THE MIZZIBUL MAN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 60, 24 August 1907, Page 4

THE MIZZIBUL MAN.

"What are you painting, Miss FlowerGarden!" asked the tall man as he bent down to rest his elbows on the fence. It was rather frightening to have a strange person lean upon the fence and talk to one in this way. Ellen stole a look at his face to see if she had better be afraid. She decided that she need not.

"I'm planting sweet alyssum here," she said politely. "I've por-chulacca and petoonias near the fence. Our cook is going to give me some lady-slipper seed." she added in a burst of confidence. ■■'•'!

'Then your sister won't have to buy any slippers for ever so long , will she!" said the strange man. This was a very funny mistake and Ellen wanted so much to laugh. But nothing was ruder than to laugh when .anyone made a mistake, so she kept back even a smile, and changed the subject "Do you know my sister!" she asked. The tall man sighed and shook his head. "I used to, but I don't now," ha answered.

"Caroline's playing tennis on the back lawn. If you will come over the fence I wiU show you where she is," she suggested hospitably. The tall man sighed again. Ellen de[cided that he was very mizzibul about something. "No," he said. "I'm afraid I can't come. There's something very queer about me. I can never get over this fence. I might try it for a week ,and I couldn't. I can come up to It, jbut I can't come any further." • Ellen thought that perhaps he had only one leg Uke the man who sometimes came round to mend umbrellas , and who had been in the war. She ■ looked to see. But both of the Mizzibul Man's legs were there. "Have you a garden!" she asked. "I have, I'm sorry to say—for nothing nice ever comes up in it. It isn't a pretty one like yours. My garden is filled with disagreeable things. There's a good deal of rue in it. Do you know rue!"

Ellen shook her head. "No,", idie [ said. "1 haven't any of that in my ■garden.'* '1 hope you will never plant any," he answered. "It is very disagreeable. It isnt half as nice as geraniums. These are very fine geraniums you have here." "Yes. Grandmother sent me those. They aTe slipped from her window garden. This plant will have red flowers and the other will have white ones."

"My goodness!" exclaimed the Mizzibul Man. "But suppose they forget, and the one that ought to put out red flowers put out white ones and the white tree can't think what to do about it and so comes out with the red ones." He said this so quickly that Ellen felt a little puzzled. She did not quite like to ask liim to say it all over again, so she asked instead" "Don't you think the flowers will be pretty whether they 1 are red or white?"

"Indeed I do," he agreed. "Whenever I have a geranium in my buttonhole I don't care whether it Is a red flower thaf has forgotten to be white or a white flower that didn't know how to be red."

Ellen found this idea, too, very hard to follow. "Well, they arc very pretty," she murmured. "If I had a garden where nice things I would grow, do you know what I would plant!" cried the Mizzibul Man. "I'd plant a cream chocolate tree and a marshmellow bush. Then I could walk out every day when the cream chocoand tnarshmellows got ripe and pick some.' This was a joke and Ellen knew that sho could laugh without hurting liia feelings. "But perhaps you are one of the little girls that can't bear candy?" he said afterwards. . "U-m-m-mm, I love it," said Ellen.

'"Chocolate creams and marshmellows!" I "Yes. But specially buttercups." I -r know where there is a little box lof them all. I will bring it round in 'the morning to you." said the Mizzibul ■ Man, preparing to go. I "I'll ask Caroline if I can take it," said Ellen.

"Well, how are the petunias coming on!" asked the Mizzibul Man, the following morning, as he came up to the fence. "Oh, they haven't come up yet. They need more sun than we've been hav- . nig." Ellen answered. . "I wish I had known they needed sun. I'd have brought a piece of it along in my pocket." EUen leaned upon her little spade and laughed. She had discovered that the Mizzibul Man made a great many jokes it which he did not even smile. Speaking of bringing the -sun along in tii« pocket reminded her of something •Ise. "Caroline said I could take the undv." she said shyly. ••Did she!" he cried joyfully. "I'm ;lad you told me so, because I might lave carried this back with me and forgotten to give it you." He dug down Itno a deep coat pocket ml pulled out a very large box. •Oil." she cried. "What a big one! Vli v. vou told me it would be little." "it looked little when I put it into iy pocket half-an-hour ago. But peraps it lias grown since then." Ellen inverted a flower-pot and sat own upon it, arranging a corolla of ettlonats. •■"Will you have a flower-pot?" she askd politely. "V.i, thank you; I think not. I've lnm*t "iven up sitting on flower-pots. l„-v are apt to cramp my legs which ri n't as short as they used to lie." There were ever so many kinds of ;imli.-N in the bow Dilieious sugar lungs which melted away deliriously in til*- mouth. When Ellen bad removed the cover ■he passed the box to the Mizzibul Man,

.who gravely partook of a chocolate i cream nnd a cocoanut kiss. "Thank you," he said. "You're entirely welcome," slid said formally, as she bit into a big marshmellow.

