the while so forlorn and piteous that kind passengers, when they were not in too great haste, would fling her a penny.

This was a very poor way to get a living, as you may suppose; and a very poor living Berty would have gotten by it even if she could have spent all her earnings upon herself, which was by no means the case; for there were Lina, and Gottlieb, and Rosa, and little Fritz, the baby, all younger and therefore more helpless than herself; and Berty must care for them all; for had she not promised her dead mother, and were they not her[Pg 11] little family, the only ones this side the broad ocean who had kindred blood of hers in their veins?

To be sure, old Biddy Flanagan, to whom the house belonged, let them have the back attic, where their mother had died, rent-free, because, as she said, it was but a poor place, and she’d no heart to turn out “the motherless orphants”; then, too, Gottlieb was growing a sturdy lad, with very sharp eyes for old nails and horse-shoes; and besides, the housepeople often gave Fritz a penny when they met him toddling about the passages; for Fritz was a pretty baby,—bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked, and sweet enough, in spite of his rags, to open the hearts of people less kind than Biddy Flanagan’s poor lodgers. And beyond all this,—which Berty counted great good-fortune,—an old lady in the next street, who had known their mother in the dear old Fatherland, sent them every week a full meal of broken victuals. So Berty thought this world a very kind world, though her poor little heart was full, from morning till night, with care for die Kleinen, as she lovingly called the children in her pleasant German tongue.

[Pg 12]

And Berty’s heart had been fuller than usual these few weeks past; for, besides all the care, it had held a great wish in it,—a wish that filled it almost to bursting; and yet this wish was such a very impossible one, that Berty could think of but one way—and that a very impossible way—of getting it fulfilled:—“If but a fairy would come along,—a fairy godmother such as Mrs. Flanagan sometimes told them about, when she was good-natured and not too busy,—and offer Bert one of three wishes; O then!” But New York was not “ould Ireland,” as Biddy often assured them, and so, alas! the fairy never came. Still the wish held its place, and swelled the poor child’s heart all the more, perhaps, that she never told it to any one.

Sometimes she would lie awake far into the night, staring with wide-open eyes at the blank darkness of her attic, hugging little Fritz in her arms, and thinking what if she had a fairy godmother, and what if she should come and bring the wish, until all the darkness was full of glorious visions, and poor little Berty, the German rag-picker, lying[Pg 13] there upon her bed of straw, in Biddy Flanagan’s back attic, dreamed dreams as sweet as any which visit the soft, guarded pillows of you happy children who fall asleep with father’s good-night blessings in your ears, and mother’s good-night kisses on your lips. Yes, the dear Heavenly Father, who bends so lovingly from his Eternal Throne to listen to your evening prayer, heard Berty’s German Vaterunser also, and watched over her, perhaps, all the more tenderly because she had no one else.

[Pg 14]

CHAPTER II. BERTHA’S WISH.

It was one night after they had been to visit the kind old German lady, their mother’s friend, that this wonderful wish came into Berty’s heart.

Madame Hansmann, as this old lady was called by the people of Biddy’s house, was not yet weaned from the dear Vaterland, as she called her native country, and liked nothing so well as talking of its kindly ways and pleasant customs to any one who would listen. She knew no English; but the homely German, which, I dare say, sounds harsh and unpleasant enough to you, was music in Bertha’s ears; for it was the language in which she had always heard her mother speak. Berty had, too, or fancied she had, a dim remembrance of some of the scenes which the good old lady described, especially of the Christmas trees, and birthday feasts, and[Pg 15] the concerts in the Volksgarten, or public park, of the city where her parents had lived.

It was, as I said, one night after a visit to old Madame Hansmann that Berty’s wish came into her heart. She was sitting in her attic, striving patiently, by the light of a candle-end which Biddy had given her, to fashion a frock for little Fritz from an old one of her own. She was not a very skilful seamstress, and her materials were none of the best; so, as you may imagine, she was much too busy at first to pay much attention to the children’s chatter, as they frolicked and tumbled upon the old straw bed in the corner. Presently, however, having planned out her work to her mind, her attention was attracted by their talk.

“Wasn’t it nice,” said Lina, “what she told about the Christmas trees? And Berty’s seen one; but we never did.”

“Poh!” cried Gottlieb, turning a very contemptuous somerset; “poh! I have: but I never told though before. It was last Christmas,—that night, you know, I ran away from Bert. We went to the avenue, Martin Fischer[Pg 16] and me, and we saw one. It was in that big stone house where the Dutchman lives—Herr Westermann. It was very cold, and we stood upon the sidewalk, and the wind blew so hard; but the blinds were open just a bit, and we saw it! O my!—but wasn’t it jolly! The great green tree most up to the top of the wall; and the lights blazing on every limb; and the gold and silver nuts shining; and the apples and oranges and candy!—and O, flowers, too! and hobby-horses! and dolls!—and all the children dancing round and laughing! I tell you, you never saw anything so fine,—never! never!”

