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Besides the rags on her back there was only one thing she could call her own, a tiny soapstone image of the goddess Kwan-yin, which she had found one day while walking in the sand. This was the only treasure and plaything of her childhood, and if she had not watched carefully, her mother would have taken even this away from her.
"'Let me tell you how it is, said the stranger, inserting his forefinger in the reporter's buttonhole and badly damaging his chrysanthemum. 'I am a representative from Soapstone County, and I and my family are houseless, homeless, and shelterless. We have not tasted food for over a week. I brought my family with me, as I have indigestion and could not get around much with the boys.
Spreading a large bearskin on the seat and bottom of the sleigh, he put in a hot soapstone, and very unnecessarily took hold of the little slippered feet, and set them squarely upon it, as if their owner were quite unequal to the effort. Then he folded the robe carefully about her, and drew the second over that, allowing the squire, it must be confessed, but a scant portion for his share.
One night, 'long towards Thanksgivin' time, I kicked the soapstone out o' bed, an' he come runnin' up as if he was bewitched. 'Mother, says he, 'did you fall? You 'ain't had a stroke, have ye?" Old Lady Lamson laughed huskily; her black eyes shone, and her cap ribbons nodded, and danced, but there was an ironical ring to her merriment. "Do tell!" responded Mrs. Pettis, in her ruminating voice.
It is a shallow crescent-shaped vessel of potstone, or what is called soapstone from its soapy feel. The wick is composed of dry moss, rubbed between the hands till it is quite inflammable. It is disposed along the edge of the lamp, on the straight side, and a greater or smaller quantity lighted, according to the heat required or the fuel that can be afforded.
Once we were caught in a severe gale a good way from home, and had to make a little house to shelter ourselves from it out of snow; and in this, with our furs on, we managed to sleep quite comfortably, and remained there about twenty-four hours before the weather would permit us to go on again. The pot in which he melted snow for water, and cooked our supper, was made, like ours, of soapstone.
"No," replied Maria, and as she spoke she realized, in the moonlit room, a mass of fur-lined cloak over a chair. She had forgotten to return it to George Ramsey. "I had Mrs. Ramsey's cloak coming home," she called. "Well, I'm glad you did. It's awful early to go to bed. Don't you want something?" "No, thank you." "Don't you want me to heat a soapstone and fetch it up to you?" "No, thank you."
This answered sufficiently well for the first four or five steps; but presently I found my imagination growing terribly excited by thoughts of the vast depths yet to be descended, and the precarious nature of the pegs and soapstone holes which were my only support.
"Rather so," replied the Captain, "but hardly more so than the two little drinking-cups we carved out of the same kind of soapstone that we made the lamp and pot of." "It must have felt very queer, Captain Hardy," said Fred, inquiringly, "to be in darkness all the time. I can't imagine such a thing as the winter being all the time dark, can you, Will?"
On the mantel piece there were some models of Indian idols exquisitely carved in soft, greenish-gray soapstone, and behind these, as if in protest, lurked the only unornamental thing in the room, a very ordinary missionary box, covered with orange-colored paper and impressively black negroes. "I am sure, my dear," said Mr.
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