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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/33880-h.zip b/33880-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..64209d1 --- /dev/null +++ b/33880-h.zip diff --git a/33880-h/33880-h.htm b/33880-h/33880-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..22643af --- /dev/null +++ b/33880-h/33880-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3463 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> + <head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> + <title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Land of Lost Toys, by Juliana Horatia Ewing + </title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; background-color: #FFFFFF; +} + + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .75em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .75em; +} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; +} + +ul { list-style:none;} +li {padding-top:0.5em; } + +.img1 {border:solid 1px; } +a[name] { position: static; } +a:link { border:none; color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none; } +a:visited {color:#0000ff; text-decoration:none; } +a:hover { color:#ff0000; } + + +.pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-style:normal; +} /* page numbers */ + + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + +.caption {font-weight: bold; font-size:smaller;} + +/* Images */ +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} +.figleft { + float: left; + clear: left; + margin-left: 0; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-right: 0.25em; + padding: 0; + text-align: center; +} + + +/* Poetry */ +.poem { + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align: left; +} + +.poem br {display: none;} + +.poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + +.poem span.i0 { + display: block; + margin-left: 0em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i2 { + display: block; + margin-left: 2em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +.poem span.i4 { + display: block; + margin-left: 4em; + padding-left: 3em; + text-indent: -3em; +} + +/* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's The Land of Lost Toys, by Juliana Horatia Ewing + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Land of Lost Toys + +Author: Juliana Horatia Ewing + +Release Date: October 24, 2010 [EBook #33880] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAND OF LOST TOYS *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Chris Curnow, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="450" height="714" alt="" title="" /> +</div> +<p> </p> +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/image_001.jpg" width="450" height="673" alt=""Aunt Penelope's stories were +charming."—Frontispiece." title="" /> +<span class="caption">"Aunt Penelope's stories were +charming."—Frontispiece.</span> +</div> + +<p> </p> + +<h1>THE<br /> + +LAND OF LOST TOYS</h1> +<p> </p> +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>JULIANA HORATIA EWING</h2> + +<h4>AUTHOR OF "JACKANAPES," "DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT,"<br /> +"THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE,""MARY'S MEADOW," ETC</h4> +<p> </p> +<h4>Illustrated</h4> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h3>BOSTON</h3> +<h3>LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY</h3> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h5><i>Copyright, 1900</i>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">By Little, Brown, and Company</span></h5> + + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE LAND OF LOST TOYS</h2> + + +<h3>AN EARTHQUAKE IN THE NURSERY.</h3> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_i.jpg" alt="I" width="25" height="50" /></div> + +<p>t was certainly an aggravated offence. It is generally understood in +families that "boys will be boys," but there is a limit to the +forbearance implied in the extenuating axiom. Master Sam was condemned +to the back nursery for the rest of the day.</p> + +<p>He always had had the knack of breaking his own toys,—he not +unfrequently broke other people's; but accidents will happen, and his +twin sister and factotum, Dot, was long-suffering.</p> + +<p>Dot was fat, resolute, hasty, and devotedly unselfish. When Sam +scalped her new doll, and fastened the glossy black curls to a wigwam +improvised with the curtains of the four-post bed in the best bedroom, +Dot was sorely tried. As her eyes passed from the crownless doll on +the floor to the floss-silk ringlets hanging from the bed-furniture, +her round rosy face grew rounder and rosier, and tears burst from her +eyes. But in a moment more she clenched her little fists, forced back +the tears, and gave vent to her favorite saying, "I don't care."</p> + +<p>That sentence was Dot's bane and antidote; it was her vice and her +virtue. It was her standing consolation, and it brought her into all +her scrapes. It was her one panacea for all the ups and downs of her +life (and in the nursery where Sam developed his organ of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> +destructiveness there were ups and downs not a few); and it was the +form her naughtiness took when she was naughty.</p> + +<p>"Don't care fell into a goose-pond, Miss Dot," said nurse, on one +occasion of the kind.</p> + +<p>"I don't care if he did," said Miss Dot; and as nurse knew no further +feature of the goose-pond adventure which met this view of it, she +closed the subject by putting Dot into the corner.</p> + +<p>In the strength of <i>Don't care</i>, and her love for Sam, Dot bore much +and long. Her dolls perished by ingenious but untimely deaths. Her +toys were put to purposes for which they were never intended, and +suffered accordingly. But Sam was penitent, and Dot was heroic. +Fiorinda's scalp was mended with a hot knitting-needle and a perpetual +bonnet, and Dot rescued her paint-brushes from the glue-pot, and smelt +her india-rubber as it boiled down in Sam's waterproof manufactory, +with long-suffering forbearance.</p> + +<p>There are, however, as we have said, limits to everything. An +earthquake celebrated with the whole contents of the toy cupboard is +not to be borne.</p> + +<p>The matter was this. Early one morning Sam announced that he had a +glorious project on hand. He was going to give a grand show and +entertainment, far surpassing all the nursery imitations of circuses, +conjurors, lectures on chemistry, and so forth, with which they had +ever amused themselves. He refused to confide his plans to the +faithful Dot; but he begged her to lend him all the toys she +possessed, in return for which she was to be the sole spectator of the +fun. He let out that the idea had suggested itself to him after the +sight of a Diorama to which they had been taken, but he would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> not +allow that it was anything of the same kind; in proof of which she was +at liberty to keep back her paint-box. Dot tried hard to penetrate the +secret, and to reserve some of her things from the general +conscription. But Sam was obstinate. He would tell nothing, and he +wanted everything. The dolls, the bricks (especially the bricks), the +tea-things, the German farm, the Swiss cottages, the animals, and all +the dolls' furniture. Dot gave them with a doubtful mind, and consoled +herself as she watched Sam carrying pieces of board and a green table +cover into the back nursery, with the prospect of a show. At last, Sam +threw open the door and ushered her into the nursery rocking-chair.</p> + +<p>The boy had certainly some constructive as well as destructive talent. +Upon a sort of impromptu table covered with green cloth he had +arranged all the toys in rough imitation of a town, with its streets +and buildings. The relative proportion of the parts was certainly not +good; but it was not Sam's fault that the doll's house and the German +farm, his own brick buildings, and the Swiss cottages, were all on +totally different scales of size. He had ingeniously put the larger +things in the foreground, keeping the small farm-buildings from the +German box at the far end of the streets, yet after all the +perspective was extreme. The effect of three large horses from the toy +stables in front, with the cows from the small Noah's Ark in the +distance, was admirable; but the big dolls seated in an unroofed +building, made with the wooden bricks on no architectural principle +but that of a pound, and taking tea out of the new china tea things, +looked simply ridiculous.</p> + +<p>Dot's eyes, however, saw no defects, and she clapped vehemently.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Here, ladies and gentlemen," said Sam, waving his hand politely +towards the rocking-chair, "you see the great city of Lisbon, the +capital of Portugal——"</p> + +<p>At this display of geographical accuracy Dot fairly cheered, and +rocked herself to and fro in unmitigated enjoyment.</p> + +<p>"—as it appeared," continued the showman, "on the morning of November +1st, 1755."</p> + +<p>Never having had occasion to apply Mangnall's Questions to the +exigencies of every-day life, this date in no way disturbed Dot's +comfort.</p> + +<p>"In this house," Sam proceeded, "a party of Portuguese ladies of rank +may be seen taking tea together."</p> + +<p>"<i>Breakfast</i>, you mean," said Dot; "you said it was in the morning, +you know."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> +<img src="images/image_002.jpg" width="450" height="668" alt=""'Suddenly the ground split and opened with a fearful +yawn.'"—Page 5." title="" /> +<span class="caption">"'Suddenly the ground split and opened with a fearful +yawn.'"—Page 5.</span> +</div> + +<p>"Well, they took tea to their breakfast," said Sam. "Don't interrupt +me, Dot. You are the audience, and you mustn't speak. Here you see the +horses of the English ambassador out airing with his groom. There you +see two peasants—no! they are <i>not</i> Noah and his wife, Dot, and if +you go on talking I shall shut up. I say they are peasants peacefully +driving cattle. At this moment a rumbling sound startles every one in +the city"—here Sam rolled some croquet balls up and down in a box, +but the dolls sat as quiet as before, and Dot alone was +startled,—"this was succeeded by a slight shock"—here he shook the +table, which upset some of the buildings belonging to the German +farm.—"Some houses fell."—Dot began to look anxious.—"This shock +was followed by several others.—" "Take care," she begged—"of +increasing magnitude—" "Oh, Sam!" Dot shrieked, jumping up, "you're +breaking the china!—" "The largest buildings shook to their +foundations,—" <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>"Sam! Sam! the doll's house is falling," Dot cried, +making wild efforts to save it: but Sam held her back with one arm, +whilst with the other he began to pull at the boards which formed his +table—"Suddenly the ground split and opened with a fearful +yawn"—Dot's shrieks shamed the impassive dolls, as Sam jerked out the +boards by a dexterous movement, and doll's house, brick buildings, the +farm, the Swiss cottages, and the whole toy-stock of the nursery, sank +together in ruins. Quite unabashed by the evident damage, Sam +continued—"and in a moment the whole magnificent city of Lisbon was +swallowed up. Dot! Dot! don't be a muff! What's the matter? It's +splendid fun. Things must be broken sometime, and I'm sure it was +exactly like the real thing. Dot! why don't you speak? Dot! my dear +Dot! You don't care, do you? I didn't think you'd mind it so. It was +such a splendid earthquake. Oh! try not to go on like that!"</p> + +<p>But Dot's feelings were far beyond her own control, much more that of +Master Sam, at this moment. She was gasping and choking, and when at +last she found breath it was only to throw herself on her face upon +the floor with bitter and uncontrollable sobbing.</p> + +<p>It was certainly a mild punishment that condemned Master Sam to the +back nursery for the rest of the day. It had, however, this additional +severity, that during the afternoon Aunt Penelope was expected to +arrive.</p> + + +<h3>AUNT PENELOPE.</h3> +<p>Aunt Penelope was one of those dear, good souls, who, single +themselves, have, as real or adopted relatives, the interests of a +dozen families, instead of one, at heart. There are few people whose +youth has not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> owned the influence of at least one such friend. It may +be a good habit, the first interest in some life-loved pursuit or +favorite author, some pretty feminine art, or delicate womanly counsel +enforced by those narratives of real life that are more interesting +than any fiction: it may be only the periodical return of gifts and +kindness, and the store of family histories that no one else can tell; +but we all owe something to such an aunt or uncle—the fairy +godmothers of real life.</p> + +<p>The benefits which Sam and Dot reaped from Aunt Penelope's visits, may +be summed up under the heads of presents and stories, with a general +leaning to indulgence in the matters of punishment, lessons, and going +to bed, which perhaps is natural to aunts and uncles who have no +positive responsibilities in the young people's education, and are not +the daily sufferers by the lack of due discipline.</p> + +<p>Aunt Penelope's presents were lovely. Aunt Penelope's stories were +charming. There was generally a moral wrapped up in them, like the +motto in a cracker-bonbon; but it was quite in the inside, so to +speak, and there was abundance of smart paper and sugar-plums.</p> + +<p>All things considered, it was certainly most proper that the +much-injured Dot should be dressed out in her best, and have access to +dessert, the dining-room, and Aunt Penelope, whilst Sam was kept +upstairs. And yet it was Dot who (her first burst of grief being +over), fought stoutly for his pardon all the time she was being +dressed, and was afterwards detected in the act of endeavoring to push +fragments of raspberry tart through the nursery key-hole.</p> + +<p>"You <span class="smcap">good</span> thing!" Sam emphatically exclaimed, as he heard her in +fierce conflict on the other side of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> door with the nurse who +found her—"You <span class="smcap">good</span> thing! leave me alone, for I deserve it."</p> + +<p>He really was very penitent. He was too fond of Dot not to regret the +unexpected degree of distress he had caused her; and Dot made much of +his penitence in her intercessions in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>"Sam is so very sorry," she said, "he says he knows he deserves it. I +think he ought to come down. He is so <i>very</i> sorry!"</p> + +<p>Aunt Penelope, as usual, took the lenient side, joining her entreaties +to Dot's, and it ended in Master Sam's being hurriedly scrubbed and +brushed, and shoved into his black velvet suit, and sent down-stairs, +rather red about the eyelids, and looking very sheepish.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Dot!" he exclaimed, as soon as he could get her into a corner, "I +am so very, very sorry! particularly about the tea-things."</p> + +<p>"Never mind," said Dot, "I don't care; and I've asked for a story, and +we're going into the library." As Dot said this, she jerked her head +expressively in the direction of the sofa, where Aunt Penelope was +just casting on stitches preparatory to beginning a pair of her famous +ribbed socks for Papa, whilst she gave to Mamma's conversation that +sympathy, which (like her knitting-needles) was always at the service +of her large circle of friends. Dot anxiously watched the bow on the +top of her cap as it danced and nodded with the force of Mamma's +observations. At last it gave a little chorus of jerks, as one should +say, "Certainly, undoubtedly." And then the story came to an end, and +Dot, who had been slowly creeping nearer, fairly took Aunt Penelope by +the hand, and carried her off, knitting and all, to the library.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Now, please," said Dot, when she had struggled into a chair that was +too tall for her.