Ornate capital ""I"
"IT'S the most perfect beauty that ever was!"
"Pshaw! you always say that. It's not a bit prettier than Mary's."
"Yes, it is."
"No, indeed, it isn't."
The subject of dispute was a parasol,—a dark blue one, trimmed with fringe, and with an ivory handle. The two little girls who were discussing it were Alice Hoare and her sister Madge. It was Madge's birthday, and the parasol was one of her presents.
The dispute continued.
"I wish you wouldn't always say that your things are better than any one else's,"said Alice. "It's ex-exaspering to talk like that, and Mamma said when we exasperated it was almost as bad as telling lies."
"She didn't say "exasperate." That wasn't the word at all; and this is the sweetest, dearest, most perfectly beautiful parasol in the world, a great deal prettier than your green one."
"Yes, so it is," confessed candid Alice. "Mine is quite old now. This is younger, and, besides, the top of mine is broken off. But yours isn't really any prettier than Mary's."
"It is too! It's a great deal more beautiful and a great deal more fascinating."
"What is that which is so fascinating?" asked their sister Mary, coming into the room. "The new parasol? My! that is strong language to use about a parasol. It should at least be an umbrella, I think. See, Madge, here is another birthday gift."
It was a gilt cage, with a pair of Java sparrows."Oh, lovely! delicious!" cried Madge, jumping up and down. "I think this is the best birthday that ever was! Are they from you, Mary, darling? Thank you ever so much! They are the most perfectly beautiful things I ever saw."
"The parasol was the most beautiful just now," observed Alice.
"Oh, these are much beautifuller than that, because they are alive," replied Madge, giving her oldest sister a rapturous squeeze.
"I wish you'd make me a birthday present in return," said Mary. "I wish you'd drop that bad habit of exaggerating everything you like, and everything you don't like. All your 'bads' are 'dreadfuls,'—all your pinks are scarlets."
"I don't know what you mean," said Madge, puzzled and offended.
"It's only what Mamma has often spoken to you about, dear Madgie. It is saying more than is quite true, and more than you quitefeel. I am sure you don't mean to be false, but people who are not used to you might think you so."
"It's because I like things so much."
"No, for when you don't like them, it's just as bad. I have heard you say fifty times, at least, 'It is the horridest thing I ever saw,' and you know there couldn't be fifty 'horridest' things."
"But you all know what I mean."
"Well, we can guess, but you ought to be more exact. And, besides, Papa says if we use up all our strong words about little every-day things, we sha'n't have any to use when we are talking about really great things. If you call a heavy muffin 'awful,' what are you going to say about an earthquake or tornado?"
"We don't have any earthquakes in Groton, and I don't ever mean to go to places where they do," retorted Madge, triumphantly.
"Madge, how bad you are!" cried littleAlice. "You ought to promise Mary right away, because it's your birthday."
"Well, I'll try," said Madge. But she did not make the promise with much heart, and she soon forgot all about it. It seemed to her that Mary was making a great fuss about a small thing.
Are there any small things? Sometimes I am inclined to doubt it. A fever-germ can only be seen under the microscope, but think what a terrible work it can do. The avalanche, in its beginning, is only a few moving particles of snow; the tiny spring feeds the brook, which in turn feeds the river; the little evil, unchecked, grows into the habit which masters the strongest man. All great things begin in small things; and these small things which are to become we know not what, should be important in our eyes.
Madge Hoare meant to be a truthful child; but little by little, and day by day, her perception of what truth really is, wasbeing worn away by the habit of exaggeration.
"Perfectly beautiful," "perfectly horrible," "perfectly dreadful," "perfectly fascinating," such were the mild terms which she daily used to describe the most ordinary things,—apples, rice puddings, arithmetic lessons, gingham dresses, and, as we have seen, blue parasols! And the habit grew upon her, as habits will. When she needed stronger language than usual, things had to be "horrider" than horrid, and "beautifuller" than beautiful. And the worst of it was, that she was all the time half conscious of her own insincerity, and that, to use Mary's favorite figure, shemeantpink, but shesaidscarlet.
The family fell so into the habit of making mental allowances and deductions for all Madge's statements that sometimes they fell into the habit of not believing enough. "It is only Madge!" they would say, and so dismiss the subject from their minds. This carelessdisbelief vexed and hurt Madge very often, but it did not hurt enough to cure her. One day, however, it did lead to something which she could not help remembering.
It was warm weather still, although September, and Ernest, the little baby brother, whom Madge loved best of all the children, was playing one morning in the yard by himself. Madge was studying an "awful" arithmetic lesson upstairs at the window. She could not see Ernest, who was making a sand-pie directly beneath her; but she did see an old woman peer over the fence, open the gate, and steal into the yard.
"What a horrid-looking old woman!" thought Madge. "The multiple of sixteen added to—Oh, bother! what an awful sum this is!" She forgot the old woman for a few moments, then she again saw her going out of the yard, and carrying under her cloak what seemed to be a large bundle. The odd thing was, that the bundle seemed to havelegs, and to kick; or was it the wind blowing the old woman's cloak about?
