People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 27-25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 January 1896 — A NIGHTS TRAGEDY. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

A NIGHTS TRAGEDY.

HE is seeking Him now, so they xKN tell me; All children she loves in His ■ft name, y In some child still hoping to find Him, \ Though ’tw a s ) ages ago that He came.”

Natalie sang this verse of the old Christmas song over and over again, as she sat one evening in the long gal- j lery surrounded by her beloved dolls. This gallery led to her father’s suite of j rooms in the Hermitage, the addition the Empress Catherine had built to the ' winter palace, and the reason that Na- j talie’s father lived so near the palace, under the same roof, indeed, was that! he was private secretary to the empress, j Natalie was a little Russian girl, and the verses she sang were for the benefit of her last new doll, who had lately come from Paris with a great many French airs and fashions. The dainty creature seemed so different from the other homely, clumsy dolls, that Natalie felt she must be constantly explaining or apologizing for something that might not be just what mademoiselle was accustomed to. In France, for instance, 1 perhaps they had never heard of Babousheka, the old woman who personi- j fies Santa Claus to Russian children. ' She wanders eternally over the earth, j looking into every cradle, and is always doomed to be disappointed, because she refused long ago to show the Magi the way when they were journeying from Persia to Bethlehem through Russia. The song told also how Babousheka is dressed like an old, old woman, with a pack on her back full of gifts for good boys and girls, and how she always carries a broom, because she was sweeping when the Wise Men knocked at her door. Natalie became quite excited as she went on, for the Russian girls and boys think almost as highly of Babousheka as we do here of Santa Claus. Perhaps, though, they stand a little in awe of her, for besides the rewards she has for good children, I believe the bad ones sometimes tremble at the thought of the punishment she could bring to those who deserve it. It seems queer that Santa Claus should

leave to Babousheka’s care those countries through which he could so easily travel with his sled and' reindeer; but, perhaps, that is the very reason he allows her to attend to his work there, for in a country like Russia, covered all winter with ice.and snow, where a traveler can use a reindeer sledge whenever he likes, there is not half the novelty about, that way of going around that there is here, where Santa Claus is the only o-p -."ho ever tries it. This beautiful palace, resplendent with white and gold decorations, was brilliantly illuminated every night, and the rooms in which Natalie’s family lived were filled with bronzes, medallions and costly marbles. So Mademoiselle Parishkin, the new French doll, was very fortunate to have found so grand a residence. Indeed, she seemed more at her ease there than some of the older dolls, who never got over their awkward ways and appearance. - Some of them had been brought from Lap-

land and the far-away provinces, and no doubt it was the way they were wrapped up from head to foot in fur and heavy cloth that made them seem so clumsy and unwieldy. But Natalie loved them all as friends, and often they were her only audience es she repeated the fairy pantomimes and plays she had seen performed at the empress’ private theater in the Hermitage. She made them all—large and small dolls —act in their turn, and they did very well in pantoinime. Of cdurse, in the dialogues and plays, she had to make all the speeches herself,

except when her cousin Sache, or Alexander, who was about her own age, joined in her play, and when he did, he made things go on very briskly. He thought the pantomimes rather slow, and preferred the evenings when they had illuminations in the gallery. These were imitations of the grand displays made at the winter palace when the emperor held his court there, and the anniversary of every important event was an excuse for a general illumination of the palace. On this particular evening, Sache came racing down the long gallery like the blustering north wind blowing over the steppes, calling to Natalie: ‘‘Come on, I say, let us illuminate the gallery to-night!” ‘‘What do we want to celebrate today?” asked Natalie. ‘‘Oh, anything. I don’t care what!” was the reply. “The taking of the bastile, if you like.” “Oh, no, Sache,” returned Natalie. "You surely remember that we had that anniversary only a short ago, high as they designed, cut <mt and painted the transparencies that, with hundreds oi little candies shining behind them, were to surprise her father on the evening of his birthday, when he should open the door of the long gallery leading to his library. But she did not remind Sache of the fact that the day before the birthday he told her that was the day the bastile was taken, and friends of liberty should not let the anniversary pass without a sign. She had let him try the-effect of the illumination that night, and in his eagerness to make experiments, he had set fire to the. decorations she had arranged on the white marble chimney piece. Sache remembered it, too, and was almost ashamed to remember how he had enjoyed the excitement of seeing those decorations burn more than he would a half dozen pantomimes. He said nothing more about celebrating anniversaries, but suddenly turning, he saw Mademoiselle Parishkin leaning in a very coquettish way against one of the long windows. “Why, who is this you’ve got here?” he said. “That’s my new doll, Mademoiselle Parishkin. Isn’t she imperial?” “She looks as if she thought she might be the mo'ther herself!” (So the Russians call their empress.) “She needs watching,” continued Sache. “I and then, you know, you made a mistake about the date.” She remembered how her heart beat think you should let me train her; she might get you and herself into trouble. Do you know now, Natalie, I think she looks like a French spy!” “Oh, no, indeed!” exclaimed Natalie, “I am sure she is not. Why, the Princess Laminski brought her to me from Paris.” “You would never know a spy even when you saw one,” said Sache. “I'll tell you what we will do. We will try studying French history.) “Of course, if she is not a spy that will end all the