</p> + +<p>"Stop a minute!" cried Sam, who was perched in the opposite one, "the +horsehair tickles my legs."</p> + +<p>"Put your pocket-handkerchief under them, as I do," said Dot. "<i>Now</i>, +Aunt Penelope."</p> + +<p>"No, wait," groaned Sam; "it isn't big enough; it only covers one +leg."</p> + +<p>Dot slid down again, and ran to Sam.</p> + +<p>"Take my handkerchief for the other."</p> + +<p>"But what will you do?" said Sam.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't care," said Dot, scrambling back into her place. "Now, +Aunty, please."</p> + +<p>And Aunt Penelope began.</p> + + +<h3>THE LAND OF LOST TOYS.</h3> +<p>"I suppose people who have children transfer their childish follies +and fancies to them, and become properly sedate and grown-up. Perhaps +it is because I am an old maid, and have none, that some of my nursery +whims stick to me, and I find myself liking things, and wanting +things, quite out of keeping with my cap and time of life. For +instance. Anything in the shape of a toy-shop (from a London bazaar to +a village window, with Dutch dolls, leather balls, and wooden +battledores) quite unnerves me, so to speak. When I see one of those +boxes containing a jar, a churn, a kettle, a pan, a coffee-pot, a +cauldron on three legs, and sundry dishes, all of the smoothest wood, +and with the immemorial red flower on one side of each vessel, I +fairly long for an excuse for playing with them, and for trying +(positively for the last time) if the lids <i>do</i> come off, and whether +the kettle will (literally, as well as metaphori<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>cally) hold water. +Then if, by good or ill luck, there is a child flattening its little +nose against the window with longing eyes, my purse is soon empty; and +as it toddles off with a square parcel under one arm, and a lovely +being in black ringlets and white tissue paper in the other, I wish +that I were worthy of being asked to join the ensuing play. Don't +suppose there is any generosity in this. I have only done what we are +all glad to do. I have found an excuse for indulging a pet weakness. +As I said, it is not merely the new and expensive toys that attract +me; I think my weakest corner is where the penny boxes lie, the wooden +tea-things (with the above-named flower in miniature), the soldiers on +their lazy tongs, the nine-pins, and the tiny farm.</p> + +<p>"I need hardly say that the toy booth in a village fair tries me very +hard. It tried me in childhood, when I was often short of pence, and +when 'the Feast' came once a year. It never tried me more than on one +occasion, lately, when I was revisiting my old home.</p> + +<p>"It was deep Midsummer, and the Feast. I had children with me of +course (I find children, somehow, wherever I go), and when we got into +the fair, there were children of people whom I had known as children, +with just the same love for a monkey going up one side of a yellow +stick and coming down the other, and just as strong heads for a +giddy-go-round on a hot day and a diet of peppermint lozenges, as +their fathers and mothers before them. There were the very same +names—and here and there it seemed the very same faces—I knew so +long ago. A few shillings were indeed well expended in brightening +those familiar eyes: and then there were the children with me.... +Besides, there really did seem to be an unusually nice assortment of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> +things, and the man was very intelligent (in reference to his +wares:).... Well, well! It was two o'clock <span class="smcap">p. m</span>. when we went in at +one end of that glittering avenue of drums, dolls, trumpets, +accordions, work-boxes and what not; but what o'clock it was when I +came out at the other end, with a shilling and some coppers in my +pocket, and was cheered, I can't say, though I should like to have +been able to be accurate about the time, because of what followed.</p> + +<p>"I thought the best thing I could do was to get out of the fair at +once, so I went up the village and struck off across some fields into +a little wood that lay near. (A favorite walk in old times.) As I +turned out of the booth, my foot struck against one of the yellow +sticks of the climbing monkeys. The monkey was gone, and the stick +broken. It set me thinking as I walked along.</p> + +<p>"What an untold number of pretty and ingenious things one does (not +wear out in honorable wear and tear, but) utterly lose, and wilfully +destroy, in one's young days—things that would have given pleasure to +so many more young eyes, if they had been kept a little longer—things +that one would so value in later years, if some of them had survived +the dissipating and destructive days of Nurserydom. I recalled a young +lady I knew, whose room was adorned with knick-knacks of a kind I had +often envied. They were not plaster figures, old china, wax-work +flowers under glass, or ordinary ornaments of any kind. They were her +old toys. Perhaps she had not had many of them, and had been the more +careful of those she had. She had certainly been very fond of them, +and had kept more of them than any one I ever knew. A faded doll slept +in its cradle at the foot of her bed. A wooden elephant stood on the +dressing-table,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> and a poodle that had lost his bark put out a +red-flannel tongue with quixotic violence at a windmill on the +opposite corner of the mantelpiece. Everything had a story of its own. +Indeed the whole room must have been redolent with the sweet story of +childhood, of which the toys were the illustrations, or like a poem of +which the toys were the verses. She used to have children to play with +them sometimes, and this was a high honor. She is married now, and has +children of her own, who on birthdays and holidays will forsake the +newest of their own possessions to play with 'mamma's toys.'</p> + +<p>"I was roused from these recollections by the pleasure of getting into +the wood.</p> + +<p>"If I have a stronger predilection than my love for toys, it is my +love for woods, and, like the other, it dates from childhood. It was +born and bred with me, and I fancy will stay with me till I die. The +soothing scents of leaf mould, moss, and fern (not to speak of +flowers)—the pale green veil in spring, the rich shade in summer, the +rustle of the dry leaves in autumn, I suppose an old woman may enjoy +all these, my dears, as well as you. But I think I could make 'fairy +jam' of hips and haws in acorn cups now, if any child would be +condescending enough to play with me.</p> + +<p>"<i>This</i> wood, too, had associations.</p> + +<p>"I strolled on in leisurely enjoyment, and at last seated myself at +the foot of a tree to rest. I was hot and tired; partly with the +mid-day heat and the atmosphere of the fair, partly with the exertion +of calculating change in the purchase of articles ranging in price +from three farthings upwards. The tree under which I sat was an old +friend. There was a hole at its base that I knew well. Two roots +covered with exqui<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>site moss ran out from each side, like the arms of +a chair, and between them there accumulated year after year a rich, +though tiny store of dark leaf-mould. We always used to say that +fairies lived within, though I never saw anything go in myself but +wood beetles. There was one going in at that moment.</p> + +<p>"How little the wood was changed! I bent my head for a few seconds, +and, closing my eyes, drank in the delicious and suggestive scents of +earth and moss about the dear old tree. I had been so long parted from +the place that I could hardly believe that I was in the old familiar +spot. Surely it was only one of the many dreams in which I had played +again beneath those trees! But when I reopened my eyes there was the +same hole, and, oddly enough, the same beetle or one just like it. I +had not noticed till that moment how much larger the hole was than it +used to be in my young days.</p> + +<p>"'I suppose the rain and so forth wears them away in time,' I said +vaguely.</p> + +<p>"'Suppose it does,' said the beetle politely; 'will you walk in?'</p> + +<p>"I don't know why I was not so overpoweringly astonished as you would +imagine. I think I was a good deal absorbed in considering the size of +the hole, and the very foolish wish that seized me to do what I had +often longed to do in childhood, and creep in. I <i>had</i> so much regard +for propriety as to see that there was no one to witness the escapade. +Then I tucked my skirts round me, put my spectacles into my pocket for +fear they should get broken, and in I went.</p> + +<p>"I must say one thing. A wood is charming enough (no one appreciates +it more than myself), but, if you have never been there, you have no +idea how much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> nicer it is inside than on the surface. Oh, the +mosses—the gorgeous mosses! The fretted lichens! The fungi like +flowers for beauty, and the flowers like nothing you have ever seen!</p> + +<p>"Where the beetle went to I don't know. I could stand up now quite +well, and I wandered on till dusk in unwearied admiration. I was among +some large beeches as it grew dark, and was beginning to wonder how I +should find my way (not that I had lost it, having none to lose), when +suddenly lights burst from every tree, and the whole place was +illuminated. The nearest approach to this scene that I ever witnessed +above ground was in a wood near the Hague in Holland. There, what look +like tiny glass tumblers holding floating wicks, are fastened to the +trunks of the fine old trees, at intervals of sufficient distance to +make the light and shade mysterious, and to give effect to the full +blaze when you reach the spot where hanging chains of lamps illuminate +the 'Pavilion' and the open space where the band plays, and where the +townsfolk assemble by hundreds to drink coffee and enjoy the music. I +was the more reminded of the Dutch 'bosch' because, after wandering +some time among the lighted trees, I heard distant sounds of music, +and came at last upon a glade lit up in a similar manner, except that +the whole effect was incomparably more brilliant.</p> + +<p>"As I stood for a moment doubting whether I should proceed, and a good +deal puzzled about the whole affair, I caught sight of a large spider +crouched up in a corner with his stomach on the ground and his knees +above his head, as some spiders do sit, and looking at me, as I +fancied, through a pair of spectacles. (About the spectacles I do not +feel sure. It may have been two of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> bent legs in apparent +connection with his prominent eyes.) I thought of the beetle, and said +civilly, 'Can you tell me, sir, if this is Fairyland?' The spider took +off his spectacles (or untucked his legs), and took a sideways run out +of his corner.</p> + +<p>"'Well,' he said, 'it's a Province. The fact is, it's the Land of Lost +Toys. You haven't such a thing as a fly anywhere about you, have you?'</p> + +<p>"'No,' I said, 'I'm sorry to say I have not.' This was not strictly +true, for I was not at all sorry; but I wished to be civil to the old +gentleman, for he projected his eyes at me with such an intense (I had +almost said greedy) gaze, that I felt quite frightened.</p> + +<p>"'How did you pass the sentries?' he inquired.</p> + +<p>"'I never saw any,' I answered.</p> + +<p>"'You couldn't have seen anything if you didn't see them,' he said; +'but perhaps you don't know. They're the glow-worms. Six to each tree, +so they light the road, and challenge the passers-by. Why didn't they +challenge you?'</p> + +<p>"'I don't know,' I began, 'unless the beetle——'</p> + +<p>"'I don't like beetles,' interrupted the spider, stretching each leg +in turn by sticking it up above him, 'all shell, and no flavor. You +never tried walking on anything of that sort, did you?' and he pointed +with one leg to a long thread that fastened a web above his head.</p> + +<p>"'Certainly not,' said I.</p> + +<p>"'I'm afraid it wouldn't bear you,' he observed slowly.</p> + +<p>"'I'm quite sure it wouldn't,' I hastened to reply. 'I wouldn't try +for worlds. It would spoil your pretty work in a moment. +Good-evening.'</p> + +<p>"And I hurried forward. Once I looked back, but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> the spider was not +following me. He was in his hole again, on his stomach, with his knees +above his head, and looking (apparently through his spectacles) down +the road up which I came.</p> + +<p>"I soon forgot him in the sight before me. I had reached the open +place with the lights and the music; but how shall I describe the +spectacle that I beheld?</p> + +<p>"I have spoken of the effect of a toy-shop on my feelings. Now imagine +a toy-fair, brighter and gayer than the brightest bazaar ever seen, +held in an open glade, where forest-trees stood majestically behind +the glittering stalls, and stretched their gigantic arms above our +heads, brilliant with a thousand hanging lamps. At the moment of my +entrance all was silent and quiet. The toys lay in their places +looking so incredibly attractive that I reflected with disgust that +all my ready cash, except one shilling and some coppers, had melted +away amid the tawdry fascinations of a village booth. I was counting +the coppers (sevenpence halfpenny), when all in a moment a dozen +sixpenny fiddles leaped from their places and began to play, +accordions of all sizes joined them, the drumsticks beat upon the +drums, the penny trumpets sounded, and the yellow flutes took up the +melody on high notes, and bore it away through the trees. It was weird +fairy-music, but quite delightful. The nearest approach to it that I +know of above ground is to hear a wild dreamy air very well whistled +to a pianoforte accompaniment.</p> + +<p>"When the music began, all the toys rose. The dolls jumped down and +began to dance. The poodles barked, the pannier donkeys wagged their +ears, the windmills turned, the puzzles put themselves together, the +bricks built houses, the balls flew from side to side, the +battle-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>doors and shuttlecocks kept it up among themselves, and the +skipping-ropes went round, the hoops ran off, and the sticks went +after them, the cobbler's wax at the tails of all the green frogs gave +way, and they jumped at the same moment, whilst an old-fashioned +go-cart ran madly about with nobody inside. It was most exhilarating.</p> + +<p>"I soon became aware that the beetle was once more at my elbow.</p> + +<p>"'There are some beautiful toys here,' I said.</p> + +<p>"'Well, yes,' he replied, 'and some odd-looking ones, too. You see, +whatever has been really used by any child as a plaything gets a right +to come down here in the end; and there is some very queer company, I +assure you. Look there.'</p> + +<p>"I looked, and said, 'It seems to be a potato.'</p> + +<p>"'So it is,' said the beetle. 'It belonged to an Irish child in one of +your great cities. But to whom the child belonged I don't know, and I +don't think he knew himself. He lived in a corner of a dirty, +over-crowded room, and into this corner, one day, the potato rolled. +It was the only plaything he ever had. He stuck two cinders into it +for eyes, scraped a nose and mouth, and loved it. He sat upon it +during the day, for fear it should be taken from him, but in the dark +he took it out and played with it. He was often hungry, but he never +ate that potato. When he died it rolled out of the corner, and was +swept into the ashes. Then it came down here.'</p> + +<p>"'What a sad story!' I exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"The beetle seemed in no way affected.</p> + +<p>"'It is a curious thing,' he rambled on, 'that potato takes quite a +good place among the toys. You see,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> rank and precedence down here is +entirely a question of age; that is, of the length of time that any +plaything has been in the possession of a child; and all kinds of ugly +old things hold the first rank; whereas the most costly and beautiful +works of art have often been smashed or lost, by the spoilt children +of rich people, in two or three days. If you care for sad stories, +there is another queer thing belonging to a child who died.'