Madge watched the old woman out of sight with a puzzled and half-frightened feeling. "Could she have stolen anything?" she asked herself; and at last she ran downstairs to see. Nothing seemed missing from the hall, only Ernie's straw hat lay in the middle of the gravel walk.
"Mamma!" cried Madge, bursting into the library where her mother was talking to a visitor. "There has been the most perfectly horrible old woman in our yard that I ever saw. She was so awful-looking that I was afraid she had been stealing something. Did you see her, Mamma?"
"My dear, all old women are awful in your eyes," said Mrs. Hoare, calmly. "This was old Mrs. Shephard, I presume. I told her to come for a bundle of washing. Run away now, Madge, I am busy."
Madge went, but she still did not feel satisfied.The more she thought about the old woman, the more she was sure that it was not old Mrs. Shephard. She went with her fears to Mary.
"She was just like a gypsy," she explained, "or a horrible old witch. Her hair stuck out so, and she had the awfullest face! I am almost sure she stole something, and carried it away under her shawl, sister."
"Nonsense!" said Mary, who was drawing, and not inclined to disturb herself for one of Madge's "cock-and-bull" stories. "It was only one of Mamma's old goodies, you may be sure. Don't you recollect what a fright you gave us about the robber, who turned out to be a man selling apples; and that other time, when you were certain there was a bear in the garden, and it was nothing but Mr. Price's big Newfoundland?"
"But this was quite different; it really was. This old woman was really awful."
"Your old women always are," repliedMary, unconcernedly, going on with her sketch.
No one would attend to Madge's story, no one sympathized with her alarm. She was like the boy who cried "Wolf!" so often that, when the real wolf came, no one heeded his cries. But the family roused from their indifference, when, an hour later, Nurse came to ask where Master Ernie could be, and search revealed the fact that he was nowhere about the premises. Madge and her old woman were treated with greater respect then. Papa set off for the constable, and Jim drove rapidly in the direction which the old woman was taking when last seen. Poor Mrs. Hoare was terribly anxious and distressed.
"I blame myself for not attending at once to what Madge said," she told Mary. "But the fact is that she exaggerates so constantly that I have fallen into the habit of only half listening to her. If it had been Alice, it would have been quite different."
Madge overheard Mamma say this, and she crept away to her own room, and cried as if her heart would break.
"If Ernie is never found, it will all be my fault," she thought. "Nobody believes a word that I say. But they would have believed if Alice had said it, and Mary would have run after that wicked old woman, and got dear baby away from her. Oh dear, how miserable I am!"
Madge never forgot that long afternoon and that wretched night. Mamma did not go to bed at all, and none of them slept much. It was not till ten o'clock the next morning that Papa and Jim came back, bringing—oh, joy!—little Ernie with them, his pretty hair all tangled and his rosy cheeks glazed with crying, but otherwise unhurt. He had been found nearly ten miles away, locked in a miserable cottage by the old woman, who had taken off his nice clothes and dressed him in a ragged frock. She hadleft him there while she went out to beg, or perhaps to make arrangements for carrying him farther out of reach; but she had given him some bread and milk for supper and breakfast, and the little fellow was not much the worse for his adventure; and after a bath and a re-dressing, and after being nearly kissed to death by the whole family, he went to sleep in his own crib very comfortably.
"Papa," said Madge that night, "I never mean to exaggerate any more as long as I live. I mean to say exactly what I think, only not so much, so that you shall all have confidence in me. And then, next time baby is stolen, you will all believe what I say."
"I hope there will never be any 'next time,'" observed her mother; "but I shall have to be glad of what happened this time, if it really cures you of such a bad habit, my little Madge."
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Ornate capital ""W"
"WHAT is presence of mind, any way?" demanded little Dolly Ware, as she sat, surrounded by her family, watching the sunset.
The sunset hour is best of all the twenty-four in Nantucket. At no other time is the sea so blue and silvery, or the streaks of purple and pale green which mark the place of the sand-spits and shallows that underlie the island waters so defined, or of such charming colors. The wind blows across softly from the south shore, and brings with it scents of heath and thyme, caught from the high upland moors above the town. The sun dips down, and sends a flash of glory to the zenith; and small pink clouds curl up about the rising moon, fondle her, as it were, andseem to love her. It is a delightful moment, and all Nantucket dwellers learn to watch for it.
It was the custom of the Ware family, as soon as they had despatched their supper,—a very hearty supper, suited to young appetites sharpened by sea air;—of chowder, or hot lobster, or a newly caught blue-fish, with piles of brown bread and butter, and unlimited milk,—to rush outen masseto the piazza of their little cottage, and "attend to the sunset," as though it were a family affair. It was the hour when jokes were cracked and questions asked, and when Mamma, who was apt to be pretty busy during the daytime, had leisure to answer them.
