Ornate capital "D"
DOTTY and Dimple were two little sisters, who looked so much alike that most people took them for twins. They both had round faces, blue eyes, straight brown hair, cut short in the neck, and cheeks as firm and pink as fall apples; and, though Dotty was eleven months the oldest, Dimple was the taller by half an inch, so that altogether it was very confusing.
I don't believe any twins could love each other better than did these little girls. Nobody ever heard them utter a quarrelsome word from the time they waked in the morning, and began to chatter and giggle in bedlike two little squirrels, to the moment when they fell asleep at night, with arms tight clasped round each other's necks. They liked the same things, did the same things, and played together all day long without being tired. Their father's farm was two miles from the nearest neighbor, and three from the schoolhouse; so they didn't go to school, and no little boys and girls ever came to see them.
Should you think it would be lonely to live so? Dotty and Dimple didn't. They had each other for playmates, and all outdoors to play in, and that was enough.
The farm was a wild, beautiful spot. A river ran round two sides of it; and quite near the house it "met with an accident," as Dotty said; that is, it tumbled over some high rocks in a waterfall, and then, picking itself up, took another jump, and landed, all white and foaming, in a deep wooded glen.
The water where it fell was dazzling with rainbows, like soap-bubbles; and the pool at the bottom had the color of a green emerald, only that all over the top little flakes of sparkling spray swam and glittered in the sun. Altogether it was a wonderful place, and the children were never tired of watching the cascade or hearing the rush and roar of its leap.
All summer long city people, boarding in the village, six miles off, would drive over to see the fall. This was very interesting, indeed! Carryalls and big wagons would stop at the gate, and ladies get out, with pretty round hats and parasols; and gentlemen, carrying canes; and dear little children, in flounced and braided frocks. And they would all come trooping up close by the house, on their way to see the view. Sometimes, but not often, one would stop to get a drink of water or ask the way. Dotty and Dimple liked very much to havethem come. They would hide, and peep out at the strangers, and make up all kinds of stories about them; but they were too shy to come forward or let themselves be seen. So the people from the city never guessed what bright eyes were looking at them from behind the door or on the other side of the bushes. But all the same, it was great fun for the children to have them come, and they were always pleased when wheels were heard and wagons drove up to the gate.
It was early last summer that a droll idea popped into Dotty's head. It all came from a man who, walking past, and stopping to see the fall, sat down a while to rest, and said to the farmer:—
"I should think you'd charge people something for looking at that ere place, stranger."
"No," replied Dotty's father. "I don't calculate on asking folks nothing for the use of their eyes."
"Well," said the man, getting up to go, "you might as well. It's what folks is doing all over the country. If 't was mine, I'd fix up a lunch or something, and fetch 'em that way."
But the farmer only laughed. That night, when Dotty and Dimple were in bed, they began to whisper to each other about the man.
"Wasn't it funny," giggled Dimple, "his telling Pa to fix a lunch?"
"Yes," said Dotty. "But I'll tell you what, Dimple! when he said that, I had such a nice plan come into my head. You know you and me can make real nice corn-balls."
"'Course we can."
"Well, let's get Pa, or else Zach, to make us a little table,—out of boards, you know; and let's put it on the bank, close to the place where folks go to see the fall; and every day let's pop a lot of corn, and make some balls, and set them on the table forthe folks to eat. Don't you think that would be nice?"
"I'm afraid Mother wouldn't let us have so much molasses," said the practical Dimple.
"Oh, but don't you see I mean to have the folkspayfor 'em! We'll put a paper on the table, with 'two cents apiece,' or something like that, on it. And then they'll put the money on the table, and when they're gone away we'll go and fetch it. Won't that be fun? Perhaps there'd be a great, great deal,—most as much as a dollar!"
"Oh, no," cried Dimple, "not so much asthat! But we might get a greenback. How much is a greenback, Dot?"
"Oh, I don't know," replied Dotty. "A good deal, I know, but I guess it isn't so much as a dollar."
The little sisters could hardly sleep that night, they were so excited over their plan. Next morning they were up with the birds; and before breakfast Mother, Father, andZach, the hired man, had heard all about the wonderful scheme.
Mother said she didn't mind letting them try; and Zach, who was very fond of the children, promised to make the table the very first thing after the big field was ploughed. And so he did; and a very nice table it was, with four legs and a good stout top. Dotty and Dimple laughed with pleasure when they saw it.
Zach set it on the bank just at the place where the people stood to look at the view; and he drove a stake at each corner; and found some old sheeting, and made a sort of tent over the table, so that the sun should not shine under and melt the corn-balls. When it was all arranged, and the table set out, with the corn-balls on one plate and maple-sugar cakes on another, it looked very tempting, and the children were extremely proud of it. Dotty cut a sheet of paper, and printed upon it the following notice:
"Corn bals 2 sents apece.Sugar 1 sent apece.Plese help yure selfs and put the munneyon the table."