</p> + +<p>"It appeared to be a large sheet of canvas with some strange kind of +needlework upon it.</p> + +<p>"'It belonged to a little girl in a rich household,' the beetle +continued; 'she was an invalid, and difficult to amuse. We have lots +of her toys, and very pretty ones too. At last some one taught her to +make caterpillars in wool-work. A bit of work was to be done in a +certain stitch and then cut with scissors, which made it look like a +hairy caterpillar. The child took to this, and cared for nothing else. +Wool of every shade was procured for her, and she made caterpillars of +all colors. Her only complaint was that they did not turn into +butterflies. However, she was a sweet, gentle-tempered child, and she +went on, hoping that they would do so, and making new ones. One day +she was heard talking and laughing in her bed for joy. She said that +all the caterpillars had become butterflies of many colors, and that +the room was full of them. In that happy fancy she died.'</p> + +<p>"'And the caterpillars came down here?'</p> + +<p>"'Not for a long time,' said the beetle; 'her mother kept them while +<i>she</i> lived, and then they were lost and came down. No toys come down +here till they are broken or lost.'</p> + +<p>"'What are those sticks doing here?' I asked.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The music had ceased, and all the toys were lying quiet. Up in a +corner leaned a large bundle of walking-sticks. They are often sold in +toy-shops, but I wondered on what grounds they came here.</p> + +<p>"'Did you ever meet with a too benevolent old gentleman wondering +where on earth his sticks go to?' said the beetle. 'Why do they lend +them to their grandchildren? The young rogues use them as hobby-horses +and lose them, and down they come, and the sentinels cannot stop them. +The real hobby-horses won't allow them to ride with them, however. +There was a meeting on the subject. Every stick was put through an +examination. 'Where is your nose? Where is your mane? Where are your +wheels?' The last was a poser. Some of them had got noses, but none of +them had got wheels. So they were not true hobby-horses. Something of +the kind occurred with the elder whistles.'</p> + +<p>"'The what?' I asked.</p> + +<p>"'Whistles that boys make of elder sticks with the pith scooped out,' +said the beetle. 'The real instruments would not allow them to play +with them. The elder-whistles said they would not have joined had they +been asked. They were amateurs, and never played with professionals. +So they have private concerts with the combs and curl-papers. But, +bless you, toys of this kind are endless here! Teetotums made of old +cotton reels, tea-sets of acorn cups, dinner-sets of old shells, +monkeys made of bits of sponge, all sorts of things made of +breastbones and merrythoughts, old packs of cards that are always +building themselves into houses and getting knocked down when the band +begins to play, feathers, rabbits' tails—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>—</p> + +<p>"'Ah! I have heard about rabbits' tails,' I said.</p> + +<p>"'There they are,' the beetle continued; 'and when the band plays you +will see how they skip and run. I don't believe you would find out +that they had no bodies, for my experience of a warren is, that when +rabbits skip and run it is the tails chiefly that you do see. But of +all the amateur toys the most successful are the boats. We have a lake +for our craft, you know, and there's quite a fleet of boats made out +of old cork floats in fishing villages. Then, you see, the old bits of +cork have really been to sea, and seen a good deal of service on the +herring nets, and so they quite take the lead of the smart shop ships, +that have never been beyond a pond or a tub of water. But that's an +exception. Amateur toys are mostly very dowdy. Look at that box.'</p> + +<p>"I looked, thought I must have seen it before, and wondered why a very +common-looking box without a lid should affect me so strangely, and +why my memory should seem struggling to bring it back out of the past. +Suddenly it came to me—it was our old Toy Box.</p> + +<p>"I had completely forgotten that nursery institution till recalled by +the familiar aspect of the inside, which was papered with proof-sheets +of some old novel on which black stars had been stamped by way of +ornament. Dim memories of how these stars, and the angles of the box, +and certain projecting nails interfered with the letter-press and +defeated all attempts to trace the thread of the nameless narrative, +stole back over my brain; and I seemed once more, with my head in the +Toy Box, to beguile a wet afternoon by apoplectic endeavors to follow +the fortunes of Sir Charles and Lady Belinda, as they took a favorable +turn in the left-hand corner at the bottom of the trunk.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'What are you staring at?' said the beetle.</p> + +<p>"'It's my old Toy Box!' I exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"The beetle rolled on to his back, and struggled helplessly with his +legs: I turned him over. (Neither the first nor the last time of my +showing that attention to beetles.)</p> + +<p>"'That's right,' he said, 'set me on my legs. What a turn you gave me! +You don't mean to say you have any toys here? If you have, the sooner +you make your way home the better.'</p> + +<p>"'Why?' I inquired.</p> + +<p>"'Well,' he said, 'there's a very strong feeling in the place. The +toys think that they are ill-treated, and not taken care of by +children in general. And there is some truth in it. Toys come down +here by scores that have been broken the first day. And they are all +quite resolved that if any of their old masters or mistresses come +this way they shall be punished.'</p> + +<p>"'How will they be punished?' I inquired.</p> + +<p>"'Exactly as they did to their toys, their toys will do to them. All +is perfectly fair and regular.'</p> + +<p>"'I don't know that I treated mine particularly badly,' I said; 'but I +think I would rather go.'</p> + +<p>"'I think you'd better,' said the beetle. 'Good-evening!' and I saw +him no more.</p> + +<p>"I turned to go, but somehow I lost the road. At last, as I thought, I +found it, and had gone a few steps when I came on a detachment of +wooden soldiers, drawn up on their lazy tongs. I thought it better to +wait till they got out of the way, so I turned back, and sat down in a +corner in some alarm. As I did so, I heard a click, and the lid of a +small box covered with mottled paper burst open, and up jumped a +figure in a blue<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> striped shirt and a rabbit-skin beard, whose eyes +were intently fixed on me. He was very like my old Jack-in-a-box. My +back began to creep, and I wildly meditated escape, frantically trying +at the same time to recall whether it were I or my brother who +originated the idea of making a small bonfire of our own one 5th of +November, and burning the old Jack-in-a-box for Guy Fawkes, till +nothing was left of him but a twirling bit of red-hot wire and a +strong smell of frizzled fur. At this moment, he nodded to me and +spoke.</p> + +<p>"'Oh! that's you, is it?' he said.</p> + +<p>"'No, it is not,' I answered, hastily; for I was quite demoralized by +fear and the strangeness of the situation.</p> + +<p>"'Who is it, then?' he inquired.</p> + +<p>"'I'm sure I don't know,' I said; and really I was so confused that I +hardly did.</p> + +<p>"'Well, <i>we</i> know,' said the Jack-in-a-box, 'and that's all that's +needed. 'Now, my friends,' he continued, addressing the toys who had +begun to crowd round us, 'whoever recognizes a mistress and remembers +a grudge—the hour of our revenge has come. Can we any of us forget +the treatment we received at her hands? No! When we think of the +ingenious fancy, the patient skill, that went to our manufacture; that +fitted the delicate joints and springs, laid on the paint and varnish, +and gave back-hair combs, and ear-rings to our smallest dolls, we feel +that we deserved more care than we received. When we reflect upon the +kind friends who bought us with their money, and gave us away in the +benevolence of their hearts, we know that for their sakes we ought to +have been longer kept and better valued. And when we remember that the +sole object of our own existence was to give pleasure and amusement to +our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> possessors, we have no hesitation in believing that we deserved a +handsomer return than to have had our springs broken, our paint +dirtied, and our earthly careers so untimely shortened by wilful +mischief or fickle neglect. My friends, the prisoner is at the bar.'</p> + +<p>"'I am not, I said; for I was determined not to give in as long as +resistance was possible. But as I said it I became aware, to my +unutterable amazement, that I was inside the go-cart. How I got there +is to this moment a mystery to me—but there I was.</p> + +<p>"There was a great deal of excitement about the Jack-in-a-box's +speech. It was evident that he was considered an orator, and, indeed, +I have seen counsel in a real court look wonderfully like him. +Meanwhile, my old toys appeared to be getting together. I had no idea +that I had had so many. I had really been very fond of most of them, +and my heart beat as the sight of them recalled scenes long forgotten, +and took me back to childhood and home. There were my little gardening +tools, and my slate, and there was the big doll's bedstead, that had a +real mattress, and real sheets and blankets, all marked with the +letter D, and a work-basket made in the blind school, and a shilling +School of Art paint box, and a wooden doll we used to call the +Dowager, and innumerable other toys which I had forgotten till the +sight of them recalled them to my memory, but which have again passed +from my mind. Exactly opposite to me stood the Chinese mandarin, +nodding as I had never seen him nod since the day when I finally +stopped his performances by ill-directed efforts to discover how he +did it.</p> + +<p>"And what was that familiar figure among the rest, in a yellow silk +dress and maroon velvet cloak and hood<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> trimmed with black lace? How +those clothes recalled the friends who gave them to me! And surely +this was no other than my dear doll Rosa—the beloved companion of +five years of my youth, whose hair I wore in a locket after I was +grown up. No one could say I had ill-treated <i>her</i>. Indeed, she fixed +her eyes on me with a most encouraging smile—but then she always +smiled, her mouth was painted so.</p> + +<p>"'All whom it may concern, take notice,' shouted the Jack-in-a-box, at +this point, 'that the rule of this honorable court is tit for tat.'</p> + +<p>"'Tit, tat, tumble two,' muttered the slate in a cracked voice. (How +well I remembered the fall that cracked it, and the sly games of tit +tat that varied the monotony of our long multiplication sums!)</p> + +<p>"'What are you talking about?' said the Jack-in-a-box, sharply; 'if +you have grievances, state them, and you shall have satisfaction, as I +told you before.'</p> + +<p>"'——and five make nine,' added the slate promptly, 'and six are +fifteen, and eight are twenty-seven—there we go again! I wonder why I +never get up to the top of a line of figures right. It will never +prove at this rate.'</p> + +<p>"'His mind is lost in calculations,' said the Jack-in-a-box, +'besides—between ourselves—he has been "cracky" for some time. Let +some one else speak, and observe that no one is at liberty to pass a +sentence on the prisoner heavier than what he has suffered from her. I +reserve <i>my</i> judgment to the last.'</p> + +<p>"'I know what that will be,' thought I; 'oh dear! oh dear! that a +respectable maiden lady should live to be burnt as a Guy Fawkes!"</p> + +<p>"'Let the prisoner drink a gallon of iced water at once, and then be +left to die of thirst.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p> + +<p>"The horrible idea that the speaker might possibly have the power to +enforce his sentence diverted my attention from the slate, and I +looked round. In front of the Jack-in-a-box stood a tiny red +flower-pot and saucer, in which was a miniature cactus. My thoughts +flew back to a bazaar in London where, years ago, a stand of these +fairy plants had excited my warmest longings, and where a benevolent +old gentleman whom I had not seen before, and never saw again, bought +this one and gave it to me. Vague memories of his directions for +re-potting and tending it reproached me from the past. My mind misgave +me that after all it had died a dusty death for lack of water. True, +the cactus tribe being succulent plants do not demand much moisture, +but I had reason to fear that, in this instance, the principle had +been applied too far, and that after copious baths of cold spring +water in the first days of its popularity it had eventually perished +by drought. I suppose I looked guilty, for it nodded its prickly head +towards me, and said, 'Ah! you know me. You remember what I was, do +you? Did you ever think of what I might have been? There was a fairy +rose which came down here not long ago—a common rose enough, in a +broken pot patched with string and white paint. It had lived in a +street where it was the only pure beautiful thing your eyes could see. +When the girl who kept it died there were eighteen roses upon it. She +was eighteen years old, and they put the roses in the coffin with her +when she was buried. That was worth living for. Who knows what I might +have done? And what right had you to cut short a life that might have +been useful?'</p> + +<p>"Before I could think of a reply to these too just reproaches, the +flower-pot enlarged, the plant shot up,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> putting forth new branches as +it grew; then buds burst from the prickly limbs, and in a few moments +there hung about it great drooping blossoms of lovely pink, with long +white tassels in their throats. I had been gazing at it some time in +silent and self-reproachful admiration when I became aware that the +business of this strange court was proceeding, and that the other toys +were pronouncing sentence against me.</p> + +<p>"'Tie a string round her neck and take her out bathing in the brooks,' +I heard an elderly voice say in severe tones. It was the Dowager Doll. +She was inflexibly wooden, and had been in the family for more than +one generation.</p> + +<p>"'It's not fair,' I exclaimed, 'the string was only to keep you from +being carried away by the stream. The current is strong, and the bank +steep by the Hollow Oak Pool, and you had no arms or legs. You were +old and ugly, but you would wash, and we loved you better than many +waxen beauties.'</p> + +<p>"'Old and ugly!' shrieked the Dowager. 'Tear her wig off! Scrub the +paint off her face! Flatten her nose on the pavement! Saw off her legs +and give her no crinoline! Take her out bathing, I say, and bring her +home in a wheelbarrow with fern roots on the top of her.'</p> + +<p>"I was about to protest again, when the paint-box came forward, and +balancing itself in an artistic, undecided kind of way on two +camel's-hair brushes which seemed to serve it for feet, addressed the +Jack-in-a-box.</p> + +<p>"'Never dip your paint into the water. Never put your brush into your +mouth——'</p> + +<p>"'That's not evidence,' said the Jack-in-a-box.</p> + +<p>"'Your notions are crude,' said the paint-box loftily;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> 'it's in +print, and here, all of it, or words to that effect; with which he +touched the lid, as a gentleman might lay his hand upon his heart.</p> + +<p>"'It's not evidence,' repeated the Jack-in-a-box. 'Let us proceed.'</p> + +<p>"'Take her to pieces and see what she's made of, if you please,' +tittered a pretty German toy that moved to a tinkling musical +accompaniment. 