Dolly was youngest of the family,—a thin, wiry child, tall for her years, with a brown bang lying like a thatch over a pair of bright inquisitive eyes, and a thick pig-tail braided down her back. Phyllis, the next in age, was short and fat; then cameHarry, then Erma, just sixteen (named after a German great-grandmother), and, last of all, Jack, tallest and jolliest of the group, who had just "passed his preliminaries," and would enter college next year. Mrs. Ware might be excused for the little air of motherly pride with which she gazed at her five. They were fine children, all of them,—frank, affectionate, generous, with bright minds and healthy bodies.
"Presence of mind sometimes means absence of body," remarked Jack, in answer to Dolly's question.
"I was speaking to Mamma," said Dolly, with dignity. "I wasn't asking you."
"I am aware of the fact, but I overlooked the formality, for once. What makes you want to know, midget?"
"There was a story in the paper about a girl who hid the kerosene can when the new cook came, and it said she showed true presence of mind," replied Dolly.
"Oh, that was only fun! It didn't mean anything."
"Isn't there any such thing, then?"
"Why, of course there is. Picking up a shell just before it bursts in a hospital tent, and throwing it out of the door, is presence of mind."
"Yes, and tying a string round the right place on your leg when you've cut an artery," added Harry, eagerly.
"Swallowing a quart of whiskey when a rattlesnake bites you," suggested Jack.
"Saving the silver, instead of the waste-paper basket, when the house is on fire," put in Erma.
Dolly looked from one to the other.
"What funny things!" she cried. "I don't believe you know anything about it. Mamma, tell me what it really means."
"I think," said Mrs. Ware, in those gentle tones to which her children always listened, "that presence of mind means keeping cool,and having your wits about you, at critical moments. Our minds—our reasoning faculties, that is—are apt to be stunned or shocked when we are suddenly frightened or excited; they leave us, and go away, as it were, and it is only afterward that we pick ourselves up, and realize what we ought to have done. To act coolly and sensibly in the face of danger is a fine thing, and one to be proud of."
"Should you be proud of me if I showed presence of mind?" asked Dolly, leaning her arms on her mother's lap.
"Very proud," replied Mrs. Ware, smiling as she stroked the brown head,—"very proud, indeed."
"I mean to do it," said Dolly, in a firm tone.
There was a general laugh.
"How will you go to work?" asked Jack. "Shall I step down to Hussey's, and get a shell for you to practise on?"
"She'll be setting the house on fire some night, to show what she can do," added Harry, teasingly.
"I shall do no such thing," protested Dolly, indignantly. "How foolish you are! You don't understand a bit! I don't want to make things happen; but, if they do happen, I shall try to keep cool and have my wits about me, and perhaps I shall."
"It would be lovely to be brave and do heroic things," remarked Phyllis.
"You could at least be brave enough to use your common sense," said her mother. "Yours is a very good resolution, Dolly dear, and I hope you'll keep to it."
"I will," said Dolly, and marched undauntedly off to bed. Later, she found herself repeating, as if it were a lesson to be learned, "Presence of mind means keeping cool, and having your wits about you;" and she said it over and over every morning and evening after that, as she braided her hair.Phyllis overheard, and laughed at her a little; but Dolly didn't mind being laughed at, and kept on rehearsing her sentence all the same.
It is not given to all of us to test ourselves, and discover by actual experiment just how much a mental resolution has done for us. Dolly, however, was to have the chance. The bathing-beach at Nantucket is a particularly safe one, and the water through the summer months most warm and delicious. All the children who lived on the sandy bluff known as "The Cliff" were in the habit of bathing; and the daily dip taken in company was the chief event of the day, in their opinion. The little Wares all swam like ducks; and no one thought of being nervous or apprehensive if Harry struck out boldly for the jetty, or if Erma and Phyllis were seen side by side at a point far beyond the depth of either of them, or little Dolly took a "header" into deep water off an old boat.
It happened, about two months after the talk on the piazza, that Dolly was bathing with Kitty Allen, a small neighbor of her own age. Kitty had just been learning to swim, and was very proud of her new accomplishment; but she was by no means so sure of herself or so much at home in the water as Dolly, who had learned three years before, and practised continually.
The two children had swam out for quite a distance; then, as they turned to go back, Kitty suddenly realized her distance from the shore, and was seized with immediate and paralyzing terror.
"Oh, oh!" she gasped. "How far out we are! We shall never get back in the world! We shall be drowned! Dolly Ware, we shall certainly be drowned!"
She made a vain clutch at Dolly, and, with a wild scream, went down, and disappeared.
Dolly dived after her, only to be met by Kitty coming up to the surface again, andfrantically reaching out, as drowning persons do, for something to hold by. The first thing she touched was Dolly's large pig-tail, and, grasping that tight, she sank again, dragging Dolly down with her, backward.
It was really a hazardous moment. Many a good swimmer has lost his life under similar circumstances. Nothing is more dangerous than to be caught and held by a person who cannot swim, or who is too much disabled by fear to use his powers.