I'm going to give some to Caroline when I get back to the house/' she told him. "Caroline always gives me some of hers. And I never had a whole box of my. own before." * * * *

It was very queer. Ellen tried to think why it was and she could not understand it at all. Caroline was usually so "intrusted" in jnen. She would spend whole mornings on the porch with them or play music for Fhem to sing by for the longest time ;in the drawing-room. But she could (not Ix' intrusted in the Mizzibul Man. Ellen thought the Mizzibul Man was much nicer than those men who sat in the porch with Caroline. But Caroline would not be intrusted in him. When Ellen tried to tell her she would not listen. She talked very fast about doll-houses and ulwiut a piece of honeycomb canvas that Ellen was embroidering for her grandmother. Caroline was watching the tucking away of some seeds in the garden the next morning when the Mizzibul Man appeared unexpectedly at the fence. The young lad.v instantly dropped Ellen's little spade upon which she was leaning and hurried away to the house. Her head was thrown back, her eyes half-closed, and her lovely white dress swish-swished across the grass like a swirl of snow. Ellen called to lie.r. "Caroline! CarIoline! Don't you know him? This is the Mizzibul Man." "He is so mizzibul, Caroline."

But Caroline only hurried away Faster.

The Mizzibul Man sighed. "I frightened your sister," he said miserably. "I'm so sorry. I wouldn't frighten her for the world. I don't frighten you, do I?" I "Not now," said Ellen. "Only at first." "Will you tell your sister that it made mo very unhappy to see her run away?" "Yes. And I'll tell her that she needn't be afraid of you," she promised.

That afternoon Ellen tried to find Caroline to tell her how sorry the Mizzibul Man had been to see her run away from the fence and what he hid said. [ But the dressmaker kept her sister in the sewing room all the rest of the day fitting on some new dresses. Ellen did not see her alone for a moment.

At night the opportunity occurred, however, for Caroline always came into the room to help her to unfasten any hook or button that was stiff or inconveniently beyond reach; to hear her say her prayers and tuck her into bed. "He was very sorry," she began as Caroline brushed and braided her hair. "Who was sorry, honev-Iove?" "He was so sorry he frightened you."

"He didn't frighten me, sweetheart." "Oh! Don't you remember! At the fence, Caroline. When you saw him you ran away." "I had fogotten that. I remember now." "He is so mizzibul, Caroline." "There are a great many mizzibul people in this world, honcy-love," said her sister softly. "What makes them mizzibul, Caroline!"

| "I hardly know. Perhaps they are not good enough. Some people are miserable because they are not good enough to Tbrgivc the wrong things done to them. Don't you remember when the kitten was killed how hard you found it to forgive Jackie Potter!" "Yes," said Ellen thoughtfully. "It tool; a long while," "And yet it was your duty to forgive .Taekie if you wanted to be like the good God. , For He forgave everyone who did wrong to him. Well, dearie, there are a great many people like you. They find it very hard to forgive. So hard sometimes that they never succeed in forgiving." Caroline was bending down to braid the hair, and, as she said this something warm and wet splashed upon Ellen's cheek.

Ellen looked up in great surprise. "Why, Caroline, you're crying." "A little, honey-love. .Tust a silly tear or two. I'm sure I don't know why. It won't last long, I guess. You haven't told me whether the pansy seed has come up yet."

The sun was shining the next day and when Ellen went down towards the fence to look at her garden there were rows upon rows of little \green things thrusting upwards through the soil. It was the poor por-ciiu-laeca. The Mizzibul Man came along shortly after she discovered them. "Hello!" he said. "So the sun got round at last, did he!" What are they please, Miss Flower-Garden?" "It's the poor por-cliu-lacea," said Ellen ecstatieallv.

