Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1874-04-22
LITTLE BEBEE.
Or, Two Little Wooden Shoes-The Bel
gian peasant Girl and the Great Paris
ian Artist.
Condensed from Ouida's Last Work.

Condensed from Ouidas Last Work
Antoine Macs, san old man who got
his meagre living by tilling the garden
plot about his hut and selling flowers
III the city squares going into Brus-
sells for his days trade, had seen gray
bundle floating among the water lilies
III the bit of water near his hut, and
had hooked it out to land, and found a
year-old child in it, left to drown, no
doubt, but saved by the lilies, and
laughing gleefully at fate. Old Antoine
took it to his wife, and the wife, child
less and aged soul, begged leave to
keep it, and the two poor, lonely simple
folks grew to care for the homeless,
motherless thing, and they and the
people about all called it Bebee-Only
Bebee. The old people had died, and
Bebee was left alone while she was still
child. She had still lived on by her
self in the little hut they had left her,
raised her flowers in the garden, trudg-
ed into the city every morning to sell
the fresh blossoms, led an innocent and
happy, though homely and toilsome
life, doing little acts of kindness to all
about her, and chad grown up straight
and clean and fragrant and joyous as
one OF her own carnations" And SO
she had come to her sixteenth birthday
with the simplicity and innocence of
childhood still on her face and in her
heart. Going home on the evening
of her birthday from the stall in the city
where she had sat all day selling her
flowers, Partisan, artist Flamen by
name, leaning over the balcony sees
the " little peasant go by below with
two white feet in two wooden shoes,
and face that had the pure and sim
pie radiance of flower" "There is
my Gretchen" he thought to himself,
and went down and followed her into
the cathedral. " If he could get what
was in her face, he would get what
Shelter could not" When Bebee's
prayer of thanksgiving to the saints
for her birthday gift and her happy day
was over, and she had risen to go, "a
mans voice not far off said, Have you
rosebud left to sell me?' It was low and
sweet as became the sa crament chapel
And there the artist, the great painter,
the man of the world spoke first to the
little peasant maiden of Brabant, and
made the first ripple on the hitherto
untroubled surface of her life. The
rOsebuds are given him, because the
child will not take money in q church,
and with all the artlessness of her I'M
concious nature she tells the stranger
of herself and her home, as she walks
by his side along the street. The next
day, and often after, the artist comes to
her stall, often buys her flowers, and
CO. clio onI &c NV.
sometimes, at the close of day, walks
with her towards her home, and then
by-and-by finds his way to her little
hut-garden and paints there, trying to
catch upon his canvas, for his great
picture of Gretchen, the indefnable
light of Bebee's face.
And SO the story goes on, love spring
ing up in the heart of Bebee for this
man, so unlike any she had seen before,
who seemed to her to belong to new
world of which she had only dreamed
when she had stolen into the galleries
and gazed at the great pictures.
"To BeDee he was sacred, unap-
proachable, unquestionable; he was a
wonderful, perfect happiness, that had
fallen into her life; he was a gift of
God, as the sun was" g Meanwhile, he |
pondered various studies in various
stages of a Gretchen, and made love to
Bebee-made love by his eyes and
voice at least, not hurrying his pleasant
task but lowering about her softly, and |
mindful not to scare her, as the man
will gently lower his hands over a
poised butterfly that he seeks to kill,
and which one single movement, a
thought too quick, may scare away to
safety" And then when his sketches
are made and his playtime over he goes
back to Paris, and Bebee is left, like
the Gretchen for whom she had been
painted, to watch and wait with patient |
and vain longing for the fulfllment of
his wretched, meaningless promise to
return before the winter, only, unlike
the Gretchen, she was left with no
sting of shame, and no sinful remem-
brance to soil the purity Of her soul or
even of her thoughts; for something
that was half weak, half noble moved |
him not to lead this child in her trust |
and ignorance into ways that when she
awakened from her trance would seem |
to her shameful, and full of sorrow.
For he knew that Bebee was not as
OUuOIS are. 1lldG liz SpdI0u uGI DIS |
he did was a new virtue to himself, for
which he hardly knew whether to feel
respect Or ridicule, any way it was a
virtue $50 long as he did not seduce
the body it seemed to him that it
would never matter how much he slew |
the 1.-THE little, honest, happy,
pure, frank soul, that amidst its poverty
and hardships was Like a robins song
to the winters sun" The long cold, |
dreary winter that came and went,
when Bebee worked all day at her lace
making and at night pored over the
books that were to make her ''wise"
and more fit for the lover for whom
she waited with such certain trust and
hope-this is the most touching part
of the story-this and the long journey
which she made on foot, when she had
seen in newspaper thrown to her by a
girl in town, that " the artist Flamen,
whose Gretchen was the wonder of the
salon of the year, lay sick unto death in
his rooms in Paris !" Twenty mi1es a