Suspended her outside the window, fun, but if we find out that she is, I know how to take it out of her.” “Yes, but —Sache, sne has on such a beautiful dress. Please don’t spoil it.” “Oh, it won’t hurt a bit to try her as a spy. Of course, if she is convicted, she will have to take off that one and put on a convict’s dress before she goes to Siberia. Now, I’ll be the little Father (the emperor). You know 1 could send her right off into exile, but I will try her first in a court of Peers. Stand those fellows up in a row, Natalie ' T ~ " you answer for her. Why did you come to St. Petersburg?” he asked, looking very sternly at Parishkin. “I —don’t —know,” answered Natalie, lesitating. “There!” said Sache, “that convicts you. In the military catechism that 3very man in the regiment knows by leart, Gen. Suvarof says. ‘I don’t know’ is worse to meet tljan the enemy. For the ‘I won’t know’ an officer is put in the guard—a staff officer is served with m arrest at home. If you only had not said that!” “Wait, then,” said Natalie; “she came nere for me to take care of her and love her as I do my other dolls.” “No, you must not bring in outside parties in that way. You must speak aply in her name.” “But I am not an outside party at ill,” said Natalie. “She belongs to me and I don’t want to see her convicted. 1 believe you do.” “Well, that’s not the way to do, but you may recommend her to the emperor’s clemency, .and I will give her the choice of going tp Siberia, or with that fellow there next to you and that one next to him —call them the Prince and Princess Poloukhyn—and let her live with them oni their estates in Livonia and never appear at court until the emperor pleases.” “This one, do you mean?” asked Natalie. “Do not call this dear Pache ‘that fellow!’ My good Prascovie, the oldest of them all. But she and Catlche can go with Parishlcin to Livonia. Where is Livonia, Sache?” “Oh, in your schoolroom, you know. It is very pleasant in there, only they

must stay there until 1 say they can come back. Hasn’t she something else to put on instead of all this finery?” j “Oh! Ido not intend to take off that beautiful dress as long as she lives,” said Natalie. “She is dressed too fine for a convict,” said Sache, “and besides I think she is getting off too easy. Let us give her another choice. The knout or Siberia? Which do you choose, prisoner at the 1 bar?” “I want to know first where Siberia is,” said Natalie. “Now I am myself speaking. I do not want her dress torn with any of your sticks.” | French fashions ruled the world then just as they do now, and Mademoiselle’s costume would have been a good model for a fashionable Russian lady’s evening dress. It was in the days of crinoline and paniers, and over a skirt of white tulle she wore a lovely crimson | satin polonaise with long ribbon streamers of the same shade, and stockings and slippers to match. “Well, then, she will have to go to Siberia,” said Sache, “and I will hang her by one of those red strings outside the schoolroom window, where she can see the Neva frozen over. That will be Siberia, and when she comes back she will be a different creature.” Natalie consented, but only because she feared something worse might be done to the unfortunate prisoner. She showed Sache which of the ribbon loops 1 would be the safest to bear the doll’s her according to the laws of her own | country in a court of justice, and see if she isn’t a spy.” (Alexander had been weight when he suspended her outside the^window. And there, in that perilous situation, poor Medemoiselle Parishkin passed the night—for they forgot all about her, and in the morning she fulfilled Alex--1 ander’s prophecy of the night before. j The snow and ice that fell during the night formed a thick coating all over her, and when she was carried to the large porcelain stove in the schoolroom to thaw, the red dye in her satin poloaise, her slippers and hose, stained her all over from head to foot, and she had indeed become a “different creature!”

“She made them all, large and small, act in their turn.” .

“Why did you come to St. Petersburg?”