Lost Evangeline

Chapter One
There was once a boy who longed to go to sea.
“Tsk,” said his father. “Do not be one of those who spend their lives spinning pointless fantasies. I will not have it.”
And so the child put aside his dreams, grew up, and became, like his father before him, a shoemaker.
He tried to forget the sea.
One evening, as the shoemaker sat in front of the fire with his wife, he said, “Do you know that when I was young, I dreamed of being a sailor?”
“Well,” said the woman, “that would have been a foolish and dangerous life. Better that you are here, safe and warm with me.”
The shoemaker nodded. “I suppose,” he said. “But imagine—I would have seen the world!”
“The world?” said the shoemaker’s wife. “Isn’t the world the world no matter where
you go?”
“Ah, yes, but to sail on the blue seas under skies bright with stars . . .” said the shoemaker.
“The stars are over your head right now, husband, are they not?”
“Yes,” said the shoemaker. “Yes, yes, they are.”
“Be content with what you have,” said his wife. “There is no point in thinking things would be different somewhere else.”
The two of them did not ever speak of the sea again.
The shoemaker and his wife had no children, and they had long given up hoping for them. And so it seemed an entirely miraculous thing when one day, the cobbler sat down to work on repairing an old boot and found, hidden in its squared-off toe, an extremely small child.
The shoemaker held the baby in his cupped palm and stared down at her in wonder.
“Wife,” he said, “come here. You must see what has been given to us.”
The shoemaker’s wife came and stood at her husband’s shoulder and looked down at the baby in his hand. “No, no,” she said. She shook her head. “That is not a child. It is some magic trick.”
“Of course it is a child,” said the shoemaker. “A perfect little child.”
“It can’t be,” said the woman. “Such a thing is impossible.”
The baby started to cry. The shoemaker rocked her back and forth gently in his hand, smiling down at her.
“I don’t understand,” said the shoemaker’s wife. “A child so small seems wrong to me. I’m sure a mistake has been made. Someone will return to claim the boots and want what they have left behind. And what will happen then? You will be nothing but brokenhearted.”
The shoemaker was not listening. He was looking down at the baby and thinking of a sloop he had seen when he was a boy. The small ship had seemed full of joy, pulling and tugging against its anchor, dancing and bobbing in the waters as if to say, Let’s go! Let’s go!
A sailor standing on the dock had pointed to the boat and said, “Do you see this little lady? She has gone around the world—twice, if you please!”
Painted on the side of the sloop in red, flowing script was the boat’s name: Evangeline.
This was the name the shoemaker chose for the child.
Evangeline.
It was, to him, a name full of joy and curiosity, daring and courage—a name that spoke of possibilities.

Chapter Two
No one ever returned to claim the boots, or the child.
Evangeline grew from a baby to a toddler to a young girl, changing shape without ever changing size.
Her dark hair was quite long, but she herself remained as small as a mouse.
The shoemaker, who was very skilled at making things with his hands, fashioned a small bed for Evangeline. He made her a dresser and a bedside table with a drawer where she could keep her small brush and comb. He sewed her dresses and knitted her socks and made her a good sturdy coat for the cold weather. And, of course, he crafted her several pairs of tiny, handsome shoes.
Evangeline spent her days with her father in the shop. She sat on the workbench as the shoemaker labored at the making and repairing of shoes. He sang sea shanties as he worked, and Evangeline learned the songs and sang them with him. Her voice was high and sweet.
“When will we go to sea, Papa?” she said to him.
“Someday, my dear,” said the cobbler. “We do not want to waste our chance, do we? Surely someday we will go.”
The two of them often went down to the harbor to look at the ships anchored there. They listened to the sailors speak of where they had been and what they had seen. Together, the father and the daughter breathed in the smell of the sea and filled their hearts and minds with the dreams and stories of other places.
The shoemaker put Evangeline in the pocket of his leather apron for these trips. He told her to keep herself hidden, for he was always worried that someone would come to reclaim her and that she would be lost to him.
Above the town harbor was a cliff. The shoemaker, after he had strolled along the wharf, would climb to the top of the rocks, to a spot that he called the crow’s nest. When he was up as high as he could go, and no one else was around, he would lift Evangeline from his pocket and hold her in his hand.
And Evangeline, standing, balanced herself on his outstretched palm and looked down at the boats crowded together, at the crates and boxes being loaded and unloaded on and off the ships, at the cats who twined their way among the nets filled with silver-scaled fishes, and at the sailors sitting on the docks, smoking their pipes and shouting and singing. Farther out to sea, white gulls floated above the water that shone green and then blue, and sometimes became black with menace, and then would suddenly become blue again.
Evangeline, safe in her father’s hand, looked down at it all, and her heart filled with wonder. Joy billowed inside her like a sail.
“When, Papa?” she said without turning around. “Oh, when shall we go?”