"Corn bals 2 sents apece.Sugar 1 sent apece.Plese help yure selfs and put the munneyon the table."
This was pinned to the tent, right over the table.
The first day four people came to visit the waterfall; and when the children ran down to look, after they had driven away, half the provisions were gone, and there on the table lay four shining five-cent pieces! The next day was not so good; they only made four cents. And so it went on all summer. Some days a good many people would come, and a good many pennies be left on the table; and other days nobody would come, and the wasps would eat the maple-sugar, and fly away without paying anything at all. But little by little the tin box in Mother's drawer got heavier and heavier, until at last, early in October, Dotty declared that she was tired of making corn-balls, and she guessed the city-folkswere all gone home; and now wouldn't Mother please to count the money, and see how much they had got?
So Mother emptied the tin box into her lap, with a great jingle of pennies and rustling of fractional currency. And how much do you think there was? Three dollars and seventy-eight cents! The seventy-eight cents Mother said would just about pay for the molasses; so there were three dollars all their own,—for Dotty and Dimple to spend as they liked!
You should have seen them dance about the kitchen! Three dollars! Why, it was a fortune! It would buy everything in the world! They had fifty plans, at least, for spending it; and sat up so late talking them over, and had such red cheeks and excited eyes, that Mother said she was afraid they wouldn't sleep one wink all night. But, bless you! they did, and were as bright as buttons in the morning.
For a week there was nothing talked about but the wonderful three dollars. And then one evening Father, who had been over to the village, came home with a very grave face, and, drawing a newspaper from his pocket, read them all about the great fire in Chicago.
He read how the flames, spreading like wind, swept from one house to another, and how people had just time to run out of their homes, leaving everything to burn; how women, with babies in their arms, and frightened children crouched all that dreadful night out on the cold, wet prairie, without food or clothes or shelter; how little boys and girls ran through the burning streets, crying for the parents whom they could not find; how everybody had lost everything.
"Oh," said Dimple, almost crying, as she listened to the piteous story, "how dreadful those little girls must feel! And I suppose all their dollies are burned up too. I wouldn'thave Nancy burned in a fire for anything!" and, picking up an old doll, of whom she was very fond, she hugged her with unspeakable affection.
That night there was another long, mysterious confabulation in the children's bed; and, coming down in the morning, hand in hand, Dotty and Dimple announced that they had made up their minds what to do with the corn-ball money.
"We're going to send it to the Sicago," said Dimple, "to those poor little girls whose dollies are all burned up!"
"How will you send it?" asked their Mother.
"In a letter," said Dotty. "And please, Pa, write on the outside: 'From Dotty and Dimple, to buy some dollies for the little girls whose dollies were burned up in the fire.'"
So their father put the money into an envelope, and wrote on the outside just what Dotty said. And, when he had got through,he put his hands in his pockets and walked out of the room. The children wondered what made his face so red, and when they turned round, there was Mother with tears in her eyes.
"Why, what's the matter?" cried they. But their Mother only put her arms round them and kissed them very hard. And she whispered to herself: "Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven."
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Ornate capital "I"
IT was the day before Thanksgiving, but the warmth of a late Indian summer lay over the world, and tempered the autumn chill into mildness more like early October than late November. Elsie Thayer, driving her village cart rapidly through the "Long Woods," caught herself vaguely wondering why the grass was not greener, and what should set the leaves to tumbling off the trees in such an unsummer-like fashion,—then smiled at herself for being so forgetful.
The cart was packed full; for, besides Elsie herself, it held a bag of sweet potatoes, a sizable bundle or two, and a large market-basket,from which protruded the unmistakable legs of a turkey, not to mention a choice smaller basket covered with a napkin. All these were going to the little farmstead in which dwelt Mrs. Ann Sparrow, Elsie's nurse in childhood, and the most faithful and kindly of friends ever since. Elsie always made sure that "Nursey" had a good Thanksgiving dinner, and generally carried it herself.
The day was so delightful that it seemed almost a pity that the pony should trot so fast. One would willingly have gone slowly, tasting drop by drop, as it were, the lovely sunshine filtering through the yellow beech boughs, the unexpected warmth, and the balmy spice of the air, which had in it a tinge of smoky haze. But the day before Thanksgiving is sure to be a busy one with New England folk; Elsie had other tasks awaiting her, and she knew that Nursey would not be content with a short visit.
"Hurry up, little Jack!" she said. "Youshall have a long rest presently, if you are a good boy, and some nice fresh grass,—if I can find any; anyway, a little drink of water. So make haste."
Jack made haste. The yellow wheels of the cart spun in and out of the shadow like circles of gleaming sun. When the two miles were achieved, and the little clearing came into view, Elsie slackened her pace: she wanted to take Nursey by surprise. Driving straight to a small open shed, she deftly unharnessed the pony, tied him with a liberal allowance of halter, hung up the harness, and wheeled the cart away from his heels, all with the ease which is born of practice. She then gathered a lapful of brown but still nourishing grasses for Jack, and was about to lift the parcels from the wagon when she was espied by Mrs. Sparrow.