'If her works are available after that it will be an +era in natural science.'</p> + +<p>"The idea tickled me, and I laughed.</p> + +<p>"'Hard-hearted wretch!' growled the Dowager Doll.</p> + +<p>"'Dip her in water and leave her to soak on a white soup plate,' said +the paint-box; 'if that doesn't soften her feelings, deprive me of my +medal from the School of Art!'</p> + +<p>"'Give her a stiff neck!' muttered the mandarin. 'Ching Fo! give her a +stiff neck.'</p> + +<p>"'Knock her teeth out,' growled the rake in a scratchy voice; and then +the tools joined in chorus.</p> + +<p>"'Take her out when its fine and leave her out when it's wet, and lose +her in——</p> + +<p>"'The coal hole,' said the spade.</p> + +<p>"'The hay field,' said the rake.</p> + +<p>"'The shrubbery,' said the hoe.</p> + +<p>"This difference of opinion produced a quarrel, which in turn seemed +to affect the general behavior of the toys, for a disturbance arose +which the Jack-in-a-box vainly endeavored to quell. A dozen voices +shouted for a dozen different punishments and (happily for me) each +toy insisted upon its own wrongs being the first to be avenged, and no +one would hear of the claims of any one else being attended to for an +instant. Terrible sentences were passed, which I either failed to hear +through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> the clamor then, or have forgotten now. I have a vague idea +that several voices cried that I was to be sent to wash in somebody's +pocket; that the work-basket wished to cram my mouth with unfinished +needlework; and that through all the din the thick voice of my old +leather ball monotonously repeated:</p> + +<p>"'Throw her into the dust-hole.'</p> + +<p>"Suddenly a clear voice pierced the confusion, and Rosa tripped up.</p> + +<p>"'My dears,' she began, 'the only chance of restoring order is to +observe method. Let us follow our usual rule of precedence. I claim +the first turn as the prisoner's oldest toy.'</p> + +<p>"'That you are not, Miss,' snapped the dowager; 'I was in the family +for fifty years.'</p> + +<p>"'In the family. Yes, ma'am; but you were never her doll in +particular. I was her very own, and she kept me longer than any other +plaything. My judgment must be first.'</p> + +<p>"'She is right,' said the Jack-in-a-box, 'and now let us get on. The +prisoner is delivered unreservedly into the hands of our trusty and +well-beloved Rosa—doll of the first class—for punishment according +to the strict law of tit for tat.'</p> + +<p>"'I shall request the assistance of the pewter tea-things,' said Rosa, +with her usual smile. 'And now, my love,' she added, turning to me, +'we will come and sit down.'</p> + +<p>"Where the go-cart vanished to I cannot remember, nor how I got out of +it; I only know that I suddenly found myself free, and walking away +with my hand in Rosa's. I remember vacantly feeling the rough edge of +the stitches on her flat kid fingers, and wondering what would come +next.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'How very oddly you hold your feet, my dear,' she said; 'you stick +out your toes in such an eccentric fashion, and you lean on your legs +as if they were table legs, instead of supporting yourself by my hand. +Turn your heels well out, and bring your toes together. You may even +let them fold over each other a little; it is considered to have a +pretty effect among dolls.'</p> + +<p>"Under one of the big trees Miss Rosa made me sit down, propping me +against the trunk as if I should otherwise have fallen; and in a +moment more a square box of pewter tea-things came tumbling up to our +feet, where the lid burst open, and all the tea-things fell out in +perfect order; the cups on the saucers, the lid on the teapot and so +on.</p> + +<p>"'Take a little tea my love?' said Miss Rosa pressing a pewter teacup +to my lips.</p> + +<p>"I made believe to drink, but was only conscious of inhaling a draught +of air with a slight flavor of tin. In taking my second cup I was +nearly choked with the teaspoon, which got into my throat.</p> + +<p>"'What are you doing?' roared the Jack-in-a-box at this moment; 'you +are not punishing her.'</p> + +<p>"'I am treating her as she treated me,' answered Rosa, looking as +severe as her smile would allow. 'I believe that tit for tat is the +rule, and that at present it is my turn.'</p> + +<p>"'It will be mine soon,' growled the Jack-in-a-box, and I thought of +the bonfire with a shudder. However, there was no knowing what might +happen before his turn did come, and meanwhile I was in friendly +hands. It was not the first time my dolly and I had set together under +a tree, and, truth to say, I do not think she had any injuries to +avenge.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'When your wig comes off,' murmured Rosa, as she stole a pink kid arm +tenderly round my neck, 'I'll make you a cap with blue and white +rosettes, and pretend that you have had a fever.'</p> + +<p>"I thanked her gratefully, and was glad to reflect that I was not yet +in need of an attention which I distinctly remember having shown to +her in the days of her dollhood. Presently she jumped up.</p> + +<p>"'I think you shall go to bed now, dear,' she said, and, taking my +hand once more, she led me to the big doll's bedstead, which, with its +pretty bedclothes and white dimity furniture, looked tempting enough +to a sleeper of suitable size. It could not have supported one quarter +of my weight.</p> + +<p>"'I have not made you a night-dress, my love,' Rosa continued; 'I am +not fond of my needle you know. <i>You</i> were not fond of your needle, I +think. I fear you must go to bed in your clothes, my dear.'</p> + +<p>"'You are very kind,' I said, 'but I am not tired, and—it would not +bear my weight.'</p> + +<p>"'Pooh! pooh!' said Rosa. 'My love! I remember passing one Sunday in +it with the rag-doll, and the Dowager, and the Punch and Judy (the +amount of pillow their two noses took up I shall never forget!), and +the old doll that had nothing on, because her clothes were in the +dolls' wash and did not get ironed on Saturday night, and the +Highlander, whose things wouldn't come off, and who slept in his kilt. +Not bear you? Nonsense! You must go to bed, my dear. I've got other +things to do, and I can't leave you lying about.'</p> + +<p>"'The whole lot of you did not weigh one quarter of what I do,' I +cried desperately. 'I cannot, and will not get into that bed; I should +break it all to pieces, and hurt myself into the bargain.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p> + +<p>"'Well, if you will not go to bed, I must put you there,' said Rosa, +and without more ado, she snatched me up in her kid arms, and laid me +down.</p> + +<p>"Of course it was just as I expected. I had hardly touched the two +little pillows (they had a meal-baggy smell from being stuffed with +bran), when the woodwork gave way with a crash, and I +fell—fell—fell—</p> + +<p>"Though I fully believed every bone in my body to be broken, it was +really a relief to get to the ground. As soon as I could, I sat up, +and felt myself all over. A little stiff, but, as it seemed, unhurt. +Oddly enough, I found that I was back again under the tree; and more +strange still, it was not the tree where I sat with Rosa, but the old +oak-tree in the little wood. Was it all a dream? The toys had +vanished, the lights were out, the mosses looked dull in the growing +dusk, the evening was chilly, the hole no larger than it was thirty +years ago, and when I felt in my pocket for my spectacles I found that +they were on my nose.</p> + +<p>"I have returned to the spot many times since, but I never could +induce a beetle to enter into conversation on the subject, the hole +remains obstinately impassable, and I have not been able to repeat my +visit to the Land of Lost Toys.</p> + +<p>"When I recall my many sins against the playthings of my childhood, I +am constrained humbly to acknowledge that perhaps this is just as +well."</p> + + +<h3>SAM SETS UP SHOP.</h3> +<p>"I think you might help me, Dot," cried Sam in dismal and rather +injured tones.</p> + +<p>It was the morning following the day of the earth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>quake, and of Aunt +Penelope's arrival. Sam had his back to Dot, and his face to the fire, +over which indeed he had bent for so long that he appeared to be half +roasted.</p> + +<p>"What do you want?" asked Dot, who was working at a doll's night-dress +that had for long been partly finished, and now seemed in a fair way +to completion.</p> + +<p>"It's the glue-pot," Sam continued. "It does take so long to boil. And +I have been stirring at the glue with a stick for ever so long to get +it to melt. It is very hot work. I wish you would take it for a bit. +It's as much for your good as for mine."</p> + +<p>"Is it?" said Dot.</p> + +<p>"Yes it is, Miss," cried Sam. "You must know I've got a splendid +idea."</p> + +<p>"Not another earthquake, I hope?" said Dot, smiling.</p> + +<p>"Now, Dot, that's truly unkind of you. I thought it was to be +forgotten."</p> + +<p>"So it is," said Dot, getting up. "I was only joking. What is the +idea?"</p> + +<p>"I don't think I shall tell you till I have finished my shop. I want +to get to it now, and I wish you would take a turn at the glue-pot."</p> + +<p>Sam was apt to want a change of occupation. Dot, on the other hand, +was equally averse from leaving what she was about till it was +finished, so they suited each other like Jack Sprat and his wife. It +had been an effort to Dot to leave the night-dress which she had hoped +to finish at a sitting; but when she was fairly set to work on the +glue business she never moved till the glue was in working order, and +her face as red as a ripe tomato.</p> + +<p>By this time Sam had set up business in the window-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>seat, and was +fastening a large paper inscription over his shop. It ran thus:—</p> + +<p class="center"> +MR. SAM,</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Dolls Doctor and Toymender to Her Majesty the<br /> +Queen, and all other Potentates.</i> +</p> + +<p>"Splendid!" shouted Dot, who was serving up the glue as if it had been +a kettle of soup, and who looked herself very like an overtoasted +cook.</p> + +<p>Sam took the glue, and began to bustle about.</p> + +<p>"Now, Dot, get me all the broken toys, and we'll see what we can do. +And here's a second splendid idea. Do you see that box? Into that we +shall put all the toys that are quite spoiled and cannot possibly be +mended. It is to be called the Hospital for Incurables. I've got a +placard for that. At least it's not written yet, but here's the paper, +and perhaps you would write it, Dot, for I am tired of writing and I +want to begin the mending."</p> + +<p>"For the future," he presently resumed, "when I want a doll to scalp +or behead, I shall apply to the Hospital for Incurables, and the same +with any other toy that I want to destroy. And you will see, my dear +Dot, that I shall be quite a blessing to the nursery; for I shall +attend the dolls gratis, and keep all the furniture in repair."</p> + +<p>Sam really kept his word. He had a natural turn for mechanical work, +and, backed by Dot's more methodical genius, he prolonged the days of +the broken toys by skillful mending, and so acquired an interest in +them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> which was still more favorable to their preservation. When his +birthday came round, which was some months after these events, Dot +(assisted by Mamma and Aunt Penelope), had prepared for him a surprise +that was more than equal to any of his own "splendid ideas." The whole +force of the toy cupboard was assembled on the nursery table, to +present Sam with a fine box of joiner's tools as a reward for his +services, Papa kindly acting as spokesman on the occasion.</p> + +<p>And certain gaps in the china tea-set, some scars on the dolls' faces, +and a good many new legs, both amongst the furniture and the animals, +are now the only remaining traces of Sam's earthquake.</p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p> +<h2>THE BROWNIES.</h2> +<div class="figleft"><img src="images/image_a.jpg" alt="A" width="51" height="50" /></div> + +<p> little girl sat sewing and crying on a garden seat. She had fair +floating hair, which the breeze blew into her eyes; and between the +cloud of hair, and the mist of tears, she could not see her work very +clearly. She neither tied up her locks, nor dried her eyes, however; +for when one is miserable, one may as well be completely so.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" said the Doctor, who was a friend of the +Rector's, and came into the garden whenever he pleased.</p> + +<p>The Doctor was a tall stout man, with hair as black as crows' feathers +on the top, and gray underneath, and a bushy beard. When young, he had +been slim and handsome, with wonderful eyes, which were wonderful +still; but that was many years past. He had a great love for children, +and this one was a particular friend of his.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?" said he.</p> + +<p>"I'm in a row," murmured the young lady through her veil; and the +needle went in damp, and came out with a jerk, which is apt to result +in what ladies called "puckering."</p> + +<p>"You are like London in a yellow fog," said the Doctor, throwing +himself on to the grass, "and it is very depressing to my feelings. +What is the row about, and how came you to get into it?"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;"> +<img class="img1" src="images/image_003.jpg" width="450" height="616" alt="The Brownies.—Page 34." title="" /> +<span class="caption">The Brownies.—Page 34.</span> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p><p>"We're all in it," was the reply; and apparently the fog was +thickening, for the voice grew less and less distinct—"the boys and +everybody. It's all about forgetting, and not putting away, and +leaving about, and borrowing, and breaking, and that sort of thing. +I've had father's new pocket-handkerchiefs to hem, and I've been out +climbing with the boys, and kept forgetting and forgetting, and mother +says I always forget; and I can't help it. I forget to tidy his +newspapers for him, and I forget to feed Puss, and I forgot these; +besides, they're a great bore, and mother gave them to Nurse to do, +and this one was lost, and we found it this morning tossing about in +the toy-cupboard."</p> + +<p>"It looks as if it had been taking violent exercise," said the Doctor. +"But what have the boys to do with it?"</p> + +<p>"Why, then there was a regular turn out of the toys," she explained, +"and they're all in a regular mess. You know, we always go on till the +last minute, and then things get crammed in anyhow. Mary and I did +tidy them once or twice; but the boys never put anything away, you +know, so what's the good?"</p> + +<p>"What, indeed!" said the Doctor. "And so you have complained of them?"</p> + +<p>"Oh! no!" answered she. "We don't get them into rows, unless they are +very provoking; but some of the things were theirs, so everybody was +sent for, and I was sent out to finish this, and they are all tidying. +I don't know when it will be done, for I have all this side to hem: +and the soldier's box is broken, and Noah is lost out of the Noah's +Ark, and so is one of the elephants and a guinea-pig, and so is the +rocking-horse's nose: and nobody knows what has become of +Rutlandshire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> and the Wash, but they're so small, I don't wonder; only +North America and Europe are gone too."</p> + +<p>The Doctor started up in affected horror. "Europe gone, did you say? +Bless me! what will become of us!"</p> + +<p>"Don't!" said the young lady, kicking petulantly with her dangling +feet, and trying not to laugh. "You know I mean the puzzles; and if +they were yours, you wouldn't like it."