XXIII.THE CHINA MUG.
“Oh, no! I won’t have them on,” declared little Dick, shaking his head savagely, till it seemed as if every one of the small bits of brown paper must fly off.
“O Dicky!” exclaimed Polly in dismay, “you’ve bumped your head so falling down-stairs.”
“Haven’t bumped my head,” cried Dick, whirling around so that none of the children could investigate the big lumps on his head. “I wish they’d all tumble off;” and he gave another vigorous shake, that made the biggest piece of wet brown paper settle over his left eye.
“Very well,” said Polly coolly; “we must go to Mrs. Whitney then, and tell her that you are shaking off all the brown paper. I was going to tell you a story, but we can’t have it now.”
Little Dick plucked off the big bit of wet brown paper from his eye, and looked at her. “I’ll stick them on again,” he said.
Little Dick plucked off the big bit of wet brown paper from his eye.
Little Dick plucked off the big bit of wet brown paper from his eye.
“Very well,” said Polly once more; “I’ll put them back; that’s a good boy;” and she proceeded to do so, till Dicky was ornamented with the brown paper bits, all in the right places. “‘Now,’ says I, as Grandma Bascom used to say, ‘we’ll have the story.’ I’m going to tell you about ‘The China Mug.’”
“I’m glad of that,” said Jasper, “because that was one of the stories we had on a baking-day in The Little Brown House,—do you remember, Polly?”
“As if we could ever forget,” cried Polly happily. And thereupon ensued such a “Do you remember this?” and “Oh! you haven’t forgotten that in The Little Brown House!” that the Whitney children fell into despair, and began to implore that the story might begin at once.
“You’re always talking of the good times in The Little Brown House,” cried Van, who never could forgive Jasper for his good fortune in having been there.
“Can’t help it,” said Jasper, showing signs ofrushing off again in reminiscence; so Polly hastened to say, “We really ought not to talk any more about it, but get on with the story. Well, you know, the China Mug wasourChina Mug, and it stood on the left corner of the shelf in the kitchen of The Little Brown House.”
“Is it a true story?” clamored Van.
“Oh, you mustn’t ask me!” cried Polly gayly, who wasn’t going to be called from the land of Fancy just then by any question.
“Don’t interrupt, any of you,” said Jasper, “or I’ll ask Polly not to tell about ‘The China Mug;’ you would better keep still, for it’s a fine story, I can tell you.”
So Van doubled himself up in a ball on the corner of the big sofa, and subsided into quiet, and Polly began once more.
“Yes, the China Mug was really and truly our China Mug on the left corner of the shelf in the kitchen of The Little Brown House. It was a very old mug, oh! I don’t know how many years old, two or three hundred, I guess; for you see it was our father’s mug when he was a little boy, and his father had it when he was a little boy, and”—
“Did they all drink their milk from it?” broke in little Dick, forgetting all about the indignity of having his head plastered up with bits of wet brown paper; “all those little boys, Polly?”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Polly; “for you see they were all called Samuel, and every Samuel in the family had this mug, so”—
“I wish I could be Samuel, and have a mug that was in The Little Brown House,” said Dick reflectively.
“Well, it had a funny twisted handle,” said Polly, hurrying on; “and oh! the loveliest lady with a pink sash, and long, floating hair; and she had a basket of roses on one arm, and she was picking up her gown and courtesying just like this.” Polly jumped to her feet, and executed a most remarkable courtesy.
“Was she standing on the handle?” asked Percy, who had a fancy for all minute details.
“Oh, dear me, no!” said Polly, laughing merrily; and she nearly fell on her nose, as she was just finishing the courtesy; “she couldn’t stand on the handle. She was on the front of the China Mug, to be sure; and there was a most beautiful little man, and he had a cocked hat under his arm, and he was bowing to her as she courtesied.”
“Tell how the beautiful little man bowed,” begged the children. So Polly, who had hopped into her seat, had to jump up again, and show them just exactly howthe beautiful little man, with the cocked hat under his arm, bowed tothe lovely ladywith a pink sash on, and a basket of roses hanging on her arm. Then she hurried back, quite tired out, to her place.
The beautiful man and the lovely lady on the china mug.
The beautiful man and the lovely lady on the china mug.
“He had on a blue coat, and his hair was all white, and”—
“O Polly! was he so very old?” cried Van from his sofa-corner.