Out she came, hurrying and flushed with pleasure,—the dearest old woman, with pink, wrinkled cheeks like a perfectly bakedapple, and a voice which still retained its pleasant English tones, after sixty long years in America.
"Well, Missy, dear, so it's you. I made sure you'd come, and had been watching all the morning; but somehow I missed you when you drove up, and it was just by haccident like, that I looked out of window and see you in the shed. You're looking well, Missy. That school hasn't hurt you a bit. Just the same nice color in your cheeks as ever. I was that troubled when I heard you wa'n't coming home last summer, for I thought maybe you was ill; but your mother she said 'twas all right, and just for your pleasure, and I see it was so. Why,"—her voice changing to consternation,—"if you haven't unharnessed the horse! Now, Missy, how came you to do that? You forgot there wasn't no one about but me. Who's to put him in for you, I wonder?"
"Oh, I don't want any one. I can harness the pony myself."
"Oh, Missy, dear, you mustn't do that! I couldn't let you. It's real hard to harness a horse. You'd make some mistake, and then there'd be a haccident."
"Nonsense, Nursey! I've harnessed Jack once this morning already; it's just as easy to do it twice. I'm a member of a Harnessing Class, I'd have you to know; and, what's more, I took the prize!"
"Now, Missy, dear, whatever do you mean by that? Young ladies learn to harness! I never heard of such a thing in my life! In my young time, in England, they learned globes and langwidges, and, it might be, to paint in oils and such, and make nice things in chenille."
"I'll tell you all about it, but first let us carry these things up to the house. Here's your Thanksgiving turkey, Nursey,—with Mother's love. Papa sent you the sweetpotatoes and the cranberries; and the oranges and figs and the pumpkin pie are from me. I made the pie myself. That's another of the useful things that I learned to do at my school."
"The master is very kind, Missy; and so is your mother; and I'm thankful to you all. But that's a queer school of yours, it seems to me. For my part, I never heard of young ladies learning such things as cooking and harnessing at boarding-schools."
"Oh, we learn arts and languages, too,—that part of our education isn't neglected. Now, Nursey, we'll put these things in your buttery, and you shall give me a glass of nice cold milk; and while I drink it I'll tell you about Rosemary Hall,—that's the name of the school, you know; and it's the dearest, nicest place you can think of."
"Very likely, Miss Elsie," in an unconvinced tone; "but still I don't see any reason why they should set you to making pies and harnessing horses."
"Oh, that's just at odd times, by way of fun and pleasure; it isn't lessons, you know. You see, Mrs. Thanet—that's a rich lady who lives close by, and is a sort of fairy godmother to us girls—has a great notion about practical education. It was she who got up the Harnessing Class and the Model Kitchen. It's the dearest little place you ever saw, Nursey, with aperfectstove, and shelves, and hooks for everything; and such bright tins, and the prettiest of old-fashioned crockery! It's just like a picture. We girls were always squabbling over whose turn should come first. You can't think how much I learned there, Nursey! I learned to make a pie, and clear out a grate, and scour saucepans, and," counting on her fingers, "to make bread, rolls, minute-biscuit, coffee,—delicious coffee, Nursey!—good soup, creamed oysters, and pumpkin-pies and apple-pies! Just wait, and you shall see!"
She jumped up, ran into the buttery, andsoon returned, carrying a triangle of pie on a plate.
"It isn't Thanksgiving yet, I know; but there is no law against eating pumpkin-pie the day before, so please, Nursey, taste this and see if you don't call it good. Papa says it makes him think of his mother's pies, when he was a little boy."
"Indeed, and it is good, Missy, dear; and I won't deny but cooking may be well for you to know; but for that other—the harnessing class, as you call it,—I don't see the sense of that at all, Missy."
"Oh, Nursey, indeed there is a great deal of sense in it. Mrs. Thanet says it might easily happen, in the country especially,—if any one was hurt or taken very ill, you know,—that life might depend upon a girl's knowing how to harness. She had a man teach us, and we practised and practised, and at the end of the term there was an exhibition, with a prize for the girl who could harness andunharness quickest, and I won it! See, here it is!"
She held out a slim brown hand, and displayed a narrow gold bangle, on which was engraved in minute letters, "What is worth doing at all, is worth doing well."
"Isn't it pretty?" she asked.
"Yes," doubtfully. "The bracelet is pretty enough, Missy; but I can't quite like what it stands for. It don't seem ladylike for you to be knowing about harnesses and such things."
"Oh, Nursey, dear, what nonsense!"
There were things to be done after she got home, but Elsie could not hurry her visit. Jack consumed his grass heap, and then stood sleepily blinking at the flies for a long hour before his young mistress jumped up.
"Now, I must go!" she cried. "Come out and see me harness up, Nursey."
It was swiftly and skilfully done, but still Nurse Sparrow shook her head.