And now it was that Dolly's carefully conned lesson about presence of mind came to her aid. "Keep cool; have your wits about you," rang through her ears, as, held in Kitty's desperate grasp, she was dragged down, down into the sea. A clear sense of what she ought to do flashed across her mind. She must escape from Kitty and hold her up, but not give Kitty any chance to drag her down again. As they rose, she pulled her hair away with a sudden motion,and seized Kitty by the collar of her bathing-dress, behind.
"Float, and I'll hold you up," she gasped. "If you try to catch hold of me again, I'll just swim off, and leave you, and then youwillbe drowned, Kitty Allen."
Kitty was too far gone to make any very serious struggle. Then Dolly, striking out strongly, and pushing Kitty before her, sent one wild cry for help toward the beach.
The cry was heard. It seemed to Dolly a terribly long time before any answer came, but it was in reality less than five minutes before a boat was pushed into the water. Dolly saw it rowing toward her, and held on bravely. "Be cool; have your wits about you," she said to herself. And she kept firm grasp of her mind, and would not let the fright, of whose existence she was conscious, get possession of her.
Oh, how welcome was the dash of the oars close at hand, how gladly she relinquishedKitty to the strong arms that lifted her into the boat! But when the men would have helped her in too, she refused.
"No, thank you; I'll swim!" she said. It seemed nothing to get herself to shore, now that the responsibility of Kitty and Kitty's weight were taken from her. She swam pluckily along, the boat keeping near, lest her strength should give out, and reached the beach just as Jack, that moment aware of the situation, was dashing into the water after her. She was very pale, but declared herself not tired at all, and she dressed and marched sturdily up the cliff, refusing all assistance.
There was quite a little stir among the summer colony over the adventure, and Mrs. Ware had many compliments paid her for her child's behavior. Mr. Allen came over, and had much to say about the extraordinary presence of mind which Dolly had shown.
"It was really remarkable," he said. "Ifshe had fought with Kitty, or if she had tried to swim ashore and had not called for assistance, they might easily have both been drowned. It is extraordinary that a child of that age should keep her head, and show such coolness and decision."
"It wasn't remarkable at all," Dolly declared, as soon as he was gone. "It was just because you said that on the piazza that night."
"Said what?"
"Why, Mamma, surely you haven't forgotten. It was that about presence of mind, you know. I taught it to myself, and have said it over and over ever since,—'Keep cool; have your wits about you.' I said it in the water when Kitty was pulling me under."
"Did you, really?"
"Indeed, I did. And then I seemed to know what to do."
"Well, it was a good lesson," said Mrs. Ware, with glistening eyes. "I am gladand thankful that you learned it when you did, Dolly."
"Are you proud of me?" demanded Dolly.
"Yes, I am proud of you."
This capped the climax of Dolly's contentment. Mamma was proud of her; she was quite satisfied.
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Ornate capital "I"
IT was a dark day for Patty Flint when her father, with that curt severity of manner which men are apt to assume to mask an inward awkwardness, announced to her his intention of marrying for the second time.
"Tell the others after I am gone out," he concluded.
"But, Papa, do explain a little more to me before you go," protested Patty. "Who is this Miss Maskelyne? What kind of a person is she? Must we call her mother?"
"Well—we'll leave that to be settled later on. Miss Maskelyne is a—a—well, a very nice person indeed, Patty. She'll make us all very comfortable."
"We always have been comfortable, I'm sure," said Patty, in an injured tone.
Dr. Flint instinctively cast a look around the room. Itwascomfortable, certainly, so far as neatness and sufficient furniture and a hot fire in an air-tight stove can make a room comfortable. There was a distinct lack of anything to complain of, yet something seemed to him lacking. What was it? His thoughts involuntarily flew to a room which he had quitted only the day before, no larger, no sunnier, not so well furnished, and which yet, to his mind, seemed full of a refinement and homelikeness which he missed in his own, though, man-like, he could have in no wise explained what went to produce it.
His rather stern face relaxed with a half-smile; his eyes seemed to seek out a picture far away. But Patty was watching him,—an observant, decidedly aggrieved Patty, who had done her best for him since her mother died, and a good best too, her age considered,and who was not inexcusable in disliking to be supplanted by a stranger. Poor Patty! But even for Patty's sake it was better so, the father reflected, looking at the prim, opinionated little figure before him, and noting how all the childishness and girlishness seemed to have faded out of it during three years of responsibility. She certainly had managed wonderfully for a child of fifteen, and his voice was very kind as he said, "Yes, my dear, so we have. You've been a good girl, Patty, and done your best for us all; but you're young to have so much care, and when the new mother comes, she will relieve you of it, and leave you free to occupy and amuse yourself as other girls of your age do."
He kissed Patty as he finished speaking. Kisses were not such every-day matters in the Flint family as to be unimportant, and Patty, with all her vexation, could not but be gratified. Then he hurried away, and, after watching till his gig turned the corner, she wentslowly upstairs to the room where the children were learning their Sunday-school lessons.
