the windmiller’s words come true.—the red shawl.—in the clouds.—nursing v. pig-minding.—the round-house.—the miller’s thumb.
strange to say, the windmiller’s idea came true in time,—the foster-child was the favorite.
he was the youngest of the family, for the mother had no more children. this goes for something.
then, when she had once got over her repugnance to adopting him, he did do much to heal the old grief, and to fill the empty place in her heart as well as in the cradle.
he was a frail, fretful little creature, with a very red face just fading into yellow, about as much golden down on his little pate as would furnish a moth with plumage, and eyes like sloe-berries. it was fortunate rather than otherwise that he was so ailing for some weeks that the good wife’s anxieties came over again, and, in the triumph of being this time successful, much of the bitterness of the old loss passed away.
in a month’s time he looked healthy, if not absolutely handsome. the windmiller’s wife, indeed, protested that he was lovely, and she never wearied of marvelling at the unnatural conduct of those who had found it in their hearts to intrust so sweet a child to the care of strangers; though it must be confessed that nothing would have pleased her less than the arrival of two doting and conscientious parents to reclaim him.
indeed, pity had much to do with the large measure of love that she gave to the deserted child. a meaner sentiment, too, was not quite without its influence in the predominance which he gradually gained over his foster brothers and sisters. there was little enough to be proud of in all that could be guessed as to his parentage (the windmiller knew nothing), but there was scope for any amount of fancy; and if the child displayed any better manners or talents than the other children, mrs. lake would purse her lips, and say, with a somewhat shabby pride,—
“anybody may see ’tis gentry born.”
“i’ve been thinking,” said the windmiller, one day, “that if that there woman weren’t the mother, ’tis likely the mother’s dead.”
“’tis likely, too,” said his wife; and her kindness abounded the more towards the motherless child. little abel was nurse-boy to it, as he had been to his sister. not much more than a baby himself, he would wrap an old shawl round the baby who was quite a baby, stagger carefully out at the door, and drop dexterously—baby uppermost—on to the short, dry grass that lay for miles about the mill.
the shawl was a special shawl, though old. it was red, and the bright color seemed to take the child’s fancy; he was never so good as when playing upon the gay old rag. his black eyes would sparkle, and his tiny fingers clutch at it, when the mother put it about him as he swayed in abel’s courageous grasp. and then abel would spread it for him, like an eastern prayer carpet, under the shadow of the old mill.
little need had he of any medicine, when the fresh strong air that blew about the downs was filling his little lungs for most of the day. little did he want toys, as he lay on his red shawl gazing upwards hour by hour, with abel to point out every change in their vast field of view.
it is a part of a windmiller’s trade to study the heavens, and abel may have inherited a taste for looking skywards. then, on these great open downs there is so much sky to be seen, you can hardly help seeing it, and there is not much else to look at. had they lived in a village street, or even a lane, abel and his charge might have taken to other amusements,—to games, to grubbing in hedges, or amid the endless treasures of ditches. but as it was, they lay hour after hour and looked at the sky, as at an open picture-book with ever-changing leaves.
“look ’ee here!” the nurse-boy would cry. “see to the crows, the pretty black crows! eh, there be a lapwing! lap-py, lap-py, lap-py, there he go! janny catch un!”
“look ’ee here!” the nurse-boy would cry
and the baby would stretch his arms responsive to abel’s expressive signs, and cry aloud for the vanishing bird.
if no living creature crossed the ether, there were the clouds. sometimes a long triangular mass of small white fleecy clouds would stretch across half the heavens, having its shortest side upon the horizon, and its point at the zenith, where one white fleece seemed to be leading a gradually widening flock across the sky.
“see then!” the nurse-boy would cry. “see to the pretty sheep up yonder! janny mind un! so! so!”
and if some small gray scud, floating lower, ran past the far-away cirrus, abel would add with a quaint seriousness, “’tis the sheep-dog. how he runs then! bow-wow!”
at sunset such a flock wore golden fleeces, and to them, and to the crimson hues about them, the little jan stretched his fingers, and crowed, as if he would have clutched the western sky as he clutched his own red shawl.
but abel was better pleased when, in the dusk, the flock became dark gray.