"I don't like it!" she insisted. "'A horse shall be a vain thing for safety'—that's in Holy Writ."
"You are an obstinate old dear," said Elsie, good-humoredly. "Wait till you're ill some day, and I go for the doctor.Thenyou'll realize the advantage of practical education. What a queer smell of smoke there is, Nursey!" gathering up her reins.
"Yes; the woods has been on fire for quite a spell, back on the other side of Bald Top. You can smell the smoke most of the time. Seems to me it's stronger than usual, to-day."
"You don't think there is any danger of its coming this way, do you?"
"Oh, no!" contentedly. "I don't suppose it could come so far as this."
"But why not?" thought Elsie to herself, as she drove rapidly back. "If the wind were right for it, why shouldn't it come this way? Fires travel much farther than that on the prairies,—and they go very fast, too.I never did like having Nursey all alone by herself on that farm."
She reached home, to find things in unexpected confusion. Her father had been called away for the night by a telegram, and her mother—on this, of all days—had gone to bed, disabled with a bad headache. There was much to be done, and Elsie flung herself into the breach, and did it, too busy to think again of Nurse Sparrow and the fire, until, toward nightfall, she noted that the wind had changed, and was blowing straight from Bald Top, bringing with it an increase of smoke.
She ran out to consult the hired man before he went home for the night, and to ask if he thought there was any danger of the fire reaching the Long Woods. He "guessed" not.
"These fires get going quite often on to the other side of Bald Top, but there ain't none of 'em come over this way, and 'tain't likely they ever will. I guess Mis' Sparrow'ssafe enough. You needn't worry, Miss Elsie."
In spite of this comforting assurance, Elsie did worry. She looked out of her west window the last thing before going to bed; and when, at two in the morning, she woke with a sudden start, her first impulse was to run to the window again. Then she gave an exclamation, and her heart stood still with fear; for the southern slopes of Bald Top were ringed with flames which gleamed dim and lurid through the smoke, and showers of sparks, thrown high in air, showed that the edges of the woods beyond Nursey's farm were already burning.
"She'll be frightened to death," thought Elsie. "Oh, poor dear, and no one to help her!"
What should she do? To go after the man and waken him meant a long delay. He was a heavy sleeper, and his house was a quarter of a mile distant. But there was Jack in thestable, and the stable key was in the hall below. As she dressed, she decided.
"How glad I am that I can do this!" she thought, as she flung the harness over the pony's back, strapped, buckled, adjusted,—doing all with a speed which yet left nothing undone and slighted nothing. Not even on the day when she took the prize had she put her horse in so quickly. She ran back at the last moment for two warm rugs. Deftly guiding Jack over the grass, that his hoofs should make no noise, she gained the road, and, quickening him to his fastest pace, drove fearlessly into the dark woods.
They were not so dark as she had feared they would be, for the light of a late, low-hung moon penetrated the trees, with perhaps some reflections from the far-away fire, so that she easily made out the turns and windings of the track. The light grew stronger as she advanced. The main fire was still far distant, but before she reached Nurse's little clearing,she even drove by one place where the woods were ablaze.
She had expected to find Mrs. Sparrow in an agitation of terror; but, behold! she was in her bed, sound asleep. Happily, it was easy to get at her. Nursey's theory was that, "if anybody thought it would pay him to sit up at night and rob an old woman, he'd do it anyway, and needn't have the trouble of getting in at the window;" and on the strength of this philosophical utterance, she went to bed with the door on the latch.
She took Elsie for a dream, at first.
"I'm just a-dreaming. I ain't a-going to wake up; you needn't think it," she muttered sleepily.
But when Elsie at last shook her into consciousness, and pointed at the fiery glow on the horizon, her terror matched her previous unconcern.
"Oh, dear, dear!" she wailed, as with trembling, suddenly stiff fingers she put onher clothes. "I'm a-going to be burned out! It's hard, at my time of life, just when I had got things tidy and comfortable. I was a-thinking of sending over for my niece to the Isle of Dogs, and getting her to come and stay with me, I was indeed, Missy. But there won't be any use in thatnow."
"Perhaps the fire won't come so far as this, after all," said the practical Elsie.
"Oh, yes, it will! It's 'most here now."
"Well, whether it does or not, I'm going to carry you home with me, where you will be safe. Now, Nursey, tell me which of your things you care most for, that we can take with us,—small things, I mean. Of course we can't carry tables and beds in my little cart."
The selection proved difficult. Nurse's affections clung to a tall eight-day clock, and were hard to be detached. She also felt strongly that it was a clear flying in the face of Providence not to save "Sparrow's chair,"a solid structure of cherry, with rockers weighing many pounds, and quite as wide as the wagon. Elsie coaxed and remonstrated, and at last got Nursey into the seat, with the cat and a bundle of her best clothes in her lap, her tea-spoons in her pocket, a basket of specially beloved baking-tins under the seat, and a favorite feather-bed at the back, among whose billowy folds were tucked away an assortment of treasures, ending with the Thanksgiving goodies which had been brought over that morning.