</p> + +<p>"I don't half like it as it is," said the Doctor. "I am seriously +alarmed. An earthquake is one thing: you have a good shaking, and +settle down again. But Europe gone—lost—Why, here comes Deordie, I +declare, looking much more cheerful than we do; let us humbly hope +that Europe has been found. At present I feel like Aladdin when his +palace had been transported by the magician; I don't know where I am."</p> + +<p>"You're here, Doctor; aren't you?" asked the slow curly-wigged +brother, squatting himself on the grass.</p> + +<p>"<i>Is</i> Europe found?" said the Doctor tragically.</p> + +<p>"Yes," laughed Deordie. "I found it."</p> + +<p>"You will be a great man," said the Doctor. "And—it is only common +charity to ask—how about North America?"</p> + +<p>"Found too," said Deordie. "But the Wash is completely lost."</p> + +<p>"And my six shirts in it!" said the Doctor. "I sent them last Saturday +as ever was. What a world we live in! Any more news? Poor Tiny here +has been crying her eyes out."</p> + +<p>"I'm so sorry, Tiny," said the brother. "But don't bother about it. +It's all square now, and we're going to have a new shelf put up."</p> + +<p>"Have you found everything?" asked Tiny.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, not the Wash, you know. And the elephant and the guinea-pig are +gone for good; so the other elephant and the other guinea-pig must +walk together as a pair now. Noah was among the soldiers, and we have +put the cavalry into a night-light box. Europe and North America were +behind the book-case; and, would you believe it? the rocking-horse's +nose has turned up in the nursery oven."</p> + +<p>"I can't believe it," said the Doctor. "The rocking-horse's nose +couldn't turn up, it was the purest Grecian, modelled from the Elgin +marbles. Perhaps it was the heat that did it, though. However, you +seem to have got through your troubles very well, Master Deordie. I +wish poor Tiny were at the end of her task."</p> + +<p>"So do I," said Deordie ruefully. "But I tell you what I've been +thinking, Doctor. Nurse is always knagging at us, and we're always in +rows of one sort or another, for doing this, and not doing that, and +leaving our things about. But, you know, it's a horrid shame, for +there are plenty of servants, and I don't see why we should be always +bothering to do little things, and—"</p> + +<p>"Oh! come to the point, please," said the Doctor; "you do go round the +square so, in telling your stories, Deordie. What have you been +thinking of?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Deordie, who was as good tempered as he was slow, "the +other day Nurse shut me up in the back nursery for borrowing her +scissors and losing them; but I'd got 'Grimm' inside one of my +knickerbockers, so when she locked the door, I sat down to read. And I +read the story of the Shoemaker and the little Elves who came and did +his work for him before he got up; and I thought it would be so jolly +if we had some little Elves to do things instead of us."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p> + +<p>"That's what Tommy Trout said," observed the Doctor.</p> + +<p>"Who's Tommy Trout?" asked Deordie.</p> + +<p>"Don't you know, Deor?" said Tiny. "It's the good boy who pulled the +cat out of the what's-his-name.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Who pulled her out?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Little Tommy Trout.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Is it the same Tommy Trout, Doctor? I never heard anything else about +him except his pulling the cat out; and I can't think how he did +that."</p> + +<p>"Let down the bucket for her, of course," said the Doctor. "But listen +to me. If you will get that handkerchief done, and take it to your +mother with a kiss, and not keep me waiting, I'll have you all to tea, +and tell you the story of Tommy Trout."</p> + +<p>"This very night?" shouted Deordie.</p> + +<p>"This very night."</p> + +<p>"Every one of us?" inquired the young gentleman with rapturous +incredulity.</p> + +<p>"Every one of you.—Now Tiny, how about that work?"</p> + +<p>"It's just done," said Tiny.—"Oh! Deordie, climb up behind, and hold +back my hair, there's a darling, while I fasten off. Oh! Deor, you're +pulling my hair out. Don't."</p> + +<p>"I want to make a pig-tail," said Deor.</p> + +<p>"You can't," said Tiny, with feminine contempt. "You can't plait. +What's the good of asking boys to do anything? There! it's done at +last. Now go and ask mother if we may go.—Will you let me come, +doctor," she inquired, "if I do as you said?"</p> + +<p>"To be sure I will," he answered. "Let me look at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> you. Your eyes are +swollen with crying. How can you be such a silly little goose?"</p> + +<p>"Did you never cry?" asked Tiny.</p> + +<p>"When I was your age? Well, perhaps so."</p> + +<p>"You've never cried since, surely," said Tiny.</p> + +<p>The Doctor absolutely blushed.</p> + +<p>"What do you think?" said he.</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course not," she answered. "You've nothing to cry about. +You're grown up, and you live all alone in a beautiful house, and you +do as you like, and never get into rows, or have anybody but yourself +to think about; and no nasty pocket-handkerchiefs to hem."</p> + +<p>"Very nice; eh, Deordie?" said the Doctor.</p> + +<p>"Awfully jolly," said Deordie.</p> + +<p>"Nothing else to wish for, eh?"</p> + +<p>"<i>I</i> should keep harriers, and not a poodle, if I were a man," said +Deordie; "but I suppose you could, if you wanted to."</p> + +<p>"Nothing to cry about, at any rate?"</p> + +<p>"I should think not!" said Deordie.—"There's mother, though; let's go +and ask her about the tea;" and off they ran.</p> + +<p>The Doctor stretched his six feet of length upon the sward, dropped +his gray head on a little heap of newly-mown grass, and looked up into +the sky.</p> + +<p>"Awfully jolly—no nasty pocket-handkerchiefs to hem," said he, +laughing to himself. "Nothing else to wish for; nothing to cry about."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, he lay still, staring at the sky, till the smile died +away, and tears came into his eyes. Fortunately, no one was there to +see.</p> + +<p>What could this "awfully jolly" Doctor be thinking of to make him cry? +He was thinking of a grave-stone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> in the churchyard close by, and of a +story connected with this grave-stone which was known to everybody in +the place who was old enough to remember it. This story has nothing to +do with the present story, so it ought not to be told.</p> + +<p>And yet it has to do with the Doctor, and is very short, so it shall +be put in, after all.</p> + + +<h3>THE STORY OF A GRAVE-STONE.</h3> +<p>One early spring morning, about twenty years before, a man, going to +his work at sunrise through the churchyard, stopped by a flat stone +which he had lately helped to lay down. The day before, a name had +been cut on it, which he stayed to read; and below the name some one +had scrawled a few words in pencil, which he read also—<i>Pitifully +behold the sorrows of our hearts</i>. On the stone lay a pencil, and a +few feet from it lay the Doctor, face downwards, as he had lain all +night, with the hoar frost on his black hair.</p> + +<p>Ah! these grave-stones (they were ugly things in those days; not the +light, hopeful, pretty crosses we set up now), how they seem +remorselessly to imprison and keep our dear dead friends away from us! +And yet they do not lie with a feather's weight upon the souls that +are gone, while God only knows how heavily they press upon the souls +that are left behind. Did the spirit whose body was with the dead, +stand that morning by the body whose spirit was with the dead, and +pity him? Let us only talk about what we know.</p> + +<p>After this it was said that the Doctor had got a fever, and was dying, +but he got better of it; and then that he was out of his mind, but he +got better of that, and came out looking much as usual, except that +his hair never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> seemed quite so black again, as if a little of that +night's hoar frost still remained. And no further misfortune happened +to him that I ever heard of; and as time went on he grew a beard, and +got stout, and kept a German poodle, and gave tea parties to other +people's children. As to the grave-stone story, whatever it was to him +at the end of twenty years, it was a great convenience to his friends; +for when he said anything they didn't agree with, or did anything they +couldn't understand, or didn't say or do what was expected of him, +what could be easier or more conclusive than to shake one's head and +say,</p> + +<p>"The fact is, our Doctor has been a little odd, <i>ever since</i>—!"</p> + + +<h3>THE DOCTOR'S TEA PARTY.</h3> +<p>There is one great advantage attendant upon invitations to tea with a +doctor. No objections can be raised on the score of health. It is +obvious that it must be fine enough to go out when the doctor asks +you, and that his tea-cakes may be eaten with perfect impunity.</p> + +<p>Those tea-cakes were always good; to-night they were utterly +delicious; there was a perfect <i>abandon</i> of currants, and the amount +of citron peel was enervating to behold. Then the housekeeper waited +in awful splendor, and yet the Doctor's authority over her seemed as +absolute as if he were an Eastern despot. Deordie must be excused for +believing in the charms of living alone. It certainly has its +advantages. The limited sphere of duty conduces to discipline in the +household, demand does not exceed supply in the article of waiting, +and there is not that general scrimmage of conflicting interests which +besets a large family in the most favored<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> circumstances. The +housekeeper waits in black silk and looks as if she had no meaner +occupation than to sit in a rocking chair, and dream of damson cheese.</p> + +<p>Rustling, hospitable, and subservient, this one retired at last, and—</p> + +<p>"Now," said the Doctor, "for the verandah; and to look at the moon."</p> + +<p>The company adjourned with a rush, the rear being brought up by the +poodle, who seemed quite used to the proceedings; and there under the +verandah, framed with passion flowers and geraniums, the Doctor had +gathered mats, rugs, cushions, and arm-chairs, for the party; while +far up in the sky, a yellow-faced harvest moon looked down in awful +benignity.</p> + +<p>"Now!" said the Doctor. "Take your seats. Ladies first, and gentlemen +afterwards. Mary and Tiny race for the American rocking-chair. Well +done! Of course it will hold both. Now boys, shake down. No one is to +sit on the stone, or put their feet on the grass; and when you're +ready, I'll begin."</p> + +<p>"We're ready," said the girls.</p> + +<p>The boys shook down in a few minutes more, and the Doctor began the +story of</p> + + +<p class="center">"THE BROWNIES."</p> + +<p>"Bairns are a burden," said the Tailor to himself as he sat at work. +He lived in a village on some of the glorious moors of the north of +England; and by bairns he meant children, as every Northman knows.</p> + +<p>"Bairns are a burden," and he sighed.</p> + +<p>"Bairns are a blessing," said the old lady in the window. "It is the +family motto. The Trouts have had large families and good luck for +generations; that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> is, till you're grandfather's time. He had one only +son. I married him. He was a good husband, but he had been a spoilt +child. He had always been used to be waited upon, and he couldn't fash +to look after the farm when it was his own. We had six children. They +are all dead but you, who were the youngest. You were bound to a +tailor. When the farm came into your hands, your wife died, and you +have never looked up since. The land is sold now, but not the house. +No! no! you're right enough there; but you've had your troubles, son +Thomas, and the lads <i>are</i> idle!'"</p> + +<p>It was the Tailor's mother who spoke. She was a very old woman, and +helpless. She was not quite so bright in her intellect as she had +been, and got muddled over things that had lately happened; but she +had a clear memory for what was long past, and was very pertinacious +in her opinions. She knew the private history of almost every family +in the place, and who of the Trouts were buried under which old stones +in the churchyard; and had more tales of ghosts, doubles, warnings, +fairies, witches, hobgoblins, and such like, than even her +grandchildren had ever come to the end of. Her hands trembled with +age, and she regretted this for nothing more than for the danger it +brought her into of spilling the salt. She was past house-work, but +all day she sat knitting hearth-rugs out of the bits and scraps of +cloth that were shred in the tailoring. How far she believed in the +wonderful tales she told, and the odd little charms she practised, no +one exactly knew; but the older she grew, the stranger were the things +she remembered, and the more testy she was if any one doubted their +truth.</p> + +<p>"Bairns are a blessing!" said she. "It is the family motto."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p> + +<p>"<i>Are they?</i>" said the Tailor emphatically.</p> + +<p>He had a high respect for his mother, and did not like to contradict +her, but he held his own opinion, based upon personal experience; and +not being a metaphysician, did not understand that it is safer to +found opinions on principles than on experience, since experience may +alter, but principles cannot.</p> + +<p>"Look at Tommy," he broke out suddenly. "That boy does nothing but +whittle sticks from morning till night. I have almost to lug him out +of bed o' mornings. If I send him an errand, he loiters; I'd better +have gone myself. If I set him to do anything, I have to tell him +everything; I could sooner do it myself. And if he does work, it's +done so unwillingly, with such a poor grace; better, far better, to do +it myself. What house-work do the boys ever do but looking after the +baby? And this afternoon she was asleep in the cradle, and off they +went, and when she awoke, <i>I</i> must leave my work to take her. <i>I</i> gave +her her supper, and put her to bed. And what with what they want and I +have to get, and what they take out to play with and lose, and what +they bring in to play with and leave about, bairns give some trouble, +Mother, and I've not an easy life of it. The pay is poor enough when +one can get the work, and the work is hard enough when one has a clear +day to do it in; but housekeeping and bairn-minding don't leave a man +much time for his trade. No! no! Ma'am, the luck of the Trouts is +gone, and 'Bairns are a burden,' is the motto now. Though they are +one's own," he muttered to himself, "and not bad ones, and I did hope +once would have been a blessing."</p> + +<p>"There's Johnnie," murmured the old lady, dreamily, "He has a face +like an apple."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And is about as useful," said the Tailor. "He might have been +different, but his brother leads him by the nose."</p> + +<p>His brother led him in as the Tailor spoke, not literally by his snub, +though, but by the hand. They were a handsome pair, this lazy couple. +Johnnie especially had the largest and roundest of foreheads, the +reddest of cheeks, the brightest of eyes, the quaintest and most +twitchy of chins, and looked altogether like a gutta percha cherub in +a chronic state of longitudinal squeeze. They were locked together by +two grubby paws, and had each an armful of moss, which they deposited +on the floor as they came in.</p> + +<p>"I've swept this floor once to-day," said the father, "and I'm not +going to do it again. Put that rubbish outside."</p> + +<p>"Move it Johnnie!" said his brother, seating himself on a stool, and +taking out his knife and a piece of wood, at which he cut and sliced; +while the apple-cheeked Johnnie stumbled and stamped over the moss, +and scraped it out on to the door-step, leaving long trails of earth +behind him, and then sat down also.</p> + +<p>"And those chips the same," added the Tailor; "I will <i>not</i> clear up +the litter you lads make."