"1 bet you another box of candy right now, that they turn out to be rose- I bushes," said the Mizzibul Man. I Ellen laughed. "I'll win. I've seen 1 grandmother's rose-bushes, and they s don't come up like this at all," she said as she deluged the new arrivals with water from the scarlet watering-pot, by < way of helping them to grow." "Well, when you get a box of candy < you will give some of it to me So I 1 might as well lose. I get all I want ' from you and couldn't eat a whole box. 1 It would make me sick." : It seemed to Ellen that there was 1 something not quite sound in his rea- i soning. But she was too much interested in por-ehu-laeca just then to be interested in sophistry. ' "They look like little green soldiers, don't they," he said, coming up that way in little regiments and battalions, ; I mean. And do you see The funny helmets they have on? They've just taken the seed and split in two and stuck it over their heads." Ellen sat down on the flower-pot and looked at the plants very closely. She found that the little helmets were really the seeds split in two, as he said. "There's nothing for the plant soldiers to fight," she said_keeping up the story. "Well," hj« answered. "There is the frost. That's a very fierce enemy. And there are weeds. Just think how flic weeds will try to finish these little fellows up, though! Weeds are very greedy. They try to gobble up nil the food out of the soil and suck up all the water so that the poor plant-soldiers will die of hunger and thirst unless you come round every once in a while with your watering pot." "It's funny. But I didn't think they'd be up to-day," Ellen mused. "I was telling Caroline about them last night, and I told her that we hadn't had enough sun to bring them up yet." "I suppose you couldn't remember, could you, how sorry I was that I frightened your sister at tile fence," suggested the Mizzibul Man. "Oh, yes! I told her that." 'T suppose she was very angry at me ?"

"( don't know. She didn't say anything. But aftewards I told her about you. and that you were just mizzibul, mizzibul all the time." "She must hsve been dreadfully cross with me.Hhcn." •'No, she didn't look cross. I forget

what she said. And then she splained to me why people were mizzibul and then she cried a little—just a littlesoft." "Cried!" It seemed to Ellen that he would jump over the fence with pure astonishment. Then he sighed, shook his head and became mizzibul again. The lawn was freshly mown that morning and sinelled delicionsly sweet. Patches of sunlight and shadows played hide-and-seek across the lawn because the sky was full of little fleecy clouds which scurried now and then over the face of the sun.

It was a very pretty picture and Caroline who sat on tlie porch rocking and embroidering, looked very pretty, too. Slie had on a lovely pink frock with a shawl round her shoulders which was white and fleecy like the little clouds in the sky. Ellen saw that tlie Mizzibul Man looked very often at the porch and Caroline. She knew how well to help anyone over anv mizzibulnesa.

sister, Caroline." '•1 wish you could get over the fence," she said. "Then you could know iny "I was just wondering at that moment whether I couldn't," he replied. "Do you know, T feel a little as if I jcould pet inside the fence to-day." "Try." she encouraged him. "C.ive a high step."

"The Mizzibul Man considered a moment. Then lie swung one leg over the fence and was inside, as he said himselfin a jiffy. "There! T 1 bought you could." she cried in triumph. "Xmv let's go to Caroline." The Mizzibul Man hesitated. "Perhaps Caroline will not speak to me/' he

said. "You knoiv she ran away yesterday." "I'll introduce you," she promised. "I'll

tell her that I'm not afraid of you." Ellen hurried him at a smart pace across the lawn. "She was getting afraid that he would try to run away. She kept a tight hold of ilia big hand. "Don't be afraid. I'll introduce you," she reassured him.

Caroline was sitting with the back of her chair towards the fence, and so she did not catch sight of the two until they were fairly 011 the porch steps. She turned. 'Tier face grew very hot and then very white. She stood up quickly, and it seemed, for a moment, as if she were going to run indoors.

Hut Ellen interposed. "This is the | Mizzibul Man, Caroline," she said. "I told him I would introduce him to you."

''ll is a very mizzibul man, indeed, I Caroline," he said in a very low voice. I "Please let me be introduced to you." ! He stood before her holding out hand. Ilow big he looked! Even Caroline, who was a grown-up young lady, looked little beside him. ■But. Caroline did not put out her hand. She stood very still and looked away and said nothing. "I planted my garden very wrong, Caroline. But think of all the rue and bitter words I've grown in it! Think of these. I confess I planted wrongly. Kut, think of these and—let me be introduced to you, Caroline."

"The trouble was," said Caroline, in a queer little voice, "that our gardens lay so close together, yours and mine. The bitter tilings you planted came over the boundary line and grew in my garden, too." '■l am sorrier for that than for anything that happened in mine," he answered. "But I have waited months. I have grown my bitter roots. Be—be a woman and forgive.' I mean, let me be introduced to you, Caroline." 7, He stretched out his big hand again. And this time Caroline put her hand in