“Did you see the Christ-child, Lieb?” asked little Rosa, in a tone of awe.

“I saw a little blue angel with gold wings, quite up in the top of the tree,” answered Gottlieb; “only its face was turned the other way.”

“That was He!” cried Rosa, clapping her hands joyfully. “That was He! O how I wish I could see Him! Mina Schaeffer says it is He brings all the things,—only she says He will never come to us, because we are[Pg 17] poor,—and it is only the rich ones He takes them to.”

“Fie, Rosa,” said Lina, reprovingly; “don’t you remember what die liebe Mutter said, how Jesus (He’s the Christ-child, you know) was very poor, and how the Holy Virgin laid Him in a manger when He was born. I don’t believe He would forget us because we are poor.”

“Will He come, then, do you think?” asked Rosa, eagerly. “Will He come this Christmas, if we are very good? Perhaps we were naughty last year,—I don’t remember,—and die Mutter said He don’t love us but when we are good. Let’s be very good now, and see if He will come.”

“I don’t believe it is the Christ-child does it,” said Gottlieb, who had been lying quite still, thinking, for some time. “I don’t believe it is the Christ-child does it at all. Mina Schaeffer knows nothing, and the little blue angel looked just like a doll. I’ll bet you it was Herr Westermann bought all those things, and Frau Westermann put them on the tree;—only she’s a little woman, I know, and the tree was very high. But, any way,[Pg 18] I don’t believe it’s the Christ-child does it. Martin says it isn’t. They had a tree to Martin’s house once, and he peeped, and he thought he saw his mother; but then their tree was little, and Herr Westermann’s was ever so big.”

“Perhaps Frau Westermann had a ladder,” said Lina, coming to her brother’s assistance in his puzzle.

“A ladder! to be sure, so she must!” cried Gottlieb, much relieved. “Yes, you may be certain she had a ladder.”

“But the tree,” put in little city-bred Rosa; “where would he get the tree?”

“Pshaw, stupid!” answered her brother, impatiently; “don’t the trees grow, and couldn’t he cut one and bring it home on a dray?”

“But wouldn’t the policeman catch him then?” asked poor puzzled Rosa, whose only idea of trees was of those in the city parks.

“But, Rosa, there are woods,” explained Lina,—“great fields full of nothing but trees,—that’s in the country. Mina Schaeffer went there once to visit her cousin, and she told me. People may cut them if they like, and there are no policemen; only I don’t[Pg 19] think Herr Westermann could bring one on a dray because it is so far, Lieb. I’ll tell you, though: I think they bring them on the railroad to the markets, and then the people can buy them. I saw some once—very tall and full of green prickles, and Biddy said they were for Christmas trees. I guess Herr Westermann bought his, Lieb.”

“Well, perhaps he did,” answered Lieb, sleepily; “and a ladder,—O yes, a ladder! You may be sure it’s the father and mother do it, Lina.”

“And we have no father—no mother,” said Rosa, with a sigh. “We have nobody,—at least we have only Bert.”

“And Bert could not make a Christmas tree,” added Lina, sadly.

“Yes, Bert tould!” cried little Fritz, giving Lina a vigorous punch with his stout little fist. Fritz had been lying broad awake listening to all this wonderful talk without understanding it in the least; but he firmly believed that his Berty could do anything, and so he felt bound to defend her from Lina’s assertions. “I tell ’ou,” said he, “Bert tould,—Bert tould had a laddy and[Pg 20] make a kissmas tee for Fitzy, and the bu andel tould hep her.”

It was just here, at these words of little Fritz’s, that the wonderful wish came into Bertha’s heart, and set it throbbing, so that the poor child forgot all about her troublesome work,—noticed no longer the children’s talk, or the waning candle; but just sat with her hands clasped in her lap, till the children were fast asleep and the candle quite burnt out, thinking and thinking; then crept away to her place by Fritzy’s side, and lay awake far into the night, thinking and thinking still.

Perhaps you can guess now what was Bertha’s wish; at least, if you cannot, you must be almost as stupid as was Gottlieb with his ladder.

[Pg 21]

CHAPTER III. “HOW TO DO IT.”