</p> + +<p>"Pick 'em up, Johnnie," said Thomas Trout, junior, with an exasperated +sigh; and the apple tumbled up, rolled after the flying chips, and +tumbled down again.</p> + +<p>"Is there any supper, Father?" asked Tommy.</p> + +<p>"No, there is not, Sir, unless you know how to get it," said the +Tailor; and taking his pipe, he went out of the house.</p> + +<p>"Is there really nothing to eat Granny?" asked the boy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p> + +<p>"No, my bairn, only some bread for breakfast to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"What makes Father so cross, Granny?"</p> + +<p>"He's wearied, and you don't help him, my dear."</p> + +<p>"What could I do, Grandmother?"</p> + +<p>"Many little things, if you tried," said the old lady. "He spent +half-an-hour to-day while you were on the moor, getting turf for the +fire, and you could have got it just as well, and he been at his +work."</p> + +<p>"He never told me," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>"You might help me a bit just now, if you would, my laddie," said the +old lady coaxingly; "these bits of cloth want tearing into lengths, +and if you get 'em ready, I can go on knitting. There'll be some food +when this mat is done and sold."</p> + +<p>"I'll try," said Tommy, lounging up with desperate resignation. "Hold +my knife, Johnnie. Father's been cross, and everything has been +miserable, ever since the farm was sold. I wish I were a big man, and +could make a fortune.—Will that do, Granny?"</p> + +<p>The old lady put down her knitting and looked. "My dear, that's too +short. Bless me! I gave the lad a piece to measure by."</p> + +<p>"I thought it was the same length. Oh, dear! I am so tired;" and he +propped himself against the old lady's chair.</p> + +<p>"My dear! don't lean so! you'll tipple me over!" she shrieked.</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, Grandmother. Will <i>that</i> do?"</p> + +<p>"It's that much too long."</p> + +<p>"Tear that bit off. Now it's all right."</p> + +<p>"But, my dear, that wastes it. Now that bit is of no use. There goes +my knitting, you awkward lad!"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Johnnie, pick it up!—Oh! Grandmother, I <i>am</i> so hungry."</p> + +<p>The boy's eyes filled with tears, and the old lady was melted in an +instant.</p> + +<p>"What can I do for you, my poor bairns?" said she. "There, never mind +the scraps, Tommy."</p> + +<p>"Tell us a tale, Granny. If you told us a new one, I shouldn't keep +thinking of that bread in the cupboard.—Come Johnny, and sit against +me. Now then!"</p> + +<p>"I doubt if there's one of my old-world cracks I haven't told you," +said the old lady, "unless it's a queer ghost story was told me years +ago of that house in the hollow with the blocked-up windows."</p> + +<p>"Oh! not ghosts!" Tommy broke in; "we've had so many. I know it was a +rattling, or a scratching, or a knocking, or a figure in white; and if +it turns out a tombstone or a white petticoat, I hate it."</p> + +<p>"It was nothing of the sort as a tombstone," said the old lady with +dignity. "It's a good half-mile from the churchyard. And as to white +petticoats, there wasn't a female in the house; he wouldn't have one; +and his victuals came in by the pantry window. But never mind! Though +it's as true as a sermon."</p> + +<p>Johnnie lifted his head from his brother's knee.</p> + +<p>"Let Granny tell what she likes, Tommy. It's a new ghost, and I should +like to know who he was, and why his victuals came in by the window."</p> + +<p>"I don't like a story about victuals," sulked Tommy. "It makes me +think of the bread. O Granny dear! do tell us a fairy story. You never +will tell us about the Fairies, and I know you know."</p> + +<p>"Hush! hush!" said the old lady. "There's Miss Surbiton's Love Letter, +and her Dreadful End."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span></p> + +<p>"I know Miss Surbiton, Granny. I think she was a goose. Why won't you +tell us about the Fairies?"</p> + +<p>"Hush! hush! my dears. There's the Clerk and the Corpse-candles."</p> + +<p>"I know the Corpse-candles, Granny. Besides, they make Johnnie dream +and he wakes me to keep him company. <i>Why</i> won't you tell us about the +Fairies?"</p> + +<p>"My dear, they don't like it," said the old lady.</p> + +<p>"O Granny dear, why don't they? Do tell! I shouldn't think of the +bread a bit, if you told us about the Fairies. I know nothing about +them."</p> + +<p>"He lived in this house long enough," said the old lady. "But it's not +lucky to name him."</p> + +<p>"Oh Granny, we are so hungry and miserable, what can it matter?"</p> + +<p>"Well, that's true enough," she sighed. "Trouts' luck is gone; it went +with the Brownie, I believe."</p> + +<p>"Was that <i>he</i>, Granny?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my dear, he lived with the Trouts for several generations."</p> + +<p>"What was he like, Granny?"</p> + +<p>"Like a little man, they say, my dear."</p> + +<p>"What did he do?"</p> + +<p>"He came in before the family were up, and swept up the hearth, and +lighted the fire, and set out the breakfast, and tidied the room, and +did all sorts of house-work. But he never would be seen, and was off +before they could catch him. But they could hear him laughing and +playing about the house sometimes."</p> + +<p>"What a darling! Did they give him any wages, Granny?"</p> + +<p>"No! my dear. He did it for love. They set a pancheon of clear water +for him over night, and now and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> then a bowl of bread and milk, or +cream. He liked that, for he was very dainty. Sometimes he left a bit +of money in the water. Sometimes he weeded the garden or threshed the +corn. He saved endless trouble, both to men and maids."</p> + +<p>"O Granny! why did he go?"</p> + +<p>"The maids caught sight of him one night, my dear, and his coat was so +ragged, that they got a new suit, and a linen shirt for him, and laid +them by the bread and milk bowl. But when Brownie saw the things, he +put them on, and dancing round the kitchen, sang,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'What have we here? Hemten hamten!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here will I never more tread nor stampen,'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and so danced through the door and never came back again."</p> + +<p>"O Grandmother! But why not? Didn't he like the new clothes?"</p> + +<p>"The Old Owl knows, my dear; I don't."</p> + +<p>"Who's the Old Owl, Granny?"</p> + +<p>"I don't exactly know, my dear. It's what my mother used to say when +we asked anything that puzzled her. It was said that the Old Owl was +Nanny Besom, (a witch, my dear!) who took the shape of a bird, but +couldn't change her voice, and that that's why the owl sits silent all +day for fear she should betray herself by speaking, and has no singing +voice like other birds. Many people used to go and consult the Old Owl +at moon-rise, in my young days."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever go, Granny?"</p> + +<p>"Once, very nearly, my dear."</p> + +<p>"Oh! tell us, Granny dear.—There are no Corpse-candles, Johnnie; it's +only moonlight," he added con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>solingly, as Johnnie crept closer to his +knee and pricked his little red ears.</p> + +<p>"It was when your grandfather was courting me, my dears," said the old +lady, "and I couldn't quite make up my mind. So I went to my mother, +and said, 'He's this on the one side, but then he's that on the other, +and so on. Shall I say yes or no?' And my mother said, 'The Old Owl +knows;' for she was fairly puzzled. So says I, 'I'll go and ask her +to-night, as sure as the moon rises.'</p> + +<p>"So at moon-rise I went, and there in the white light by the gate +stood your grandfather. 'What are you doing here at this time o' +night?' says I. 'Watching your window,' says he. 'What are <i>you</i> doing +here at this time o' night?' 'The Old Owl knows,' said I, and burst +out crying."</p> + +<p>"What for?" said Johnnie.</p> + +<p>"I can't rightly tell you, my dear," said the old lady, "but it gave +me such a turn to see him. And without more ado your grandfather +kissed me. 'How dare you?' said I. 'What do you mean?' 'The Old Owl +knows,' said he. So we never went."</p> + +<p>"How stupid!" said Tommy.</p> + +<p>"Tell us more about Brownie, please," said Johnnie. "Did he ever live +with anybody else?"</p> + +<p>"There are plenty of Brownies," said the old lady, "or used to be in +my mother's young days. Some houses had several."</p> + +<p>"Oh! I wish ours would come back!" cried both the boys in chorus. +"He'd—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"tidy the room," said Johnnie;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"fetch the turf," said Tommy;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"pick up the chips," said Johnnie;<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> +<span class="i0">"sort your scraps," said Tommy;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"and do everything. Oh! I wish he hadn't gone away."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"What's that?" said the Tailor coming in at this moment.</p> + +<p>"It's the Brownie, Father," said Tommy. "We are so sorry he went, and +do so wish we had one."</p> + +<p>"What nonsense have you been telling them, Mother?" asked the Tailor.</p> + +<p>"Heighty teighty," said the old lady, bristling. "Nonsense, indeed! As +good men as you, Son Thomas, would as soon have jumped off the crags, +as spoken lightly of <i>them</i>, in my mother's young days."</p> + +<p>"Well, well," said the Tailor, "I beg their pardon. They never did +aught for me, whatever they did for my forbears; but they're as +welcome to the old place as ever, if they choose to come. There's +plenty to do."</p> + +<p>"Would you mind our setting a pan of water, Father?" asked Tommy very +gently. "There's no bread and milk."</p> + +<p>"You may set what you like, my lad," said the Tailor; "and I wish +there were bread and milk for your sakes, Bairns. You should have it, +had I got it. But go to bed now."</p> + +<p>They lugged out a pancheon, and filled it with more dexterity than +usual, and then went off to bed, leaving the knife in one corner, the +wood in another, and a few splashes of water in their track.</p> + +<p>There was more room than comfort in the ruined old farm-house, and the +two boys slept on a bed of cut heather, in what had been the old malt +loft. Johnnie was soon in the land of dreams, growing rosier and +rosier as he slept, a tumbled apple among the gray heather. But not so +lazy Tommy. The idea of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> domesticated Brownie had taken full +possession of his mind; and whither Brownie had gone, where he might +be found, and what would induce him to return, were mysteries he +longed to solve. "There's an owl living in the old shed by the mere," +he thought. "It may be the Old Owl herself, and she knows, Granny +says. When father's gone to bed, and the moon rises. I'll go." +Meanwhile he lay down.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The moon rose like gold, and went up into the heavens like silver, +flooding the moors with a pale ghostly light, taking the color out of +the heather, and painting black shadows under the stone walls. Tommy +opened his eyes, and ran to the window. "The moon has risen," said he, +and crept softly down the ladder, through the kitchen, where was the +pan of water, but no Brownie, and so out on to the moor. The air was +fresh, not to say chilly; but it was a glorious night, though +everything but the wind and Tommy seemed asleep. The stones, the +walls, the gleaming lanes, were so intensely still; the church tower +in the valley seemed awake and watching, but silent; the houses in the +village round it all had their eyes shut, that is, their window blinds +down; and it seemed to Tommy as if the very moors had drawn white +sheets over them, and lay sleeping also.</p> + +<p>"Hoot! hoot!" said a voice from the fir plantation behind him. +Somebody else was awake, then. "It's the Old Owl," said Tommy; and +there she came, swinging heavily across the moor with a flapping +stately flight, and sailed into the shed by the mere. The old lady +moved faster than she seemed to do, and though Tommy ran hard she was +in the shed some time before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> him. When he got in, no bird was to be +seen, but he heard a crunching sound from above, and looking up, there +sat the Old Owl, pecking and tearing and munching at some shapeless +black object, and blinking at him—Tommy—with yellow eyes.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear!" said Tommy, for he didn't much like it.</p> + +<p>The Old Owl dropped the black mass on to the floor; and Tommy did not +care somehow to examine it.</p> + +<p>"Come up! come up!" said she, hoarsely.</p> + +<p>She could speak, then! Beyond all doubt it was <i>the</i> Old Owl and none +other. Tommy shuddered.</p> + +<p>"Come up here! come up here!" said the Old Owl.</p> + +<p>The Old Owl sat on a beam that ran across the shed. Tommy had often +climbed up for fun; and he climbed up now, and sat face to face with +her, and thought her eyes looked as if they were made of flame.</p> + +<p>"Kiss my fluffy face," said the Owl.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were going round like flaming catherine wheels, but there are +certain requests which one has not the option of refusing. Tommy crept +nearer, and put his lips to the round face out of which the eyes +shone. Oh! it was so downy and warm, so soft, so indescribably soft. +Tommy's lips sank into it, and couldn't get to the bottom. It was +unfathomable feathers and fluffyness.</p> + +<p>"Now, what do you want?" said the Owl.</p> + +<p>"Please," said Tommy, who felt rather re-assured, "can you tell me +where to find the Brownies, and how to get one to come and live with +us?"</p> + +<p>"Oohoo!" said the Owl, "that's it, is it? I know of three Brownies."</p> + +<p>"Hurrah!" said Tommy. "Where do they live?"</p> + +<p>"In your house," said the Owl.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span></p> + +<p>Tommy was aghast.</p> + +<p>"In our house!" he exclaimed. "Whereabouts? Let me rummage them out. +Why do they do nothing?"</p> + +<p>"One of them is too young," said the Owl.</p> + +<p>"But why don't the others work?" asked Tommy.</p> + +<p>"They are idle, they are idle," said the Old Owl, and she gave herself +such a shake as she said it, that the fluff went flying through the +shed, and Tommy nearly tumbled off the beam in his fright.</p> + +<p>"Then we don't want them," said he. "What is the use of having +Brownies if they do nothing to help us?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps they don't know how, as no one has told them," said the Owl.</p> + +<p>"I wish you would tell me where to find them," said Tommy; "I could +tell them."</p> + +<p>"Could you?" said the Owl. "Oohoo! Oohoo!" and Tommy couldn't tell +whether she were hooting or laughing.</p> + +<p>"Of course I could," he said. "They might be up and sweep the house, +and light the fire, and spread the table, and that sort of thing, +before father came down. Besides, they could <i>see</i> what was wanted. +The Brownies did all that in Granny's mother's young days. And then +they could tidy the room, and fetch the turf, and pick up my chips, +and sort Granny's scraps. Oh! there's lots to do."</p> + +<p>"So there is," said the Owl. "Oohoo! Well, I can tell you where to +find one of the Brownies; and if you find him, he will tell you where +his brother is. But all this depends upon whether you feel equal to +undertaking it, and whether you will follow my directions."</p> + +<p>"I am quite ready to go," said Tommy, "and I will do as you shall tell +me. I feel sure I could persuade<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> them. If they only knew how every +one would love them if they made themselves useful!"