The other boys dragged him up the beach with shouts and cheers of welcome to the new champion, while Gil, who had borne that t.i.tle for so long, crawled ash.o.r.e unaided.

"Hurrah for Jan!" they cried, tossing their caps and dancing happily, for Jan was a great favorite. "Hurrah for the little brother! Now Gil must take the second place. You are the big brother now!" And they laughed and jeered at Gil,--not maliciously, but because they were pleased with Jan.

Jan ran to Gil and held out his hand for his brother's congratulations, but Gil thrust it aside. "It was not a fair race!" he sputtered.

"Unfair, unfair, I vow!"

The others gathered around, surprised to see Gil so angry and with such wild eyes.

"Gil, oh, Gil! What do you mean?" cried Jan, turning very pale. "Why was it not a fair race, brother?"

"Brother! You are no brother of mine!" shouted Gil, beside himself with rage. "You are a changeling,--half fish, half sea-monster. You were helped in this race by the sea-people; you cannot deny it. I saw one push you to the sh.o.r.e. You could not have beaten me else. Every one knows that I am the better swimmer, though I am no fish."

"Nonsense!" cried Boise, clapping Gil on the shoulder with a laugh. "You talk foolishness, Gil. There are no sea-folk in these waters; those are old women's tales. It was a fair race, I say, and Jan is our champion."

But Jan heeded only the cruel words which his brother had spoken. "Gil, what do you mean?" he asked again, trembling with a new fear. "I was not helped by any one."

"Ha!" cried Gil, pointing at him fiercely, "see him tremble, see his guilty looks! He knows that I speak true. The Mermaid helped him. He is half fish. He came out of the sea and was no real brother of mine, but a Merbaby. A Mermaid was his mother!"

At these words a whirring sound was heard in the air overhead, and a second time the Stork appeared, flapping across the scene out to sea, where he alighted upon the Round Rock. But Gil was too angry even to notice him.

"Gil, Gil, tell me how this can be?" begged Jan, going up to his brother and laying a pleading hand upon his arm.

But Gil shook him off, crying, "It is true! He is half fish and the sea-folk helped him. It was not a fair race. Let us try it again."

"Nonsense!" cried the other boys indignantly. "It was a fair race. Jan need not try again, for he is our champion. We will have it so."

But Jan was looking at Gil strangely, and the light was gone out of his eyes. His face was very white. "I did not know that you cared so much to win," he said to Gil in a low voice. Then he turned to the others. "If my brother thinks it was not a fair race let us two try again. Let us swim once more to the Round Rock and back; and the winner shall be declared the village champion." For Jan meant this time to let his brother beat. What did he care about anything now, since Gil hated him so much that he could tell that story?

"Well, let them try the race again, since Jan will have it so," cried the boys, grumbling and casting scornful looks at Gil, who had never been so unpopular with them as at this moment.

Once more the two sprang into the waves and started for the Round Rock, where the spray was dashing merrily over the plumage of the Stork as he stood there upon one leg, trying not to mind the wetness which he hated.

For he was talking earnestly with a pretty Mermaid who sat on the rock in the surf, wringing her hands.

"It is he! It is he!" she cried. "I know him now. It is the lad whom they call _Jan_, the finest swimmer of them all. Oh, he dives like a fish! He swims like a true Sea-child. He is my own baby, my little one!

I followed, I watched him. I could hardly keep my hands from him. Tell me, dear Stork, is he not indeed my own?"

The Stork looked at her gravely. "It is no longer a secret," he said, "for Jan has been betrayed. He who is now Jan the unhappy mortal boy was once your unhappy Sea-baby."

"Unhappy! Oh, is he unhappy?" cried the Mermaid. "Then at last I may claim him as you promised. I may take him home once more to our fair sea-home, to cherish him and make him happier than he ever was in all his little life. But tell me, dear Stork, will he not be my own little Sea-child again? I would not have him in his strange, ugly human guise, but as my own little fish-tailed baby."

"When you kiss him," said the Stork, "when you throw your arms about his neck and speak to him in the sea-language, he will become a Sea-child once more, as he was when I found him in his cradle on the rocks. But look! Yonder he comes. A second race has begun, and they swim this way.