"I can't leave that turkey behind, Missy, dear—I really can't!" pleaded Nursey. "I've been thinking of him, and anticipating how good he was going to be, all day; and I haven't had but one taste of your pie. They're so little, they'll go in anywhere."
The fire seemed startlingly near now, and the western sky was all aflame, while over against it, in the east, burned the first yellow beams of dawn. People were astir by thistime, and men on foot and horseback were hurrying toward the burning woods. They stared curiously at the oddly laden cart.
"Why, you didn't ever come over for me all alone!" cried Nurse Sparrow, rousing suddenly to a sense of the situation. "I've be'n that flustered that I never took thought of how you got across, or anything about it. Where was your Pa, Missy,—and Hiram?"
Elsie explained.
"Oh, you blessed child; and if you hadn't come, I'd have been burned in my bed, as like as not!" cried the old woman, quite overpowered. "Well, well! little did I think, when you was a baby, and I a-tending you, that the day was to come when you were to run yourself into danger for the sake of saving my poor old life!"
"I don't see that there has been any particular danger for me to run, so far; and as for saving your life, Nursey, it would very likely have saved itself if I hadn't come nearyou. See, the wind has changed; it is blowing from the north now. Perhaps the fire won't reach your house, after all. But, anyway, I am glad you are here and not there. We cannot be too careful of such a dear old Nursey as you are. And one thing, I think, you'll confess,"—Elsie's tone was a little mischievous,—"and that is, that harnessing classes have their uses. If I hadn't known how to put Jack in the cart, I might at this moment be hammering on the door of that stupid Hiram (who, you know, sleeps like a log) trying to wake him, and you on the clearing alone, scared to death. Now, Nursey, own up: Mrs. Thanet wasn't so far wrong, now was she?"
"Indeed, no, Missy. It'd be very ungrateful for me to be saying that. The lady judged wiser than I did."
"Very well, then," cried Elsie, joyously. "If only your house isn't burned up, I shall be glad the fire happened; for it's such atriumph for Mrs. Thanet, and she'll be so pleased!"
Nursey's house did not burn down. The change of wind came just in time to save it; and, after eating her own Thanksgiving turkey in her old home, and being petted and made much of for a few days, she went back, none the worse for her adventure, to find her goods and chattels in their usual places, and all safe.
And Mrs. Thanetwaspleased. She sent Elsie a pretty locket, with the date of the fire engraved upon it, and wrote that she gloried in her as the Vindicator of a Principle, which fine words made Elsie laugh; but she enjoyed being praised all the same.
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Ornate capital "A"
ADUSTY workshop, dark except where one broad ray of light streamed through a broken shutter, a row of mysterious objects, with a tiny tin funnel fitted into the front of each, and a cloth over their tops, odd designs in wood and brass hanging on the wall, a carpenter's bench, a small furnace, a general strew of shavings, iron scrape, and odds and ends, and a little girl sitting on the floor, crying. It does not sound much like the beginning of a story, does it? And no one would have been more surprised than Amy Carpenter herself if any one had come as she sat there crying, and told her that a story was begun, and she was in it.
Yet that is the way in which stories in real life often do begin. Dust, dulness, every-day things about one, tears, temper; and out of these unpromising materials Fate weaves a "happening" for us. She does not wait till skies are blue and suns shine, till the room is dusted, and we are all ready, but chooses such time as pleases her, and surprises us.
Amy was in as evil a temper as little girls of ten are often visited with. Things had gone very wrong with her that day. It began with a great disappointment. All Miss Gray's class at school was going on a picnic. Amy had expected to go too, and at the last moment her mother had kept her at home.
"I'm real sorry about it," Mrs. Carpenter had said, "but you see how it is. Baby's right fretty with his teeth, and your father's that worried about his machine that I'm afraid he'll be down sick. If we can't keepBaby quiet, father can't eat, and if he don't eat he won't sleep, and if he can't sleep he can't work, and then I don't see what will become of us. I've all that sewing to finish for Mrs. Judge Peters, and she's going away Monday; and if she don't have it in time, she'll be put out, and, as like as not, give her work to some one else. Now, don't cry, Amy. I'm right sorry to disappoint you, but all of us must take our turn in giving up things. I'm sure I take mine," with a little patient sigh.
"Father's sure that this new machine of his is going to make our fortune," she went on, after an interval of busy stitching. "But I don't know. He said just the same about the alarm-clock, and the Imferno Reaper and Binder, and that thing-a-my-jig for opening cans, and the self-registering Savings Bank, and the Minute Egg-Beater, and the Tuck Measurer, and none of them came to anything in the end. Perhaps it'll be the samewith this." Another sigh, a little deeper than the last.