As the days passed, and Christmas-tide drew nearer, Berty’s wish gained fuller and fuller possession of her childish heart. To get a Christmas tree for these poor little children, who had no father or mother, who had “only Bert,”—to make them for once perfectly happy, as happy as rich Herr Westermann’s boys and girls,—and to do this all herself,—how delightful, and yet how impossible the project seemed.

How bright and cheerful the old garret would appear, lighted up by the glories of such a tree as the Westermann’s, for Bertha’s dim German recollections were wonderfully freshened by Gottlieb’s descriptions; how her mother would smile from her sweet rest in Paradise upon the little pale girl to whose feeble care she had, with such a failing heart, committed her little ones;[Pg 22] how sweetly her father would sleep in his bed there under the sea, if he knew how happy his darlings were made.

Then the gifts, too. Oh, how Berty’s imagination revelled in those gifts! Of course, there must be the blazing tapers, and the gold and silver nuts, and the apples, and oranges, and candy; but there must be also—what?—ah, a little cart for Fritzy, and—oh yes, a whole row of pewter soldiers, and a whistle, and a rattle;—only think of a baby who had never had a rattle! Then there must be a doll for Rosa, and perhaps a cradle to rock it in; and Lieb must have a drum, for he so dearly loves to make a noise, and perhaps a tin sword too, and a soldier’s cap;—then he might “train” with the other boys upon the street, perhaps even be Captain of a Company: how Lieb would like that! And Lina must have a set of dishes, for Lina was such a tidy little housekeeper she would be sure to like that best of all. And Berty—ah! Berty would have done it; surely, that would be fun enough: Berty was the little mother; surely, that was joy enough for her.

[Pg 23]

O yes! it was easy enough to arrange all that; it was easy enough to think what to get; but how to get it—that was quite another thing. So, whenever this troublesome question came up, Berty was fain, for a long time, to put it out of her head. But at last the simple child bethought herself that this question, “How to do it,” was by far the most important question of the two. If the Christmas tree was ever to be anything more than a beautiful dream, this question must be settled first of all. And so she set herself resolutely to consider it.

The fairy godmother of Mrs. Flanagan’s tales was, as I said, the first thought; but Bertha, having been born in Germany, instead of Ireland, could never feel quite certain that she had a fairy godmother. Biddy, to whom she applied in her perplexity, knew nothing about German fairies; she could only speak confidently about the “good little people” of her own green island, who were but too fond of children, as she knew; for had not her own husband’s first cousin had a child carried off by them, changed in its cradle for a fairy babe,—a strange little[Pg 24] being, which never grew older or larger, but remained always a merry, silly child. Berty did not like this view of the subject at all: but for the Christmas tree, she would have been relieved to know that there was no such person about, for she had no mind to have her Fritzy exchanged for any fairy folk. Ah, if she would but bring the Christmas tree, and then fly away, and never, never, come back any more! But, even if she had such a guardian, how could she be sure that it had not been left in the “old country,” along

with the rest of their household treasures: the donkey, the goat, the pet kid, the pink china shepherdess, the painted tea-set, and the great old pewter tankard, which she dimly remembered.

Again she applied to Biddy:—did fairies ever emigrate? “Whisht, child!” answered Mrs. Flanagan; “how can I tell? Sure, the fairy folk are very wise, and is it likely they’d fash themselves with crossing the salt wather? And Ameriky’s but a wild counthry, wid snakes, and bears, and Injuns,—not tame and tidy like ould Ireland; and the weeny people could never bide in cities.[Pg 25] They must have their green rings to dance upon, and all that. Troth, though, I did see a place in the park whin we wint there the day, so trim and green I tould Mike it looked a likely spot for the good folk; but thin there’s the p’leecemen. Whisht, child, how can I tell? And why need ye be talkin’ so much of them? Sure, Berty, they don’t like it; and it’s not good to vex them.”

So at last, all things considered, Bertha came to the conclusion that this fairy godmother was much too uncertain a personage to be trusted with such an important and difficult matter as her Christmas tree. But she could not manage alone,—how could she? It was almost impossible for her, with all the help she had from the kind world, to get food enough for all those children to eat, and clothing enough for them to wear: how could she, whose only living was gained by picking up what other people threw away as worthless, hope to indulge in this luxury of giving, which few of the people around her, so much better off than herself, could afford? No, she could never do it[Pg 26] alone. Who then would help her? Not Biddy: she was much too poor and too busy to bother herself with such a matter. Not Madame Hansmann: she might be willing, but her cross, beer-drinking son, with whom she lived, and of whom she stood in such terror that she never permitted the children to come to her except when he was absent, would never allow it. Who, then, would help her? She had no one else.