There were three besides herself,—Susy and Agnes, aged respectively twelve and ten; and Hal, the only boy, who was not quite seven. This hour of study in the middle of Saturday morning was deeply resented by them all; but Patty's rules were like the laws of the Medes and Persians, which alter not, and they dared not resist. They had solaced the tedium of the occasion by a contraband game of checkers during her absence, but had pushed the board under the flounce of the sofa when they heard her steps, and flown back to their tasks. Over-discipline often leads to little shuffles and deceptions like this, and Patty, who loved authority for authority's sake, was not always wise in enforcing it.
"When you have got through with your lessons, I have something to tell you," was her beginning.
It was an indiscreet one; for of course the children at once protested that they were through! How could they be expected to interest themselves in the "whole duty of man," with a secret obviously in the air.
"Very well, then," said Patty, indulgently,—for she was dying to tell her news,—"Papa has just asked me to say to you that he is—is—going to be married to a lady in New Bedford."
"Married!" cried Agnes, with wide-open eyes. "How funny! I thought only people who are young got married. Can we go to the wedding, do you suppose, Patty?"
"Oh, perhaps we shall be bridesmaids! I'd like that," added Susy.
"And have black cake in little white boxes, just as many as we want. Goody!" put in Hal.
"Oh, children, how can you talk so?" cried Patty, all her half-formed resolutions of keeping silence and not letting the others knowhow she felt about it flying to the winds. "Do you really want a stepmother to come in and scold and interfere and spoil all our comfort? Do you want some one else to tell you what to do, and make you mind, instead of me? You're too little to know about such things, but I know what stepmothers are. I read about them in a book once, and they're dreadful creatures, and always hate the children, and try to make their Papas hate them too. It will be awful to have one, I think."
Patty was absolutely crying as she finished this outburst; and, emotion being contagious, the little ones began to cry also.
"Why does Papa want to marry her, if she's so horrid?" sobbed Agnes.
"I'll never love her!" declared Susy.
"And I'll set my wooden dog on her!" added Hal.
"Oh, Hal," protested Patty, alarmed at the effect of her own injudicious explosion, "don't talk like that! We mustn't be rude to her.Papa wouldn't like it. Of course, we needn't love her, or tell her things, or call her 'mother,' but wemustbe polite to her."
"I don't know what you mean exactly, but I'm not going to be it, anyway," said Agnes.
And, indeed, Patty's notion of a politeness which was to include neither liking nor confidence nor respectwasrather a difficult one to comprehend.
None of the children went to the wedding, which was a very quiet one. Patty declared that she was glad; but in her heart I think she regretted the loss of the excitement, and the opportunity for criticism. A big loaf of thickly frosted sponge cake arrived for the children, with some bon-bons, and a kind little note from the bride; and these offerings might easily have placated the younger ones, had not Patty diligently fanned the embers of discontent and kept them from dying out.
And all the time she had no idea that she was doing wrong. She felt ill-treated andinjured, and her imagination played all sorts of unhappy tricks. She made pictures of the future, in which she saw herself neglected and unloved, her little sisters and brother ill-treated, her father estranged, and the household under the rule of an enemy, unscrupulous, selfish, and cruel. Over these purely imaginary pictures she shed many needless tears.
"But there's one thing," she told herself,—"it can't last always. When girls are eighteen, they come of age, and can go away if they like; and Ishallgo away! And I shall take the children with me. Papa won't care for any of us by that time; so he will not object."
So with this league, offensive and defensive, formed against her, the new Mrs. Flint came home. Mary the cook and Ann the housemaid joined in it to a degree.
"To be sure, it's provoking enough that Miss Patty can be when she's a mind,"observed Mary; "a-laying down the law, and ordering me about, when she knows no more than the babe unborn how things should be done! Still, I'd rather keep on wid her than be thrying my hand at a stranger. This'll prove a hard missis, mark my word for it, Ann! See how the children is set against her from the first! That's a sign."
Everything was neat and in order on the afternoon when Dr. and Mrs. Flint were expected. Patty had worked hard to produce this result. "She shall see that I know how to keep house," she said to herself. All the rooms had received thorough sweeping, all the rugs had been beaten and the curtains shaken out, the chairs had their backs exactly to the wall, and every book on the centre table lay precisely at right angles with a second book underneath it. Patty's ideas of decoration had not got beyond a stiff neatness. She had yet tolearn how charming an easy disorder can be made.
The children, in immaculate white aprons, waited with her in the parlor. They did not run out into the hall when the carriage stopped. The malcontent Ann opened the door in silence.
"Where are the children?" were the first words that Patty heard her stepmother say.
The voice was sweet and bright, with a sort of assured tone in it, as of one used always to a welcome. She did not wait for the Doctor, but walked into the room by herself, a tall, slender, graceful woman, with a face full of brilliant meanings, of tenderness, sense, and fun. One look out of her brown eyes did much toward the undoing of Patty's work of prejudice with the little ones.