Some little girls might have been touched with the tired, discouraged voice and look, but Amy was a stormy child, with a hot temper and a very strong will. So instead of being sorry and helpful, she went on crying and complaining, till her mother spoke sharply, and then subsided into sulky silence. Baby woke, and she had to take him up, but she did it unwillingly, and her unhappy mood seemed to communicate itself to him, as moods will. He wriggled and twisted in her arms, and presently began to whimper. Amy hushed and patted. She set him on his feet, she turned him over on his face, nothing pleased him. The whimper increased to a roar.
"Dear! dear!" cried poor Mrs. Carpenter, stopping her machine in the middle of a long seam. "What is the matter? I never did see anybody so unhandy with a baby as youare. Here I am in such a hurry, and you don't try to amuse him worth a cent. I'm really ashamed of you, Amy Carpenter."
Amy's back and arms ached; she felt that this speech was cruelly unjust. What she did not see was that it was her own temper which was repeated in her little brother. Like all babies, he knew instinctively the difference between loving tendance and that which is bestowed from a cold sense of duty, and he resented the latter with all his might.
"Do walk up and down and sing to him," said Mrs. Carpenter, who hated to have her child unhappy, but still more to leave her sewing,—"sing something cheerful. Perhaps he'll go to sleep if you do."
So Amy, feeling very cross and injured, had to walk the heavy baby up and down, and sing "Rock me to sleep, Mother," which was the only "cheerful" song she could think of. It quieted the baby for a while, then, just as his eyelids were drooping, a fresh attackof fretting seized upon him, and he began to cry; Amy was so vexed that she gave him a furtive slap. It was a very little slap, but her mother saw it.
"You naughty, bad girl!" she cried, jumping up; "so that's the way you treat your little brother, is it? Slapping him on the sly! No wonder he doesn't like you, and won't go to sleep!" She snatched the child away, and gave Amy a smart box on the ear. Mrs. Carpenter, though a good woman, had a quick temper of her own.
"You can go up-stairs now," she said in a stern, exasperated tone. "I don't want you any more this afternoon. If you were a good girl, you might have been a real comfort to me this hard day, but as it is, I'd rather have your room than your company."
Frightened and angry both, Amy rushed up-stairs, and into her father's workshop, the door of which stood open. He had just gone out, and the confusion and dreariness of theplace seemed inviting to her at the moment. Flinging the door to with a great bang, she threw herself on the floor, and gave vent to her pent-up emotions.
"It's unjust!" she sobbed, speaking louder than usual, as people do who are in a passion. "Mamma is as mean as she can be! Scolding me because that old baby wouldn't go to sleep! I hate everybody! I wish I was dead! I wish everybody else was dead!"
These were dreadful words for a little girl to use. Even in her anger, Amy would have been startled and ashamed at the idea of any one's ever hearing them.
But Amy had a listener, though she little suspected it, and, what was worse, a listener who was recording every word that she uttered!
The "new machine" of which Mrs. Carpenter had spoken was really a very clever and ingenious one. It was the adaptation of the phonographic principle to the person ofa doll. Mr. Carpenter had succeeded in interesting somebody with capital in his project, and the dolls were at that moment being manufactured for the apparatus, the construction of which he kept in his own hands. This apparatus was held in small cylinders, just large enough to fit into the body of a doll and contain, each, a few sentences, which the doll would seem to speak when set in an upright position.
These cylinders were just ready, and standing in a row waiting to receive their "charges," which were to be put into them through the tin funnels fitted for the purpose. Amy, as she sat on the floor, was exactly opposite one of these funnels, and all her angry words passed into, and became a part of, the mechanism of the doll. After this, no matter how many pretty words might be uttered softly into that cylinder, none of them could make any impression; the doll was full. It could hold no more.
But no one knew that the doll was full. Amy, her fit of passion over, fell asleep on the floor, and when her father's step sounded below, waked in a calmer mood. She was sorry that she had been so naughty, and tried to make up for it by being more helpful and patient in the evening and next day. Her mother easily forgave her, and she did not find it hard to forgive herself, and soon forgot the event of that unhappy afternoon. Mr. Carpenter sat down in front of his cylinders that night, and filled them all, as he supposed, with nice little sentences to please and surprise small doll owners, such as "Good morning, Mamma. Shall I put on my pink or my olive frock this morning?" or "Good-night, Mamma. I'm so sleepy!" or bits of nursery rhymes,—Bo Peep or Jack and Jill or Little Boy Blue. Then, when the phonographs were filled, the machinery went away to be put in the dolls, and Mr. Carpenter began on a fresh set.
Mrs. Carpenter, meanwhile, had finished her big job of sewing, so she felt less hurried, and had more time for the baby. The weather was beautiful, things went well at school, and altogether life seemed pleasant to Amy, and she found it easy to be kind and good-natured.
This agreeable state of things lasted through the autumn. The Dolliphone, as Mr. Carpenter had christened his invention, proved a hit. Orders poured in from all over the United States, and from England and France, and the manufactory was taxed to its utmost extent. At last one of Mr. Carpenter's inventions had turned out a success, and his spirits rose high.