Wait until they have turned the rock, and then it will be your turn. Ah, Gil! You have ill kept your promise to me!"

Yes, the race between the brothers was two thirds over. Side by side as before the two black heads pushed through the waves. Both faces were white and drawn, and there was no joy in either. Gil's was pale with anger, Jan's only with sadness. He loved his brother still, but he knew that Gil loved him no more.

They were nearing the sh.o.r.e where the boys waited breathlessly for the end of this strange contest. Suddenly Jan turned his face towards Gil and gave him one look. "You will win, brother," he breathed brokenly, "my strength is failing. You are the better swimmer, after all. Tell the lads that I confess it. Go on and come in as the champion."

He thought that Gil might turn to see whether he needed aid. But Gil made no sign save to quicken his strokes, which had begun to lag, for in truth he was very weary. He pushed on with only a desire to win the sh.o.r.e and to triumph over his younger brother. With a sigh Jan saw him shoot ahead, then turning over on his back he began to float carelessly. He would not make another effort. It was then that he saw the Stork circling close over his head; and it did not seem so very strange when the Stork said to him,--

"Swim, Jan! You are the better swimmer; you can beat him yet."

"I know; but I do not wish to beat," said Jan wearily. "He would only hate me the more."

"There is one who loves you more than ever he did," said the Stork gently. "Will you go home to your sea-mother, the beautiful Mermaid?"

"The Mermaid!" cried Jan; "then it is true. My real home is not upon the sh.o.r.e?"

"Your real home is here, in the waves. Beneath them your mother waits."

"Then I need not go back to that other home," said Jan, "that home where I am hated?"

"Ah, you will be loved in this sea-home," said the Stork. "You will be very happy there. Come, come, Mermaid! Kiss your child and take him home."

Then Jan felt two soft arms come around his neck and two soft lips pressed upon his own. "Dear child!" whispered a soft voice, "come with me to your beautiful sea-home and be happy always." A strange, drowsy feeling came over him, and he forgot how to be sad. He felt himself growing younger and younger. The world beyond the waves looked unreal and odd. He forgot why he was there; he forgot the race, the boys, Gil, and all his trouble. But instead he began to remember things of a wonderful dream. He closed his eyes; the sea rocked him gently, as in a cradle, and slowly, slowly, with the soft arms of the Mermaid about him, and her green hair twining through his fingers, he sank down through the water. As he sank the likeness of a human boy faded from him, and he became once more a fresh, fair little Sea-child, with a scaly tail and plump, merry face. The Mer-folk came to greet him. The fishes darted about him playfully. The sea-anemones beckoned him with enticing fingers. The Sea-child was at home again, and the sea was kind.

So Gil became the champion; but that was little pleasure to him, as you can fancy. For he remembered, he remembered, and he could not forget. He thought, like all the village, that Jan had been drowned through his brother's selfishness and jealousy. He forgave himself less even than the whole village could forgive him for the loss of their favorite; for he knew better than they how much more he was to blame, because he had broken the promise which kept Jan by him. If he had known how happy the Sea-child now was in the home from which he had come to be Gil's brother, perhaps Gil would not have lived thereafter so sad a life. The Stork might have told him the truth. But the wise old Stork would not.

That was to be Gil's punishment,--to remember and regret and to reproach himself always for the selfishness and jealousy which had cost him a loving brother.

THE TEN BLOWERS

I

ONCE upon a time there was a fat Miller who lived in the Land of Windmills. Now that is a queer country, where the people look queer, talk and live and dress queerly, and where queer things are likely to happen at any time. So you must not be surprised if this should be a queer tale of the Miller and his mill and his family; but you must take my queer word for it that the happenings were all queerly true as I shall tell them.

The Miller was a thoughtful fellow, as the folk of the Land of Windmills are apt to be; and he had ideas. When his first son was born he sat down and thought for a long time. His baby had fine lungs; he cried louder and longer than any baby of whom the Miller had ever heard, so that the father had to go out of doors to think.