“Dear me, no!” said Polly again; “he was young and most beautiful, but his hair was powdered, just as the man’s is in the big picture in the drawing-room; and it was tied up in theback with a bow of ribbon just like that one too; and he had buckles on his knees, and on his shoes, just the very same. Well, he kept bowing and bowing all the time, and the lovely lady with the pink sash on, and the basket of roses hanging on her arm, kept courtesying to him all the time; and they had been doing that for two or three hundred years.”
“O Polly Pepper!” exclaimed Percy quite shocked; “how could they bow and courtesy for two hundred years?”
“Well, they did,” said Polly, hurrying on; “and”—
“If you interrupt again, out you go,” from Jasper.
“And at last one night when we were all abed,—Mamsie and Phronsie and I in the bedroom, and the three boys in the loft,—and all of us fast asleep, suddenly the beautiful little man exclaimed, ‘I am quite tired out bowing to you!’ ‘And I am quite, quite exhausted courtesying to you all the time,’ declared the lovely lady.
“‘And I shall stop bowing, and turn my back on you,’ said the beautiful little man.
“‘And I shall not courtesy again, but I shall turn my back on you,’ said the lovely lady.
“‘And I shall walk away,’ said the beautiful little man.
“‘And I shall walk away from you,’ declared the lovely lady.
“And so they both whirled around, and walked away as fast as ever they could from each other; and when they got to the funny twisted handle on the back of the mug, the lovely lady went under it, but the beautiful little man hopped over it briskly, and on they both hurried; and the first thing either of them knew, there they were on the front of the mugstaring into each other’s faces as they went by. And so round and round the mug they walked, and they never spoke when they went past each other except to say, ‘I shall not bow to you,’ and ‘I shall not courtesy to you,’ and then away they went again. Oh, it was too dreadful to think of!
“And at last they had been going on so, around and around, oh! two million times, I guess; and the lovely lady’s poor little feet had become so tired out, that she could hardly step on them, and she sobbed out to herself,—she had just passed the beautiful little man on the front of the mug, so he couldn’t see her,—‘I know I shall drop down and die, if I keep on like this;’ so she gave a great jump, and she flew clear over the edge of the mug, and hopped down inside.”
“Oh, oh!” screamed little Dick in a transport.
“And when the beautiful little man came stepping around to the front of the mug the next time, lo, and behold! there was no lovely lady, with a basket of roses hanging on her arm, to say, ‘I won’t courtesy to you.’
“‘How glad I am that that tiresome creaturehas gone!’ he exclaimed, as he skipped off around the mug. And he said it the next time, and”—
“I don’t think he was nice at all,” observed little Dick, bobbing his head so decidedly that some of the brown paper concluded to fly off at once.
“And he said it the next time,” ran on Polly, “and the next; but when he came around again, he rubbed his eyes, and tried to stop, but his feet wouldn’t let him; so on he had to go.”
“Oh, dear!” said Percy and Van, “couldn’t he really stop, Polly?”
“No,” said Polly, “he couldn’t really, but around the mug he must keep going. And the time after, when he came to the front once more, it was all he could do to keep from bursting into tears. And at last he screamed right out, ‘Oh, dear, lovely lady! where have you gone?’”
“Why, she was in the mug,” said Van, tumbling off from the sofa-corner in a great state of excitement; “do tell him that, Polly,” coming up to her chair.
“Keep still,” said Ben, holding up a warning finger.
“But he couldn’t stop, for you see his feet wouldn’t let him,” said Polly; “and he began to cry dreadfully big tears all over his fine blue coat and his cocked hat; and every time before he reached the front of the mug, he watched between his sobs, to see if she had got back; and when he found that she hadn’t, he screamed worse than ever, ‘Oh, dear, sweet, lovely lady! where have you gone?’”
“I don’t think she was nice,” said Percy; “she might have said something.”
“And there she was all huddled up in the bottom of the mug,” said Polly; “crying so hard she could scarcely breathe; and she tried to call back to him ‘Oh, dear, beautiful little man! do come and help me out;’ but her voice didn’t reach anywhere, for it was such a wee, little squeal; so on he had to go around and around, and she kept on shaking and trembling down in the very bottom of the mug.”
