"Ach, my soul!" he exclaimed: "it is the little one. Good morning!

good morning!" And he stooped over and kissed Nelly's forehead.

"This is my brother, sir," said Nelly. "We are all done our work, and have come to see you make the a.s.say. You said you would show us."

"Ach! ach!" cried the old gentleman; and he looked very sorry. "It is one tousand of pities: it cannot be that I show you to-day. My chimney he did do smoke; and a man will come now this hour to take out my furnace the flue. It must be made new. Not for some day I make the a.s.say more."

Nelly and Rob looked straight in his face without speaking: they were too disappointed to say one word. Kind old Mr. Kleesman was very sorry for them.

"You shall again come: I will show the very first day," he said.

"Thank you, sir," said Nelly. "We always come into town Tuesdays and Fridays. We can come to your house any time." And she took hold of Rob's hand, and began to go down the steps.

"Vait! vait!" exclaimed Mr. Kleesman: "come in, and I show you some picture. You will not have seen picture of Malacca. I did live many years in Malacca."

Rob bounded at these words. His whole face lighted up.

"Oh, thank you! thank you!" he said: "that is what I like best in all the world."

"Vat is dat you like best in all the world: Malacca?" said the old gentleman. "And vy like you Malacca?"

Rob looked confused. Nelly came to his rescue.

"He doesn't mean that he likes Malacca, sir," she said: "only that he likes to hear about strange countries,--any countries."

"Ach!" said Mr. Kleesman: "I see. He vill be one explorer."

"Indeed I will that!" said Rob. "Just as soon as I'm a man I'm going all round this world."

Mr. Kleesman had lived ten years in Malacca. He had been in charge of tin mines there. He was an artist too, this queer old gentleman; and he had painted a great many small pictures of things and places he saw there. These he kept in an old leather portfolio, on a shelf above his bed. This portfolio he now took down, and spread the pictures out on the bed, for Rob and Nelly to look at. There was a picture of the house he lived in while he was in Malacca. It was built of bamboo sticks and rattan, and looked like a little toy house. There was a picture of one of the queer boats a great many of the Malay people live in. Think of that: live in a boat all the time, and never have a house on land at all. These boats are about twenty feet long, and quite narrow; at one end they have a fireplace, and at the other end their bedroom. The bedroom is nothing but a mat spread over four poles; and under this mat the whole family sits by day and sleeps by night. They move about from river to river, and live on fish, and on wild roots which they dig on the banks of the rivers.

"My servant lif in that boat," said Mr. Kleesman. "He take wife, and go lif in a boat. His name Jinghi. I write it for you in Malay."

Then Mr. Kleesman wrote on a piece of paper some queer characters, which Nelly said looked just like the letters on tea-chests.

"Could you write my name in Malay?" asked Nelly, timidly.

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Kleesman: "I write." And he handed Nelly a card with the following marks on it:--

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Dear me!" said Nelly: "is that all it takes to write 'Nelly'? It is a quicker language than ours: isn't it? May I have the paper?"

"I write you better," said Mr. Kleesman; and wrote it over again on a card, which Nelly wrapped up carefully and put in her pocket.

Rob wanted to ask for his name too, but he did not dare to; and Mr.

Kleesman did not think of it. He meant to be kind to Rob; but he was thinking most of the time about Nelly. Nelly seemed to him, as he said, like a little girl of Germany, and not of America; and he loved to look at her, and to hear her talk.

There were dozens of pictures in the portfolio; more than I could tell you about: pictures of streets in Malacca; pictures of the people in their gay-colored clothes,--they looked like negroes, only not quite so black; pictures of palm-trees, with cocoanuts growing on them; pictures of pineapples growing; and pictures of snakes, especially one of a deadly snake,--the cobra.

"Him I kill in my own house, close by my veranda," said Mr.

Kleesman: "and I draw him with all his colors, while he lie dead, before he are cold."

While they were talking, there came in a man in rough clothes, a miner, carrying a small bag of stout canvas. He opened it, and took out a handful of stones, of a very dark color, almost black.

"Would you dig where you found that?" he said, holding out the stones to Mr. Kleesman.

Mr. Kleesman took them in his hand, looked at them attentively, and said:--

"Yes, that is goot mineral. There might be mine vere dat mineral is on top. We haf proverb in our country, 'No mine is not wort not'ing unless he haf black hat on his head.'"

The man put his stones back in his bag, nodded his head, and went out, saying:--

"I reckon we'll buy that claim. I'll let you know."

A small piece of the stone had fallen on the floor. Nelly eyed it like a hawk. She was trying to remember where she had seen stones just like it. She knew she had seen them somewhere; she recollected thinking at the time how very black the stones were. She picked up the little piece of stone, and asked Mr. Kleesman if it were good for any thing.

"Oh, no, for not'ing," he said, and turned back to the pictures.

Nelly's interest in the pictures had grown suddenly very small. The little black stone had set her to thinking. She put it in her pocket, and told Rob it was time to go home.

"Ven vill you again come?" said Mr. Kleesman.

"Next Tuesday," replied Nelly. "That is our day."

"Perhaps it vill be done den; perhaps not: cannot tell. But ven it is done, I show you all how I make mine a.s.say," said Mr. Kleesman, and kissed Nelly again as he bade them good-by.

"Now we'll go down to Ulrica's," said Nelly, "and eat our lunch on her porch. I wonder what she thought when she saw the flowers."

When the children reached Ulrica's house, they found the door open, and Ulrica sitting on the door-step, picking the feathers off a white hen. As soon as she saw Nelly, she jumped up and dropped the hen. The feathers flew in all directions; but Ulrica did not mind: she darted up to Nelly, and threw her arms round her neck, and spoke so fast,--half in Swedish, half in broken English,--that Nelly could not understand what she said. However, she knew she was thanking her for the flowers; and so she replied:--

"I am glad you like them, Ulrica. But are you not ashamed to be asleep at six o'clock? And Rob and I had walked all the way from the valley, and you were asleep! and Jan too!"

Then Ulrica told them about the dance; and how they had been up so late it had made them sleepy. And then she whisked up the white hen again, and began tearing off its feathers in the greatest hurry.

"Vat is it you came so soon?" she said. "You must to dinner stay. I kill dis for you,--for your dinner, I not tink you come till sun high."

"Oh, stay! stay, Nell, let's stay!" cried Rob, who had tasted Ulrica's stewed chicken once before, and had never forgotten how good it was. Ulrica always boiled her chickens with a few cranberries, as they cook it in Sweden. You would not think it would be good: but it is delicious.

Nelly thought a minute.

"It will not make us any later than if we stayed at Mr. Kleesman's,"

she said. "Yes, I think we will stay."

Ulrica clapped her hands when Nelly said this.

"Goot! goot!" she said, "mine child." And she looked at Nelly with tears in her eyes, as she so often did. Then she gave Rob the book of Swedish pictures to look at, and he threw himself at full length on the floor with it. You could have eaten off the boards of Ulrica's house, she kept them so clean. Nelly sat in the wooden rocking-chair, and watched Ulrica getting the dinner. Pretty soon Nellie began to nod; and in a few minutes she was fast asleep.

Ulrica took her up in her great, strong arms, as easily as if she were a baby, and carried her across the room and laid her on the bed.

"Hullo!" said Rob, when he looked up from his book and saw Ulrica carrying Nelly: "what's the matter with Nell?"