"Patty, dear child, where are you?" she said. And she kissed her warmly, not seeming to notice the averted eyes and the unrespondinglips. Then she turned to the little ones, and somehow, by what magic they could not tell, in a very few minutes they had forgotten to be afraid of her, forgotten that she was a stranger and a stepmother, and had begun to talk to her freely and at their ease. Dr. Flint's face brightened as he saw the group.
"Getting acquainted with the new mamma?" he said. "That's right."
But this was a mistake. It reminded the children that she was new, and they drew back again into shyness. His wife gave him a rapid, humorous look of warning.
"It always takes a little while for people to get acquainted," she said; "but these 'people' and I do not mean to wait long."
She smiled as she spoke, and the children felt the fascination of her manner; only Patty held aloof.
The next few weeks went unhappily enough with her. She had to see her adherentsdesert her, one by one; to know that Mary and Ann chanted the praises of the new housekeeper to all their friends; to watch the little girls' growing fondness for the stranger; to notice that little Hal petted and fondled her as he had never done his rather rigorous elder sister; and that her father looked younger and brighter and more content than she had ever seen him look before. She had also to witness the gradual demolishment of the stiff household arrangements which she had inherited traditionally from her mother, and sedulously observed and kept up.
The new Mrs. Flint was a born homemaker. The little instinctive touches which she administered here and there presently changed the whole aspect of things. The chairs walked away from the walls; the sofa was wheeled into the best position for the light; plants, which Patty had eschewed as making trouble and "slop," blossomed everywhere.Books were "strewed," as Patty in her secret thought expressed it, in all directions; fresh flowers filled the vases; the blinds were thrown back for the sunshine to stream in. The climax seemed to come when Mrs. Flint turned out the air-tight stove, opened the disused fireplace, routed a pair of andirons from the attic, and set up a wood fire.
"It will snap all over the room. The ashes will dirty everything. The children will set fire to their aprons, and burn up!" objected Patty.
"There's a big wire fireguard coming to make the children safe," replied her stepmother, easily. "As for the snapping and the dirt, that's all fancy, Patty. I've lived with a wood fire all my life, and it's no trouble at all, if properly managed. I'm sure you'll like it, dear, when you are used to it."
And the worst was that Pattydidlike it. It was so with many of the new arrangements.She opposed them violently at first in her heart, not saying much,—for Mrs. Flint, with all her brightness and affectionate sweetness, had an air of experience and authority about her which it was not easy to dispute,—and later ended by confessing to herself that they were improvements. A gradual thaw was taking place in her frozen little nature. She fought against it; but as well might a winter-sealed pond resist the sweet influences of spring.
Against her will, almost without her knowledge, she was receiving the impress of a character wider and sweeter and riper than her own. Insensibly, an admiration of her stepmother grew upon her. She saw her courted by strangers for her beauty and grace; she saw her become a sort of queen among the young people of the town; but she also saw—she could not help seeing—that no tinge of vanity ever marred her reception of this regard, and that no duty was ever left undone,no kindness ever neglected, because of the pressure of the pleasantness of life. And then—for a girl cannot but enjoy being made the most of—she gradually realized that Mrs. Flint, in spite of coldness and discouragement, cared for her rights, protected her pleasures, was ready to take pains that Patty should have her share and her chance, should be and appear at her best. It was something she had missed always,—the supervision and loving watchfulness of a mother. Now it was hers; and, though she fought against the conviction, it was sent to her.
In less than a year Patty had yielded unconditionally to the newrégime. She was a generous child at heart, and, her opposition once conquered, she became fonder of her stepmother than all the rest put together. Simply and thoroughly she gave herself up to be re-moulded into a new pattern. Her standards changed; her narrow world ofmotives and ideas expanded and enlarged, till from its confines she saw the illimitable width of the whole universe. Sunshine lightened all her dark places, and set her dormant capacities to growing. Such is the result, at times, of one gracious, informing nature upon others.
Before her eighteenth birthday, the date which she had set in her first ignorant revolt of soul for escape from an imaginary tyranny, the stepmother she had so dreaded was become her best and most intimate friend. It was on that very day that she made for the first time a full confession of her foolishness.
"What a goose!—what a silly, bad thing I was!" she said. "I hated the idea of you, Mamma. I said I never would like you, whatever you did; and then I just went and fell in love with you!"
"You hid the hatred tolerably well, but I am happy to say that you don't hide the love," said Mrs. Flint, with a smile.
"Hide it? I don't want to! I wonder what did make me behave so? Oh, I know,—it was that absurd book! I wish people wouldn't write such things, Mamma. When I'm quite grown up I mean to write a book myself, and just tell everybody how different it really is, and that the nicest, dearest, best things in the world, and the greatest blessings, are—stepmothers."
"Blessings in disguise," said Mrs. Flint. "Well, Patty, I am afraid I was pretty thoroughly disguised in the beginning; but if you consider me a blessing now, it's all right."
"Oh, it's all just as right as it can be!" said Patty, fervently.