"We've fetched it this time, Mother," he told his wife. "The stock's going up like all possessed, and the dolls are going out as fast as we can get them ready. Why, we've had orders from as far off as Australia! China'll come next, I suppose, or the CannibalIslands. There's no end to the money that's in it."
"I'm glad, Robert, I'm sure," returned Mrs. Carpenter; "but don't count too much upon it all. I've thought a heap of that self-acting churn, you remember."
"Pshaw! the churn never did amount to shucks anyhow," said her husband, who had the true inventor's faculty for forgetting the mischances of the past in the contemplation of the hopes of the future. "It was just a little dud to make folks open their eyes, any way. This Dolliphone is different. It's bound to sell like wild-fire, once it gets to going. We'll be rich folks before we know it, Mother."
"That'll be nice," said Mrs. Carpenter, with a dry, unbelieving cough. She did not mean to be as discouraging as she sounded, but a woman can scarcely be the wife of an unsuccessful genius for fifteen years, and see the family earnings vanish down thethroat of one invention after another, without becoming outwardly, as well as inwardly, discouraged.
"Now, don't be a wet blanket, Mother," said Mr. Carpenter, good-humoredly. "We've had some upsets in our calculation, I confess, but this time it's all coming out right, as you'll see. And I wanted to ask you about something, and that is what you'd think of Amy's having one of the dolls for her Christmas? Don't you think it'd please her?"
"Why, of course; but do you think you can afford it, Robert? The dolls are five dollars, aren't they?"
"Yes, to customers they are, but I shouldn't have to pay anything like that, of course. I can have one for cost price, say a dollar seventy-five; so if you think the child would like it, we'll fix it so."
"Well, I should be glad to have Amy get one," said Mrs. Carpenter, brightening up."And it seems only right that she should, when you invented it and all. She's been pretty good these last weeks, and she'll be mightily tickled."
So it was settled, but the pile of orders to be filled was so incessant that it was not till Christmas Eve that Mr. Carpenter could get hold of a doll for his own use, and no time was left in which to dress it. That was no matter, Mrs. Carpenter declared; Amy would like to make the clothes herself, and it would be good practice in sewing. She hunted up some pieces of cambric and flannel and scraps of ribbon for the purpose, and when Amy woke on Christmas morning, there by her side lay the big, beautiful creature, with flaxen hair, long-lashed blue eyes, and a dimple in her pink chin. Beside her was a parcel containing the materials for her clothes and a new spool of thread, and on the doll's arm was pinned a paper with this inscription:—
"For Amy, with a Merry Christmas from Father and Mother."Her name is Dolly Phone."
"For Amy, with a Merry Christmas from Father and Mother.
"Her name is Dolly Phone."
Amy's only doll up to this time had been a rag one, manufactured by her mother, and you can imagine her delight. She hugged Dolly Phone to her heart, kissed her twenty times over, and examined all her beauties in detail,—her lovely bang, her hands, and her little feet, which had brown kid shoes sewed on them, and the smile on her lips, which showed two tiny white teeth. She stood her up on the quilt to see how tall she was, and as she did so, wonder of wonders, out of these smiling red lips came a voice, sharp and high-pitched, as if a canary-bird or a Jew's-harp were suddenly endowed with speech, and began to talk to her!
What did the voice say? Not "Good-morning, Mamma," or "I'm so sleepy!" or "Mistress Mary quite contrary," or "Twinkle, twinkle, little star,"—none of these things.Her sister dolls might have said these things; what Dolly Phone said, speaking fast and excitedly, was,—
"It's unjust! Mamma is as mean as she can be! Scolding me because that old baby wouldn't go to sleep! I hate everybody! I wish I was dead! I wish everybody else was dead!" And then, in a different tone, a good deal deeper, "Good-morning, ma-m—" and there the voice stopped suddenly.
Amy had listened to this remarkable address with astonishment. That her beautiful new baby could speak, was delightful, but what horrible things she said!
"How queerly you talk, darling!" she cried, snatching the doll into her arms again. "What is the matter? Why do you speak so to me? Are you alive, or only making believe? I'm not mean; what makes you say I am? And, oh! why do you wish you were dead?"
Dolly stared full in her face with anunwinking smile. She looked perfectly good-natured. Amy began to think that she was dreaming, or that the whole thing was some queer trick.
"There, there, dear!" she cried, patting the doll's back, "we won't say any more about it. You love me now, I know you do!"
Then, very gently and cautiously, she set Dolly on her feet again. "Perhaps she'll say something nice this time," she thought hopefully.
Alas! the rosy lips only uttered the self-same words. "Mean—unjust—I hate everybody—I wish everybody was dead," in sharp, unpitying sequence. Worst of all, the phrases began to have a familiar sound to Amy's ear. She felt her cheeks burn with a sudden red.
"Why," she thought, "that was what I said in the workshop the day I was so cross. How could the doll know? Oh, dear! she'sso lovely and so beautiful, but if she keeps on talking like this, what shall I do?"
