Olaf; or, The Fairy Gifts.
by Mrs. Colles.
Volume 4, 1893/4, pgs. 205-210
Part II.
And Olaf was all alone, and very desolate. And now he not only felt tired and hungry, but he also sadly longed to be with his mother, and to feel her arms around him, and her warm kisses on his face, and he would have gone home to her but for the recollection that she had not kissed him that morning when he had refused to learn his lesson. Of course he had known why this was so, and that it had pained her not to do it, but somehow he would not let himself think of this, but insisted on believing her to be, or rather on making himself regard her, as unkind and unloving.
"She can't love me, or she would have kissed me," he said to himself, and with that he sat down again, determined to stay away from home and secretly hoping that every one would be anxious at his absence, and that his mother would come to look for him. While this unamiable mood grew upon him, another wayfarer drew near, and his slow step caught Olaf's ear, absorbed as he was in his gloomy thoughts. The traveller stopped this time without being spoken to; he saw before him a tall old man in a pilgrim's dress with a long white beard which almost reached his knees, and with wonderfully earnest and penetrating eyes. Olaf could not look away from those eyes although he felt as if he wanted to do so, and that their searching gaze made him ashamed, but they held him by their steady regard, and he seemed to be trying to look down into two deep wells, trying to see the water at the bottom. "What is it all about?" at last asked the old pilgrim, but the tone in which he put the question seemed to show that he already knew what it was all about and was only giving Olaf a chance of speaking out. Olaf hung his head, then he tried to begin his beggarly whine, but somehow he could not pretend this time, and only sobbed out what he had at last really come to feel.
"My mother won't kiss me. How can she love me?"
The old pilgrim showed no surprise; he only said very quietly:
"That is because you did not learn your lesson this morning. Of course she could not kiss you, though she tried, Olaf, she tried; only until you had learnt your lesson there was something between your face and hers, and her lips could not meet yours."
Olaf felt quite frightened at the old pilgrim knowing his name and of what had happened in the morning, and most of all at this explanation of it.
What could have happened to divide his mother from him thus?
He began to cry and felt dreadfully unhappy. The old pilgrim spoke again, and this time there was something hopeful in his tone like a fresh breeze on a sunny autumn day.
"It is never too late to learn, Olaf, but your lesson must be learnt if things are ever to come right and you are ever to get home to your mother, and to feel her kiss. Get up at once and cease moping. Go on till you reach a turn to the right--take it till you come to a sign-post in the shape of a cross. On it you will see written the word you would not read this morning. It must be read, though now your mother will not be at hand to help you, and you will, therefore, find it more difficult to make out. When you have read it, you will find the way home."
And with these words the old pilgrim grasped his staff with resolute hold, and setting his face towards the west in which direction the road led, stepped onward and was gone.
At first Olaf had hoped that the old pilgrim would have taken him with him, and would have helped him to read the lesson, but seeing that such was not to be the case he got up (though not too cheerfully), for he felt a great longing to be at home again, and also there was something in the old pilgrim's look and manner which even made him afraid not to obey.
It was not long before he found himself at the turn to the right which he had been told to look out for, and, following it, lo! there, not many yards off, stood the cross-shaped sign-post of which the old pilgrim had spoken. It stood up black and massive against the sunset sky, for the sun was now low in the heavens, and above his slowly descending ball stretched a fiery canopy of crimson and gold cloud, reminding Olaf of the lateness of the hour and the long and weary time which he had squandered in playing his unprofitable game.
Olaf stood at the foot of the cross and tried to make out the letters written on its wide-spreading arms, but the sun was just passing behind a bank of purple cloud and the letters looked dim and uncertain in the sobered light. Still he did not give in, but kept his eyes fastened on them and patiently tried to spell out the word. Oh! would the sun go down before it had been read? Then it would be too late to try to learn it, at any rate, for that day.
He was feeling very weary and disheartened in this dim uncertain light, and nearly in despair of ever learning his lesson at all, when suddenly the sun came out from below the dark mass of cloud and flashed upon the letters and helped him, and he saw they were of gold and that each shone out bright and clear, and that they made the word
"THANK YOU."
"Thank you," he exclaimed joyfully, and he seemed to be saying it partly to the sun and also to the old pilgrim, and then to the passers-by, and most of all to his mother, and yet while uttering it to all these he had a strange feeling that he was saying his prayers.