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THIS is a story about princesses and beggar-girls, hovels and palaces, sweet things and sad things, fullness and scarcity. It is a simple story enough, and mostly true. And as it touches so many and such different extremes of human condition and human experience, it ought by good rights to interest almost everybody; don't you think so?
Effie Wallis's great wish was to have a doll of her own. This was not a very unreasonable wish for any little girl to feel, one would think, yet there seemed as little likelihood of its being granted as that the moon should come down out of the sky and offer itself toher as a plaything; for Effie and her parents belonged to the very poorest of the London poor, and how deep a poverty that is, only London knows.
We have poor people enough, and sin and suffering enough in our own large cities, but I don't think the poorest of them are quite so badly off as London's worst. Effie and her father and mother and her little sister and her three brothers all lived in a single cellar-like room, in the most squalid quarter of St. Giles. There was almost no furniture in the room; in winter it was often fireless,insummer hot always, and full of evil smells. Food was scanty, and sometimes wanting altogether, for gin cost less than bread, and Effie's father was continuously drunk, her mother not infrequently so. It was a miserable home and a wretched family. The parents fought, the children cried and quarrelled, and the parents beat them. As the boys grew bigger, they made haste to escape into the streets, whereall manner of evil was taught them. Jack, the eldest, who was but just twelve, had twice been arrested, and sentenced to a term of imprisonment for picking pockets. They were growing up to be little thieves, young ruffians, and what chance for better things was there in the squalid cellar and the comfortless life, and how little chance of a doll for Effie, you will easily see. Poor doll-less Effie! She was only six years old, and really a sweet little child. The grime on her cheeks did not reach to her heart, which was as simple and ignorant and innocent as that of white-clad children, whose mothers kiss them, and whose faces are washed every day.
In all her life Effie had only seen one doll. It was a battered object, with one leg gone, and only half a nose, but, to Effie's eyes, it was a beauty and a treasure. This doll was the property of a little girl to whom Effie had never dared to speak, she seemed to her so happy and privileged, so far above herself, asshe strutted up and down the alley with other children, bearing the one-legged doll in her arms. It was not the alley in which the Wallises lived, but a somewhat wider one into which that opened. One of Effie's few pleasures was to creep away when she could, and, crouched behind a post at the alley's foot, watch the children playing there. No one thought of or noticed her. Once, when the owner of the doll threw her on the ground for a moment and ran away, Effie ventured to steal out and touch the wonderful creature with her finger. It was only a touch, for the other children soon returned, and Effie fled back to her hiding-place; but she never forgot it. Oh, if only she could have a doll like that for her own, what happiness it would be, she thought; but she never dared to mention the doll to her mother, or to put the wish into words.
If any one had come in just then and told Effie that one day she was to own a doll farmore beautiful than the shabby treasure she so coveted, and that the person to give it her would be the future Queen of England,—why, first it would have been needful to explain to her what the words meant, and then she certainly wouldn't have believed them. What a wide, wide distance there seemed from the wretched alley where the little, half-clad child crouched behind the post, to the sunny palace where the fair princess, England's darling, sat surrounded by her bright-faced children,—a distance too wide to bridge, as it would appear; yet it was bridged, and there was a half-way point where both could meet, as you will see. That half-way point was called "The Great Ormond Street Child's Hospital."
For one day a very sad thing happened to Effie. Sent by her mother to buy a quartern of gin, she was coming back with the jug in her hand, when a half-tipsy man, reeling against her, threw her down just where a flightof steps led to a lower street. She was picked up and carried home, where for some days she lay in great pain, before a kind woman who went about to read the Bible to the poor, found her out, and sent the dispensary doctor to see her. He shook his head gravely after he had examined her, and said her leg was badly broken, and ought to have been seen to long before, and that there was no use trying to cure her there, and she must be carried to the hospital. Mrs. Wallis made a great outcry over this, for mothers are mothers, even when they are poor and drunken and ignorant, and do not like to have their children taken away from them; but in the end the doctor prevailed.
Effie hardly knew when they moved her, for the doctor had given her something which made her sleep heavily and long. It was like a dream when she at last opened her eyes, and found herself in a place which she had never seen before,—a long, wide, airy room,with a double row of narrow, white beds like the one in which she herself was, and in most of the beds sick children lying. Bright colored pictures and texts painted gaily in red and blue hung on the walls above the beds; some of the counterpanes had pretty verses printed on them. Effie could not read, but she liked to look at the texts, they were so bright. There were flowers in pots and jars on the window-sills, and on some of the little tables that stood beside the beds, and tiny chairs with rockers, in which pale little boys and girls sat swinging to and fro. A great many of them were playing with toys, and they all looked happy. An air of fresh, cheerful neatness was over all the place, and altogether it was so pleasant that for a long time Effie lay staring about her, and speaking not a word. At last, in a faint little voice, she half whispered, "Where is this?"
Faint as was the voice, some one heard it, and came at once to the bedside. This somebodywas a nice, sweet-faced, motherly looking woman, dressed in the uniform of Miss Nightingale's nurses. She smiled so kindly at Effie that Effie smiled feebly back.