Deep in her heart struggled an uneasy fear. Mother would hear the doll! Mother might suspect what it meant! At all hazards, Dolly must be kept from talking while mother was by.
She was so quiet and subdued when she went downstairs to breakfast, with the doll in her arms, that her father and mother could not understand it. They had looked forward to seeing her boisterously joyful. She kissed them, and thanked them, and tried to seem like her usual self, but mothers' eyes are sharp, and Mrs. Carpenter detected the look of trouble.
"What's the matter, dear?" she whispered. "Don't you feel well?"
"Oh, yes! very well. Nothing's the matter." Amy whispered back, keeping the terrible Dolly sedulously prone, as she spoke.
"Come, Amy, let's see your new baby,"said Mr. Carpenter. "She's a beauty, ain't she? Half of her was made in this house, did you know that? Set her up, and let's hear her talk."
"She's asleep now," faltered Amy. "But she's been talking up-stairs. She talks very nicely, Papa. She's tired now, truly she is."
"Nonsense! she isn't the kind that gets tired. Her tongue won't ache if she runs on all day; she's like some little girls in that. Stand her up, Amy, I want to hear her. I've never seen one of 'em out of the shop before. She looks wonderfully alive, doesn't she, Mother?"
But Amy still hesitated. Her manner was so strange that her father grew impatient at last, and, reaching out, took the doll from her, and set it sharply on the table. The little button on the sole of the foot set the curious instrument within in motion. As prepared phrases were rolled off in shrill succession, Mr. Carpenter leaned forward to listen.When the sounds ended, he raised his head with a look of bewilderment.
"Why—why—what is the creature at?" he exclaimed. "That isn't what I put into her. 'I Wish I was dead! Wish everybody else was dead!' I can't understand it at all. I charged all the dolls myself, and there wasn't a word like that in the whole batch. If the others have gone wrong like this, it's all up with our profits."
He looked so troubled and down-hearted that Amy could bear it no longer.
"It's all my fault!" she cried, bursting into tears. "Somehow it's all my fault, though I can't tell how, for it was I who said those things. I said those very things, Papa, in your workshop one day when I was in a temper. Don't you recollect the day, Mother,—the day when I didn't go to the picnic, and Baby wouldn't go to sleep, and I slapped him, and you boxed my ears? I went up-stairs, and I was crying, and I said,—yes, I think Isaid every word of those things, though I forgot all about them till Dolly said them to me this morning, and how she could possibly know, I can't imagine."
"But I can imagine," said her father. "Where did you sit that day, Amy?"
"On the floor, by the door."
"Was there a row of things close by, with tin funnels stuck in them and a cloth over the top?"
"I think there was. I recollect the funnels."
"Then that's all right!" exclaimed Mr. Carpenter, his face clearing up. "Those were the phonographs, Mother, and, don't you see, she must have been exactly opposite one of the funnels, and her voice went in and filled it. It's the best kind of good luck that that cylinder happened to be put into her doll. If all that bad language had gone to anybody else, there would have been the mischief to pay. Folks would have been writing to thepapers, as like as not, or the ministers preaching against the dolls as a bad influence. It would have ruined the whole concern, and all your fault, Amy."
"Oh, Papa, how dreadful! how perfectly dreadful!" was all Amy could say, but she sobbed so wildly that her father's anger melted.
"There, don't cry," he said more kindly; "we won't be too hard on you on Christmas Day. Wipe your eyes, and we'll try to think no more about it, especially as the spoiled doll has fallen to your own share, and no real harm is done."
In his relief Mr. Carpenter was disposed to pass lightly over the matter. Not so his wife. She took a more serious view of it.
"You see, Amy," she said that night when they chanced to be alone, "you see how a hasty word sticks and lasts. You never supposed that day that the things you said wouldever come back to you again, but here they are."
"Yes—because of the doll,—of her inside, I mean. It heard."
"But if the doll hadn't heard, some one would have heard all the same."
"Do you mean God?" asked Amy, in an awe-struck voice.
"Yes. He hears every word that we say, the minister tells us, and writes them all down in a book. If it frightened you to have the doll repeat the words you had forgotten, think how much more it will frighten you, and all of us, when that book is opened and all the wrong things we have ever said are read out for the whole world to hear."
Mrs. Carpenter did not often speak so solemnly, and it made a great impression on Amy's mind. She still plays with Dolly Phone, and loves her, in a way, but it is a love which is mingled with fear. The doll is like a reproach of conscience to her. That isnot pleasant, so she is kept flat on her back most of the time. Only, now and then, when Amy has been cross and said a sharp word, and is sorry for it, she solemnly takes Dolly, sets her on her feet, and, as a penance, makes herself listen to all the hateful string of phrases which form her stock of conversation.
"It's horrid, but it's good for me," she tells the baby, who listens with a look of fascinated wonder. "I shall have to keep her, and let her talk that way, till I'm such a good girl that there isn't any danger of my ever being naughty again. And that must be for a long, long time yet," she concludes with a sigh.
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