The moment he had said it, he heard the sound of fluttering wings, and from bush and brake, from wood and stream and shore came flocking innumerable birds and lit upon the ground at his feet, and on his shoulders and hands, trilling out their greetings in the loveliest concert Olaf had ever heard, and when they ceased, a thrush sitting on a bough near by sang a solo and told good news which Olaf had never understood till now--how every winter was only a getting-ready for spring, and that every spring was more lovely than the last, and that because it was so "New, new, new, new," and how there would at last come a spring which should be quite perfect, whose flowers could never fade or grow old, because all things would have become new, and everything would be perfectly finished and as it should be.
And while the thrush was singing, there came floating on the evening breeze the scent of thousands of flowers--of spring flowers, delicate primroses and cowslips, violets from the woods, the apricot-like odour of gorse from the moors, and breath of fragrant jonquils; and of summer flowers--roses, lilies, and the sweet heavy smell of jessamine. Indeed, every delicious scent inhaled by Olaf in time past without so much as a thought of grateful pleasure in its sweetness, came to him now, and was enjoyed as he had never enjoyed it before.
And while doing so he noticed for the first time the place where he stood, and how full it was of beauty. He was on a high heath covered with mossy grass in which bloomed a variety of gay flowers. Wild roses, like pink and white stars on their trailing boughs, overhung the ferns which grew near them, and beyond this bright foreground stretched the valley with its winding river and green meadows, and beyond this again rose the distant hills in dark purple shadow against the red evening sky. How utterly beautiful the world looked to Olaf! He saw it now. How was it that he had never done so before?
While he was drinking in the glory, steps approached, and he beheld coming towards him all the passers-by who had last seen him as a beggar by the roadside. First came the little girl in the red hood, who ran to him, took his hands in hers in the most friendly manner, and smiling into his face, said, "How nice to see you again! I do love you, for you, like me, have found out that things come right if we only do as we are told, I was naughty too, and talked to the wolf, when I had been told not to stop and speak to strangers; but I was sorry afterwards, and tried to obey my grannie, and so the wood-cutters saved us, and killed the wicked wolf;" and she kissed him on both cheeks, and although Olaf was a boy, he liked it.
At that moment the beautiful lady with the rose drew near, and looking at him very gently she said, "Dear little boy, this is another joy. Love conquers all ugly things. Perhaps it is well to know we can all be beasts that we may fear to become such. I will give you my sweet smelling rose to wear and to remind you of this. It came from Beast's garden--he who is my Prince now," and she blushed and, looking very happy, passed on.
Hardly had she finished speaking when the lovely lady with the wondering eyes came up, and she too stopped with a look of admiring delight at Olaf, and said, "More beauty! Oh, may I never close my eyes again! Your happy little face is in the great picture gallery now, and you see with me how wonderful it is--the happy, living, breathing world!" and she passed on.
Just then came tripping towards him a very young lady with a pretty face on which the plaintive look had turned into a very tender smile. He knew her to be the same whom he had last seen in shabby clothes, but she was now richly dressed and wore on her feet two tiny glass slippers.
She came close and, taking Olaf's face between her little hands, said:
"So you have learned to read, Olaf? Dear little brother, we were both very ignorant before. There are fairy godmothers in the world, and neither of us ought to have forgotten that, and let ourselves sit and mope, you by the roadside, or I in the cinders;" and she kissed him and passed on too.
And now Olaf saw the tall reverend figure of the old pilgrim approaching, and though his eyes looked as deep as ever, like two deep wells, there was a new light in them and it seemed to Olaf as though the water were nearer to the brink than when he saw them before.
He stopped and placed his wrinkled hand on Olaf's head, and said:
"So you have learned your lesson, little boy, even without having your mother by your side, but nevertheless you had her help. She was teaching it to you this morning, only you would not let yourself learn; still you had heard her say it, or you hardly could have read it so quickly on the cross. There she comes now to take you home, and the best gift comes with her."
And he passed on and Olaf turned eagerly where he had pointed, and there was his mother walking quickly towards him, her long robes fluttering in the evening breeze, her arms stretched out to him, and he saw that her face was full of unutterable love.
Poor little Olaf ran to her, sobbing out, half sad and wholly glad:
"Mother, mother!" and she stooped down, and gathered him into her loving arms, and hugged him to her heart, and he clasped his arms round her neck, and kissed her brow and cheeks and lips, and knew and felt how lovely she was.
"Why, Olaf!" exclaimed she, "what have you done to your fairy-chain? The jewels are blazing with light in a thousand colours. I shall never have need to polish them if they look like that."
"Mother dear, I have learnt my lesson," answered Olaf, "and the word is:
"Thank You."
Proofread by LNL, Jul. 2023