</p> + +<p>"Oohoo! oohoo!" said the Owl. "Now pay attention. You must go to the +north side of the mere when the moon is shining—('I know Brownies +like water,' muttered Tommy)—and turn yourself round three times, +saying this charm:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Twist me, and turn me, and show me the Elf—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I looked in the water, and saw—'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>When you have got so far, look into the water, and at the same moment +you will see the Brownie, and think of a word that will fill up the +couplet, and rhyme with the first line. If either you do not see the +Brownie, or fail to think of the word, it will be of no use."</p> + +<p>"Is the Brownie a merman," said Tommy, wriggling himself along the +beam, "that he lives under water?"</p> + +<p>"That depends on whether he has a fish's tail," said the Owl, "and +this you can discover for yourself."</p> + +<p>"Well, the moon is shining, so I shall go," said Tommy. "Good-bye, and +thank you, Ma'am;" and he jumped down and went, saying to himself as +he ran, "I believe he is a merman all the same, or else how could he +live in the mere? I know more about Brownies than Granny does, and I +shall tell her so;" for Tommy was somewhat opinionated, like other +young people.</p> + +<p>The moon shone very brightly on the centre of the mere. Tommy knew the +place well for there was a fine echo there. Round the edge grew rushes +and water plants, which cast a border of shadow. Tommy went to the +north side, and turning himself three times, as the Old Owl had told +him, he repeated the charm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Twist me and turn me, and show me the Elf—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I looked in the water, and saw—"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Now for it! He looked in, and saw—the reflection of his own face.</p> + +<p>"Why, there's no one but myself!" said Tommy. "And what can the word +be? I must have done it wrong."</p> + +<p>"Wrong!" said the Echo.</p> + +<p>Tommy was almost surprised to find the echo awake at this time of +night.</p> + +<p>"Hold your tongue!" said he. "Matters are provoking enough of +themselves. Belf! Celf! Delf! Felf! Gelf! Helf! Jelf! What rubbish! +There can't be a word to fit it. And then to look for a Brownie, and +see nothing but myself!"</p> + +<p>"Myself," said the Echo.</p> + +<p>"Will you be quiet?" said Tommy. "If you would tell one the word there +would be some sense in your interference; but to roar 'Myself!' at +one, which neither rhymes nor runs—it does rhyme though, as it +happens," he added; "and how very odd! it runs too—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Twist me, and turn me, and show me the Elf;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I looked in the water, and saw myself,'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>which I certainly did. What can it mean? The Old Owl knows, as Granny +would say; so I shall go back and ask her."</p> + +<p>"Ask her!" said the Echo.</p> + +<p>"Didn't I say I should?" said Tommy. "How exasperating you are! It is +very strange. <i>Myself</i> certainly does rhyme, and I wonder I did not +think of it long ago."</p> + +<p>"Go," said the Echo.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Will you mind your own business, and go to sleep?" said Tommy. "I am +going; I said I should."</p> + +<p>And back he went. There sat the Old Owl as before.</p> + +<p>"Oohoo!" said she, as Tommy climbed up. "What did you see in the +mere?"</p> + +<p>"I saw nothing but myself," said Tommy indignantly.</p> + +<p>"And what did you expect to see?" asked the Owl.</p> + +<p>"I expected to see a Brownie," said Tommy; "you told me so."</p> + +<p>"And what are Brownies like, pray?" inquired the Owl.</p> + +<p>"The one Granny knew was a useful little fellow, something like a +little man," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>"Ah!" said the Owl, "but you know at present this one is an idle +little fellow, something like a little man. Oohoo! oohoo! Are you +quite sure you didn't see him?"</p> + +<p>"Quite," answered Tommy sharply. "I saw no one but myself."</p> + +<p>"Hoot! toot! How touchy we are! And who are you, pray?"</p> + +<p>"I am not a Brownie," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>"Don't be too sure," said the Owl. "Did you find out the word?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Tommy. "I could find no word with any meaning that would +rhyme but 'myself.'"</p> + +<p>"Well, that runs and rhymes," said the Owl. "What do you want? Where's +your brother now?"</p> + +<p>"In bed in the malt-loft," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>"Then now all your questions are answered," said the Owl, "and you +know what wants doing, so go and do it. Good-night, or rather +good-morning, for it is long past midnight;" and the old lady began to +shake her feathers for a start.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Don't go yet, please," said Tommy humbly. "I don't understand it. You +know I'm not a Brownie, am I?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, you are," said the Owl, "and a very idle one too. All children +are Brownies."</p> + +<p>"But I couldn't do work like a Brownie," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>"Why not?" inquired the Owl. "Couldn't you sweep the floor, light the +fire, spread the table, tidy the room, fetch the turf, pick up your +own chips, and sort your grandmother's scraps? You know 'there's lots +to do.'"</p> + +<p>"But I don't think I should like it," said Tommy. "I'd much rather +have a Brownie to do it for me."</p> + +<p>"And what would you do meanwhile?" asked the Owl. "Be idle, I suppose; +and what do you suppose is the use of a man's having children if they +do nothing to help him? Ah! if they only knew how every one would love +them if they made themselves useful!"</p> + +<p>"But is it really and truly so?" asked Tommy, in a dismal voice. "Are +there no Brownies but children?"</p> + +<p>"No, there are not," said the owl. "And pray do you think that the +Brownies, whoever they may be, come into a house to save trouble for +the idle healthy little boys who live in it? Listen to me, Tommy," +said the old lady, her eyes shooting rays of fire in the dark corner +where she sat. "Listen to me, you are a clever boy, and can understand +when one speaks; so I will tell you the whole history of the Brownies, +as it has been handed down in our family from my grandmother's +great-grandmother, who lived in the Druid's Oak, and was intimate with +the fairies. And when I have done you shall tell me what you think +they are, if they are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> not children. It's the opinion I have come to +at any rate, and I don't think that wisdom died with our +great-grandmothers."</p> + +<p>"I should like to hear if you please," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>The Old Owl shook out a tuft or two of fluff, and set her eyes +a-going, and began:</p> + +<p>"The Brownies, or as they are sometimes called, the Small Folk, the +Little People, or the Good People, are a race of tiny beings who +domesticate themselves in a house of which some grown-up human being +pays the rent and taxes. They are like small editions of men and +women, they are too small and fragile for heavy work; they have not +the strength of a man, but are a thousand times more fresh and nimble. +They can run and jump, and roll and tumble, with marvellous agility +and endurance, and of many of the aches and pains which men and women +groan under, they do not even know the names. They have no trade or +profession, and as they live entirely upon other people, they know +nothing of domestic cares; in fact, they know very little upon any +subject, though they are often intelligent and highly inquisitive. +They love dainties, play, and mischief. They are apt to be greatly +beloved, and are themselves capriciously affectionate. They are little +people, and can only do little things. When they are idle and +mischievous, they are called Boggarts, and are a curse to the house +they live in. When they are useful and considerate, they are Brownies, +and are a much-coveted blessing. Sometimes the Blessed Brownies will +take up their abode with some worthy couple, cheer them with their +romps and merry laughter, tidy the house, find things that have been +lost, and take little troubles out of hands full of great anxieties. +Then in time these Little People are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> Brownies no longer. They grow up +into men and women. They do not care so much for dainties, play, or +mischief. They cease to jump and tumble, and roll about the house. +They know more, and laugh less. Then, when their heads begin to ache +with anxiety, and they have to labor for their own living, and the +great cares of life come on, other Brownies come and live with them, +and take up their little cares, and supply their little comforts, and +make the house merry once more."</p> + +<p>"How nice!" said Tommy.</p> + +<p>"Very nice," said the Old Owl. "But what"—and she shook herself more +fiercely than ever, and glared so that Tommy expected nothing less +than her eyes would set fire to her feathers and she would be burnt +alive. "But what must I say of the Boggarts? Those idle urchins who +eat the bread and milk, and don't do the work, who lie in bed without +an ache or pain to excuse them, who untidy instead of tidying, cause +work instead of doing it, and leave little cares to heap on big cares, +till the old people who support them are worn out altogether."</p> + +<p>"Don't!" said Tommy. "I can't bear it."</p> + +<p>"I hope when Boggarts grow into men," said the Old Owl, "that their +children will be Boggarts too, and then they'll know what it is!"</p> + +<p>"Don't!" roared Tommy. "I won't be a Boggart. I'll be a Brownie."</p> + +<p>"That's right," nodded the Old Owl. "I said you were a boy who could +understand when one spoke. And remember that the Brownies never are +seen at their work. They get up before the household, and get away +before any one can see them. I can't tell you why. I don't think my +grandmother's great-grandmother knew.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> Perhaps because all good deeds +are better done in secret."</p> + +<p>"Please," said Tommy, "I should like to go home now, and tell Johnnie. +It's getting cold, and I am so tired!"</p> + +<p>"Very true," said the Old Owl, "and then you will have to be up early +to-morrow. I think I had better take you home."</p> + +<p>"I know the way, thank you," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>"I didn't say <i>shew</i> you the way, I said <i>take</i> you—carry you," said +the Owl. "Lean against me."</p> + +<p>"I'd rather not, thank you," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>"Lean against me," screamed the Owl. "Oohoo! how obstinate boys are to +be sure!"</p> + +<p>Tommy crept up, very unwillingly.</p> + +<p>"Lean your full weight, and shut your eyes," said the Owl.</p> + +<p>Tommy laid his head against the Old Owl's feathers, had a vague idea +that she smelt of heather, and thought it must be from living on the +moor, shut his eyes, and leant his full weight, expecting that he and +the Owl would certainly fall off the beam together. +Down—feathers—fluff—he sank and sank, could feel nothing solid, +jumped up with a start to save himself, opened his eyes, and found +that he was sitting among the heather in the malt-loft, with Johnnie +sleeping by his side.</p> + +<p>"How quickly we came!" said he; "that is certainly a very clever Old +Owl. I couldn't have counted ten whilst my eyes were shut. How very +odd!"</p> + +<p>But what was odder still was, that it was no longer moonlight but +early dawn.</p> + +<p>"Get up, Johnnie," said his brother, "I've got a story to tell you."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span></p> + +<p>And while Johnnie sat up, and rubbed his eyes open, he related his +adventures on the moor.</p> + +<p>"Is all that true?" said Johnnie. "I mean, did it really happen?"</p> + +<p>"Of course it did," said his brother; "don't you believe it?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes," said Johnnie. "But I thought it was perhaps only a true +story, like Granny's true stories. I believe all those, you know. But +if you were there, you know, it is different—"</p> + +<p>"I was there," said Tommy, "and it's all just as I tell you: and I +tell you what, if we mean to do anything we must get up: though, oh +dear! I should like to stay in bed. I say," he added, after a pause, +"suppose we do. It can't matter being Boggarts for one night more. I +mean to be a Brownie before I grow up, though. I couldn't stand +boggarty children."</p> + +<p>"I won't be a Boggart at all," said Johnnie, "It's horrid. But I don't +see how we can be Brownies, for I'm afraid we can't do the things. I +wish I were bigger!"</p> + +<p>"I can do it well enough," said Tommy, following his brother's example +and getting up. "Don't you suppose I can light a fire? Think of all +the bonfires we have made! And I don't think I should mind having a +regular good tidy-up either. It's that stupid +putting-away-things-when-you've-done-with-them that I hate so!"</p> + +<p>The Brownies crept softly down the ladder and into the kitchen. There +was the blank hearth, the dirty floor, and all the odds and ends lying +about, looking cheerless enough in the dim light, Tommy felt quite +important as he looked round. There is no such cure for untidiness as +clearing up after other people; one sees so clearly where the fault +lies.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Look at that door-step, Johnnie," said the Brownie-elect, "what a +mess you made of it! If you had lifted the moss carefully, instead of +stamping and struggling with it, it would have saved us ten minutes' +work this morning."</p> + +<p>This wisdom could not be gainsaid, and Johnnie only looked meek and +rueful.</p> + +<p>"I am going to light the fire," pursued his brother;—"the next turfs, +you know, <i>we</i> must get—you can tidy a bit. Look at that knife I gave +you to hold last night, and that wood—that's my fault though, and so +are those scraps by Granny's chair. What are you grubbing at that +rat-hole for?"</p> + +<p>Johnnie raised his head somewhat flushed and tumbled.</p> + +<p>"What do you think I have found?" said he triumphantly. "Father's +measure that has been lost for a week!"</p> + +<p>"Hurrah!" said Tommy, "put it by his things. That's just a sort of +thing for a Brownie to have done. What will he say? And I say, +Johnnie, when you've tidied, just go and grub up a potato or two in +the garden, and I'll put them to roast for breakfast. I'm lighting +such a bonfire!"</p> + +<p>The fire was very successful. Johnnie went after the potatoes, and +Tommy cleaned the door-step, swept the room, dusted the chairs and the +old chest, and set out the table. There was no doubt he could be handy +when he chose.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what I have thought of, if we have time," said Johnnie, +as he washed the potatoes in the water that had been set for Brownie. +"We might run down to the South Pasture for some mushrooms. Father<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +said the reason we found so few was that people go by sunrise for them +to take to market. The sun's only just rising, we should be sure to +find some, and they would do for breakfast."</p> + +<p>"There's plenty of time," said Tommy; so they went. The dew lay heavy +and thick upon the grass by the road side, and over the miles of +network that the spiders had woven from blossom to blossom of the +heather. The dew is the Sun's breakfast; but he was barely up yet, and +had not eaten it, and the world felt anything but warm. Nevertheless, +it was so sweet and fresh as it is at no later hour of the day, and +every sound was like the returning voice of a long absent friend. Down +to the pastures, where was more network and more dew, but when one has +nothing to speak of in the way of boots, the state of the ground is of +the less consequence.