"Where is this?" she asked again.
"This is a nice place where they take care of little children who are ill, and make them well again," answered the nurse, brightly.
"Do you live here?" said Effie, after a pause, during which her large eyes seemed to grow larger.
"Yes. My name is Nurse Johnstone, and I amyournurse. You've had a long sleep, haven't you, dear? Now you've waked up, would you like some nice milk to drink?"
"Y-es," replied Effie, doubtfully. But when the milk came, she liked it very much, it was so cool and rich and sweet. It was brought in a little blue cup, and Effie drank it through a glass tube, because she mustnot lift her head. There was a bit of white bread to eat besides, but Effie did not care for that. She was drowsy still, and fell asleep as soon as the last mouthful of milk was swallowed.
When she next waked, Nurse Johnstone was there again, with such a good little cupful of hot broth for Effie to eat, and another slice of bread. Effie's head was clearer now, and she felt much more like talking and questioning. The ward was dark and still, only a shaded lamp here and there showed the little ones asleep in their cots.
"This is a nice place I think," said Effie, as she slowly sipped the soup.
"I'm glad you like it," said the nurse, "almost all children do."
"I like you, too," said Effie, with a contented sigh, "andthat," pointing to the broth. She had not once asked after her mother; the nurse noticed, and she drew her own inferences.
"Now," she said, after she had smoothed the bed clothes and Effie's hair, and given the pillow a touch or two to make it easier, "now, it would be nice if you would say one little Bible verse for me, and then go to sleep again."
"A verse?" said Effie.
"Yes, a little Bible verse."
"Bible?" repeated Effie, in a puzzled tone.
"Yes, dear,—a Bible verse. Don't you know one?"
"No."
"But you've seen a Bible, surely."
Effie shook her head. "I don't know what you mean," she said.
"Why, you poor lamb," cried Nurse Johnstone, "I do believe you haven't! Well, and in a Christian country, too! If that ain't too bad. I'll tell you a verse this minute, you poor little thing, and to-morrow we'll see if you can't learn it." Then, very slowly and reverently, she repeated, "Sufferthe little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven." Twice she repeated the text, Effie listening attentively to the strange, beautiful words; then she kissed her for good-night, and moved away. Effie lay awake awhile saying the verse over to herself. She had a good memory, and when she waked next morning she found that she was able to say it quite perfectly.
That happened to be a Thursday, and Thursday was always a special day in Great Ormond Street, because it was that on which the Princess of Wales made her weekly visit to the hospital. Effie had never heard of a princess, and had no idea what all the happy bustle meant, as nurses and patients made ready for the coming guest. Nothing could be cleaner than the ward in its every-day condition, but all little possible touches were given to make it look its very best. Freshflowers were put into the jars, the little ones able to sit up, were made very neat, each white bed was duly smoothed, and every face had a look as though something pleasant was going to happen. Children easily catch the contagion of cheerfulness, and Effie was insensibly cheered by seeing other people so. She lay on her pillow, observing everything, and faintly smiling, when the door opened, and in came a slender, beautiful lady, wrapped in soft silks and laces, with two or three children beside her. All the nurses began to courtesy, and the children to dimple and twinkle at the sight of her. She walked straight to the middle of the ward, then, lifting something up that all might see it, she said in a clear sweet voice: "Isn't there some one of these little girls who can say a pretty Bible verse for me? If there is, she shall have this."
What do you think "this" was? No other than a doll! A large, beautiful creature ofwax, with curly brown hair, blue eyes which could open and shut, the reddest lips and pinkest cheeks ever seen, and a place, somewhere about her middle, which, when pinched, made her utter a squeaky sound like "Mama." This delightful doll had on a pretty blue dress with a scarlet sash, and a pair of brown kid boots with real buttons. She wore a little blue hat on top of her curly head, and sported an actual pocket-handkerchief, three inches square, or so, on which was written her name, "Dolly Varden." All the little ones stared at her with dazzled eyes, but for a moment no one spoke. I suppose they really were too surprised to speak, till suddenly a little hand went up, and a small voice was heard from the far corner. The voice came from Effie, too, and it was Effie herself who spoke.
"I can say a verse," said the small voice.
"Can you? That is nice. Say it, then," said the princess, turning toward her.
Then the small, piping voice repeated, very slowly and distinctly, this text: "Suffer the little children to come unto—Nurse Johnstone—and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of Heaven!"
What a laugh rang through the ward then! The nurses laughed, the little ones laughed too, though they did not distinctly understand at what. Nurse Johnstone cried as well as laughed, and the princess was almost as bad, for her eyes were dewy, though a smile was on her sweet lips as shestepped forward and laid the doll in Effie's hands. Nurse Johnstone eagerly explained: "I said 'Come unto Me,' and she thought it meantme, poor little lamb, and it's a shame there should be such ignorance in a Christian land!" All this time Effie was hugging her dolly in a silent rapture. Her wish was granted, and wasn't it strange that it should have been granted justso?