"He is a very remarkable child!" said the Miller to himself. "His talents in the way of lung-power are extraordinary; they must be developed. I believe in deciding as soon as possible what a child shall be, according to his earliest inclinations. With his fine lungs he must become a Blower of some kind; a Musician,--perhaps a Corneter or a Flutist. But that we can decide later. I shall begin to train him immediately."

So the Miller trained the lungs of his son. His first gift to the baby was an ivory whistle, and the little fellow soon learned to blow it so that his mother was nearly deafened. When he grew stronger he had a penny trumpet, and then there was a racket, to be sure! But the more noise he made the more were the Miller and his good wife delighted. For they said to each other: "What wonderful talents has our son! Surely he will become a great blowing Musician in the days that are to be."

Before he was a year old Hans could blow a little bugle so loudly that all the dogs of the neighborhood would rush to the house and surround it, barking. But he made no tunes on the bugle; only noise.

Not long after this came a little brother for Hans; and this baby showed the same talents as the first one, by day and by night filling the cottage with his st.u.r.dy bellows. You might think that this would have disturbed the peace of the Miller and his wife, who could get no sleep at all. But no, indeed! They were twice delighted.

"Look now!" they said, "we shall have two little Blowers in the family,--perhaps a flute and a trombone; perhaps a cornet and a fife,--who knows?" And they began to put Piet through the same training that Hans had received; which was very pleasant for the little brothers, as you can imagine. There was no crying of "Oh, children! Don't make such a racket!" in that house. There was no hiding of whistles and trumpets and bugles. When one noisy toy wore out they were immediately given a new one, for fear that they should forget how to blow. And they played at nothing else all day long but blowing, and blowing, and blowing. The house was so noisy that the neighbors did not often visit the Miller's wife. But she cared nothing at all for that.

Then another baby came; and as the years went by more little brothers blessed the Miller's cottage, each with the same wonderful lung-power, the same puffy cheeks, the same fondness for blowing. Till before the Miller fairly had counted them all, he found himself sitting at the head of a table around which ten little Blowers kicked their heels and blew on their porridge to cool it.

Now ten little Blowers, each blowing all day long for dear life, have ten big appet.i.tes; and the Miller had hard work to supply them with food. The children were not helping him by earning money. Oh no! They were too busy blowing,--practicing on the flutes, trombones, trumpets, bugles, fifes, horns, oboes, cornets, ba.s.soons, and piccolos which their father had bought them, hoping that they would be Musicians. But it was very strange; although they were becoming skillful indeed in making a loud noise, they had never yet made any music. The more they practiced the further they seemed to be from any tune. When they all got together and blew their instruments as hard as they could, you cannot imagine a more wonderful noise than that which they produced! They could blow the panes out of the windows and the leaves from the trees, but they could not make the least little tune to save their lives.

At last the poor Miller saw that they never would make any tune, because there was no music in them, not in one of them. They could never be Musicians, though they were wonderful Blowers. You see, unless they could blow tunes on their instruments no one would ever pay merely to hear them blow; indeed, nowadays folk seldom ventured near the mill, the family made such a din. And this blew trade away, even on windy days.

The Miller was growing poorer and poorer, and it seemed unlikely that his children would ever help him to earn their bread, for they had been brought up to blow, and that was all they knew how to do.

One morning the Miller went out to grind some grain which Farmer Huss had left the night before. Huss, who was stone deaf, was the only neighbor who cared nowadays to come to the noisy mill, and naturally the Miller was anxious to please him. But when he looked up at the cloudless sky he saw that there would be no grinding done that morning. There was no breeze anywhere, and the mill was sound asleep. The windmill was lazy, like all its race, and unless an urging wind was blowing it would not work at all. On breezeless days the mill slept from morning until night, and then the farmers who had brought their grain grumbled and were angry with the poor Miller; which, of course, was very unreasonable. Farmer Huss had vowed that if his grain was not ground before noon he would never come near the Miller again; and that would be bad indeed, for, deaf though he was, he remained the Miller's best customer. Worst of all, there was not a crust in the house, not a penny to buy bread. And although the children were now so busy blowing that they had forgotten to be hungry, before night they would be crying for food. What was to be done?