“they be master salter’s pigs now,” said he. for pigs in abel’s native place were both plentiful and black; and he had herded master salter’s flock (five and twenty black, and three spotted) for a whole month before his services were required as nurse-boy to his sister.
but for the coming of the new baby, he would probably have gone back to the pigs. and he preferred babies. a baby demands attention as well as a herd of pigs, but you can get it home. it does not run off in twenty-eight different directions, just when you think you have safely turned the corner into the village.
master salter’s swine suffered neglect at the hands of several successors to the office abel had held, and master salter—whilst alluding to these in indignant terms as “young varments,” “gallus-birds,” and so forth—was pleased to express his regret that the gentle and trustworthy abel had given up pig-minding for nursing.
the pigs’ loss was the baby’s gain. no tenderer or more careful nurse could the little jan have had. and he throve apace.
the windmiller took more notice of him than he had been wont to do of his own children in their babyhood. he had never been a playful or indulgent father, but he now watched with considerable interest the child who, all unconsciously, was bringing in so much “grist to the mill.”
when the weather was not fine enough for them to be out of doors, abel would play with his charge in the round-house, and the windmiller never drove him out of the mill, as at one time he would have done. now and then, too, he would pat the little jan’s head, and bestow a word of praise on his careful guardian.
it may be well, by-the-by, to explain what a round-house is. some of the brick or tower mills widen gradually and evenly to the base. others widen abruptly at the lowest story, which stands out all round at the bottom of the mill, and has a roof running all round too. the projection is, in fact, an additional passage, encircling the bottom story of the windmill. it is the round-house. if you take a pill-box to represent the basement floor of a tower-mill, and then put another pill-box two or three sizes larger over it, you have got the circular passage between the two boxes, and have added a round-house to the mill. the round-house is commonly used as a kind of store-room.
abel lake’s windmill had no separate dwelling-house. his grandfather had built the windmill, and even his father had left it to the son to add a dwelling-house, when he should perhaps have extended his resources by a bit of farming or some other business, such as windmillers often add to their trade proper. but that calamity of the broken sails had left abel lake no power for further outlay for many years, and he had to be content to live in the mill.
the dwelling-room was the inner part of the basement floor. near the door which led from this into the round-house was the ladder leading to the next story, and close by that the opening through which the sacks of grain were drawn up above. the story above the basement held the millstones and the “smutting” machine, for cleaning dirty wheat. the next above that held the dressing machine, in which the bran was separated from the flour. in the next above that were the corn-bins. to the next above that the grain was drawn up from the basement in the first instance. the top story of all held the machinery connected with the turning of the sails. ladders led from story to story, and each room had two windows on opposite sides of the mill.
use is second nature, and all the sounds which haunt a windmill were soon as familiar and as pleasant to the little jan as if he had been born a windmiller’s son. through many a windy night he slept as soundly as a sailor in a breeze which might disturb the nerves of a land-lubber. and when the north wind blew keen and steadily, and the chains jangled as the sacks of grist went upwards, and the millstones ground their monotonous music above his head, these sounds were only as a lullaby to his slumbers, and disturbed him no more than they troubled his foster-mother, to whom the revolving stones ground out a homely and welcome measure: “dai-ly bread, dai-ly bread, dai-ly bread.”
for another sign of his being a true child of the mill, his nurse abel anxiously watched.
though abel preferred nursing to pig-minding, he had a higher ambition yet, which was to begin his career as a windmiller. it was not likely that he could be of use to his father for a year or two, and the fact that he was of very great use to his mother naturally tended to delay his promotion to the mill.
mrs. lake was never allowed to say no to her husband, and she seemed to be unable, and was certainly unwilling, to say it to her children. happily, her eldest child was of so sweet and docile a temper that spoiling did him little harm; but even with him her inability to say no got the mother into difficulties. she was obliged to invent excuses to “fub off,” when she could neither consent nor refuse.
so, when abel used to cling about her, crying, “mother dear, when’ll i be put t’help father in the mill? do ’ee ask un to let me come in now! i be able to sweep ’s well as gearge. i sweeps the room for thee,”—she had not the heart or the courage to say, “i want thee, and thy father doesn’t,” but she would take the boy’s hand tenderly in hers, and making believe to examine his thumbs with a purpose, would reply, “wait a bit, love. thee’s a sprack boy, and a good un, but thee’s not rightly got the miller’s thumb.”
and thus it came about that abel was for ever sifting bits of flour through his finger and thumb, to obtain the required flatness and delicacy which marks the latter in a miller born; and playing lovingly with little jan on the floor of the round-house, he would pass some through the baby’s fingers also, crying,—
“sift un, janny! sift un! thee’s a miller’s lad, and thee must have a miller’s thumb.”