The excitement among the Whitney boys was intense; the little bunch of Peppers and Jasper preserving a smiling content, knowing well what was to become of the lovely lady and the beautiful little man, since Polly had told it more than once in The Little Brown House.
“Do hurry, and tell them,” whispered Ben in her ear; so Polly laughed and hastened on.
“‘I’ll help you,’ suddenly said a voice close by on the shelf. The lovely lady bobbing away in the very bottom of the mug, and the beautiful little man crying his eyes out as he walked around and around the China Mug, stopped weeping and screaming to listen with all their ears.
“‘I am Sir Bow-wow,’ declared the voice, which came out, you must know, of Phronsie’s crockery dog that a lady in the centre of Badgertown gave her, when she was a baby, to cut her teeth on. Phronsie used to put his head in her mouth, and bite hard, and that made her teeth come through quicker. Well, he was brown and ugly, and one ear was gone, because she had dropped him a good many times. Oh! and two or three of his toes were broken off; but he was a great help now in this dreadful trouble that had overtaken the lovely lady and the beautiful little man, because he had a good head to think out things.”
“I am so glad Phronsie didn’t bite it off,” said Van with a sigh of relief.
“Well, go on,” said Percy briefly.
“Sir Bow-wow cleared his throat; then he asked sharply, ‘Are you sure you won’t ever say such dreadful things as I heard from you, ever again, in all this world?’
“‘Oh, quite, quite sure!’ said the lovely lady, heaving a long sigh; ‘if you will only get me out of this dismal place, Sir Bow-wow, I will be just as good as I can be.’
“‘And if you will only bring back that lovely lady I will be just as good as I can be,’ said the beautiful little man; ‘Sir Bow-wow, I promise you.’ And they couldn’t hear each other, only what the brown crockery dog said; and he asked again, ‘Are you sure you won’t turn your backs on each other, but you will bow and courtesy as prettily as you always used to?’
“And they both promised him most solemnly that they would do that very thing, if he would only help them now out of this dreadful, dreadful trouble. So the brown crockery dog jumped up to the top of the funny, twisted handle of the China Mug, and sat there and scratched his head very gravely, and thought and thought, while the beautiful little man walked twice around the China Mug. ‘The very thing!’ at last exclaimed Sir Bow-wow. ‘Now, then,hurry, lovely lady,’ and he put one of his paws over the top of the mug, and then peeped over. ‘Can’t you reach up?’ he asked.
“But the lovely lady down in the bottom of the China Mug, although she stood on all her tip toes couldn’t so much as touch the end of his paw. ‘I shall die here,’ she said, in a faint voice, huddling down in a miserable, little heap, and beginning to weep again.
“‘Nonsense!’ cried Sir Bow-wow, although he was terribly afraid that she would. ‘I’ll think again.’ So he scratched his head once more, and thought, while the beautiful little man walked twice around the China Mug. ‘This time I have it!’ declared the brown crockery dog, and he put his paw over the edge of the mug. ‘Twine the roses in the basket on your arm into a vine, and throw up one end over my paw, and I will pull you up.’
“And the lovely lady stopped crying, and began to laugh, all the while she set to work busily making a vine out of the roses in the basket hanging on her arm; and she twisted the thorns and leaves all in and out so nicely, that before long she had a streaming garland; and she threw up one end of it over the paw of SirBow-wow, just as he had told her to do, and, in a minute, there she was standing on the edge of the China Mug, up by the funny twisted handle.
“‘That’s fine!’ cried Sir Bow-wow, so greatly pleased that he wanted to bark; but he didn’t dare for fear of scaring the beautiful little man who was now approaching the funny twisted handle. ‘Hurry and hop down, O lovely lady, and run to your place, for here he comes!’
“So the lovely lady hopped down, and hurried with all her might to her old place on the front of the China Mug, crowding her rose garland into the basket hanging on her arm as she went along. And she had just got there, and was picking up her gown to make a little courtesy, when the beautiful little man came up and stood quite still.
“‘I will make you a bow all the rest of my life,’ he said, bowing away as fast as he could.
“‘And I will courtesy to you as long as I live,’ she said, dropping him a most beautiful one. And so as there was nothing else for him to do, Sir Bow-wow ran to his end of the shelf, and stood up as stiff as ever. And that’s the way we found them all the next morning when we got up and went into the kitchen,” said Polly.