</p> + +<p>The Tailor had been right, there was no lack of mushrooms at this time +of the morning. All over the pasture they stood, of all sizes, some +like buttons, some like tables; and in the distance one or two ragged +women, stooping over them with baskets, looked like huge fungi also.</p> + +<p>"This is where the fairies feast," said Tommy. "They had a large party +last night. When they go, they take away the dishes and cups, for they +are made of gold; but they leave their tables, and we eat them."</p> + +<p>"I wonder whether giants would like to eat our tables," said Johnnie.</p> + +<p>This was beyond Tommy's capabilities of surmise; so they filled a +handkerchief, and hurried back again for fear the Tailor should have +come down-stairs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span></p> + +<p>They were depositing the last mushroom in a dish on the table, when +his footsteps were heard descending.</p> + +<p>"There he is!" exclaimed Tommy. "Remember, we musn't be caught. Run +back to bed."</p> + +<p>Johnnie caught up the handkerchief, and smothering their laughter, the +two scrambled back up the ladder, and dashed straight into the +heather.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the poor Tailor came wearily down-stairs. Day after day, +since his wife's death, he had come down every morning to the same +desolate sight—yesterday's refuse and an empty hearth. This morning +task of tidying was always a sad and ungrateful one to the widowed +father. His awkward struggles with the house-work in which <i>she</i> had +been so notable, chafed him. The dirty kitchen was dreary, the labor +lonely, and it was an hour's time lost to his trade. But life does not +stand still while one is wishing, and so the Tailor did that for which +there was neither remedy nor substitute; and came down this morning as +other mornings to the pail and broom. When he came in he looked round, +and started, and rubbed his eyes; looked round again, and rubbed them +harder; then went up to the fire and held out his hand, (warm +certainly)—then up to the table and smelt the mushrooms, (esculent +fungi beyond a doubt)—handled the loaf, stared at the open door and +window, the swept floor, and the sunshine pouring in, and finally sat +down in stunned admiration. Then he jumped up and ran to the foot of +the stairs, shouting,—</p> + +<p>"Mother! Mother! Trout's luck has come again." "And yet, no!" he +thought, "the old lady's asleep, it's a shame to wake her, I'll tell +those idle rascally lads, they'll be more pleased than they deserve. +It was Tommy after all that set the water and caught him."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> "Boys! +boys!" he shouted at the foot of the ladder, "the Brownie has +come!—and if he hasn't found my measure!" he added on returning to +the kitchen, "this is as good as a day's work to me."</p> + +<p>There was great excitement in the small household that day. The boys +kept their own counsel. The old Grandmother was triumphant, and tried +not to seem surprised. The Tailor made no such vain effort, and +remained till bed-time in a state of fresh and unconcealed amazement.</p> + +<p>"I've often heard of the Good People," he broke out towards the end of +the evening. "And I've heard folk say they've known those that have +seen them capering round the gray rocks on the moor at midnight: but +this is wonderful! To come and do the work for a pan of cold water! +Who could have believed it?"</p> + +<p>"You might have believed it if you'd believed me, Son Thomas," said +the old lady tossily. "I told you so. But young people always know +better than their elders!"</p> + +<p>"I didn't see him," said the Tailor, beginning his story afresh; "but +I thought as I came in I heard a sort of laughing and rustling."</p> + +<p>"My mother said they often heard him playing and laughing about the +house," said the old lady. "I told you so."</p> + +<p>"Well, he shan't want for a bowl of bread and milk to-morrow, anyhow," +said the Tailor, "if I have to stick to Farmer Swede's waistcoat till +midnight."</p> + +<p>But the waistcoat was finished by bed-time, and the Tailor set the +bread and milk himself, and went to rest.</p> + +<p>"I say," said Tommy, when both the boys were in bed, "the Old Owl was +right, and we must stick to it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> But I'll tell you what I don't like, +and that is, father thinking we're idle still. I wish he knew we were +the Brownies."</p> + +<p>"So do I," said Johnnie; and he sighed.</p> + +<p>"I tell you what," said Tommy, with the decisiveness of elder +brotherhood, "we'll keep quiet for a bit for fear we should leave off; +but when we've gone on a good while, I shall tell him. It was only the +Old Owl's grandmother's great-grandmother who said it was to be kept +secret, and the Old Owl herself said grandmothers were not always in +the right."</p> + +<p>"No more they are," said Johnnie; "look at Granny about this."</p> + +<p>"I know," said Tommy. "She's in a regular muddle."</p> + +<p>"So she is," said Johnnie. "But that's rather fun, I think."</p> + +<p>And they went to sleep.</p> + +<p>Day after day went by, and still the Brownies "stuck to it," and did +their work. It is no such very hard matter after all to get up early +when one is young and light-hearted, and sleeps upon heather in a loft +without window-blind, and with so many broken window-panes that the +air comes freely in. In old times the boys used to play at tents among +the heather, while the Tailor did the house-work; now they came down +and did it for him.</p> + +<p>Size is not everything, even in this material existence. One has heard +of dwarfs who were quite as clever, (not to say as powerful,) as +giants, and I do not fancy that Fairy Godmothers are ever very large. +It is wonderful what a comfort Brownies may be in the house that is +fortunate enough to hold them! The Tailor's Brownies were the joy of +his life; and day after day they seemed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> to grow more and more +ingenious in finding little things to do for his good.</p> + +<p>Now-a-days Granny never picked a scrap for herself. One day's +shearings were all neatly arranged the next morning, and laid by her +knitting-pins; and the Tailor's tape and shears were no more absent +without leave.</p> + +<p>One day a message came to him to offer him two or three days' +tailoring in a farm-house some miles up the valley. This was pleasant +and advantageous sort of work; good food, sure pay, and a cheerful +change; but he did not know how he could leave his family, unless, +indeed, the Brownie might be relied upon to "keep the house together," +as they say. The boys were sure that he would, and they promised to +set his water, and to give as little trouble as possible; so, finally, +the Tailor took up his shears and went up the valley, where the green +banks sloped up into purple moor, or broke into sandy rocks, crowned +with nodding oak fern. On to the prosperous old farm, where he spent a +very pleasant time, sitting level with the window geraniums on a table +set apart for him, stitching and gossiping, gossiping and stitching, +and feeling secure of honest payment when his work was done. The +mistress of the house was a kind good creature, and loved a chat; and +though the Tailor kept his own secret as to the Brownies, he felt +rather curious to know if the Good People had any hand in the comfort +of this flourishing household, and watched his opportunity to make a +few careless inquiries on the subject.</p> + +<p>"Brownies?" laughed the dame. "Ay, Master, I have heard of them. When +I was a girl, in service at the old hall, on Cowberry Edge, I heard a +good deal of one they said had lived there in former times. He did<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> +house-work as well as a woman, and a good deal quicker, they said. One +night one of the young ladies (that were then, they're all dead now,) +hid herself in a cupboard, to see what he was like."</p> + +<p>"And what was he like?" inquired the Tailor, as composedly as he was +able.</p> + +<p>"A little fellow, they said;" answered the Farmer's wife, knitting +calmly on. "Like a dwarf, you know, with a largish head for his body. +Not taller than—why, my Bill, or your eldest boy, perhaps. And he was +dressed in rags, with an old cloak on, and stamping with passion at a +cobweb he couldn't get at with his broom. They've very uncertain +tempers, they say. Tears one minute, and laughing the next."</p> + +<p>"You never had one here, I suppose?" said the Tailor.</p> + +<p>"Not we," she answered; "and I think I'd rather not. They're not canny +after all; and my master and me have always been used to work, and +we've sons and daughters to help us, and that's better than meddling +with the Fairies, to my mind. No! no!" she added, laughing, "If we had +had one you'd have heard of it, whoever didn't, for I should have had +some decent clothes made for him. I couldn't stand rags and old +cloaks, messing and moth-catching in my house."</p> + +<p>"They say it's not lucky to give them clothes, though," said the +Tailor; "they don't like it."</p> + +<p>"Tell me!" said the dame, "as if any one that liked a tidy room, +wouldn't like tidy clothes, if they could get them. No! no! when we +have one, you shall take his measure, I promise you."</p> + +<p>And this was all the Tailor got out of her on the subject. When his +work was finished, the Farmer paid him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> at once; and the good dame +added half a cheese, and a bottle-green coat.</p> + +<p>"That has been laid by for being too small for the master now he's so +stout," she said; "but except for a stain or two it's good enough, and +will cut up like new for one of the lads."</p> + +<p>The Tailor thanked them, and said farewell, and went home. Down the +valley, where the river, wandering between the green banks and the +sandy rocks, was caught by giant mosses, and bands of fairy fern, and +there choked and struggled, and at last barely escaped with an +existence, and ran away in a diminished stream. On up the purple hills +to the old ruined house. As he came in at the gate he was struck by +some idea of change, and looking again, he saw that the garden had +been weeded, and was comparatively tidy. The truth is, that Tommy and +Johnnie had taken advantage of the Tailor's absence to do some +Brownie's work in the day-time.</p> + +<p>"It's that Blessed Brownie!" said the Tailor. "Has he been as usual?" +he asked, when he was in the house.</p> + +<p>"To be sure," said the old lady; "all has been well, Son Thomas."</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what it is," said the Tailor, after a pause. "I'm a +needy man, but I hope I'm not ungrateful. I can never repay the +Brownie for what he has done for me and mine; but the mistress up +yonder has given me a bottle-green coat that will cut up as good as +new; and as sure as there's a Brownie in this house, I'll make him a +suit of it."</p> + +<p>"You'll <i>what?</i>" shrieked the old lady. "Son Thomas, Son Thomas, +you're mad! Do what you please for the Brownies, but never make them +clothes."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span></p> + +<p>"There's nothing they want more," said the Tailor, "by all accounts. +They're all in rags, as well they may be, doing so much work."</p> + +<p>"If you make clothes for this Brownie, he'll go for good," said the +Grandmother, in a voice of awful warning.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't know," said her son. "The mistress up at the farm is +clever enough, I can tell you; and as she said to me, fancy any one +that likes a tidy room, not liking a tidy coat!" For the Tailor, like +most men, was apt to think well of the wisdom of woman-kind in other +houses.</p> + +<p>"Well, well," said the old lady, "go your own way. I'm an old woman, +and my time is not long. It doesn't matter much to me. But it was new +clothes that drove the Brownie out before, and Trout's luck went with +him."</p> + +<p>"I know, Mother," said the Tailor, "and I've been thinking of it all +the way home; and I can tell you why it was. Depend upon it, <i>the +clothes didn't fit</i>. But I'll tell you what I mean to do. I shall +measure them by Tommy—they say the Brownies are about his size—and +if ever I turned out a well-made coat and waistcoat, they shall be +his."</p> + +<p>"Please yourself," said the old lady, and she would say no more.</p> + +<p>"I think you're quite right, Father," said Tommy, "and if I can, I'll +help you to make them."</p> + +<p>Next day the father and son set to work, and Tommy contrived to make +himself so useful, that the Tailor hardly knew how he got through so +much work.</p> + +<p>"It's not like the same thing," he broke out at last, "to have some +one a bit helpful about you; both for the tailoring and for company's +sake. I've not done<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> such a pleasant morning's work since your poor +mother died. I'll tell you what it is, Tommy," he added, "if you were +always like this, I shouldn't much care whether Brownie stayed or +went. I'd give up his help to have yours."</p> + +<p>"I'll be back directly," said Tommy, who burst out of the room in +search of his brother.</p> + +<p>"I've come away," he said squatting down, "because I can't bear it. I +very nearly let it all out, and I shall soon. I wish the things +weren't going to come to me," he added, kicking a stone in front of +him. "I wish he'd measured you, Johnnie."</p> + +<p>"I'm very glad he didn't," said Johnnie. "I wish he'd kept them +himself."</p> + +<p>"Bottle-green, with brass buttons," murmured Tommy, and therewith fell +into a reverie.</p> + +<p>The next night the suit was finished, and laid by the bread and milk.</p> + +<p>"We shall see," said the old lady, in a withering tone. There is not +much real prophetic wisdom in this truism, but it sounds very awful, +and the Tailor went to bed somewhat depressed.</p> + +<p>Next morning the Brownies came down as usual.</p> + +<p>"Don't they look splendid?" said Tommy, feeling the cloth. "When we've +tidied the place I shall put them on."</p> + +<p>But long before the place was tidy, he could wait no longer, and +dressed up.</p> + +<p>"Look at me!" he shouted; "bottle-green and brass buttons! Oh, +Johnnie, I wish you had some."</p> + +<p>"It's a good thing there are two Brownies," said Johnnie, laughing, +"and one of them in rags still. I shall do the work this morning." And +he went flourishing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> round with a broom, while Tommy jumped madly +about in his new suit. "Hurrah!" he shouted, "I feel just like the +Brownie. What was it Grannie said he sang when he got his clothes? Oh, +I know—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'What have we here? Hemten hamten,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here will I never more tread nor stampen.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And on he danced, regardless of the clouds of dust raised by Johnnie, +as he drove the broom indiscriminately over the floor, to the tune of +his own laughter.</p> + +<p>It was laughter which roused the Tailor that morning, laughter coming +through the floor from the kitchen below. He scrambled on his things +and stole down-stairs.</p> + +<p>"It's the Brownie," he thought; "I must look, if it's for the last +time."</p> + +<p>At the door he paused and listened. The laughter was mixed with +singing, and he heard the words—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"What have we here? Hemten hamten,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here will I never more tread nor stampen."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He pushed in, and this was the sight that met his eyes:</p> + +<p>The kitchen in its primeval condition of chaos, the untidy particulars +of which were the less apparent, as everything was more or less +obscured by the clouds of dust, where Johnnie reigned triumphant, like +a witch with her broomstick; and, to crown all, Tommy capering and +singing in the Brownie's bottle-green suit, brass buttons and all.</p> + +<p>"What's this?" shouted the astonished Tailor, when he could find +breath to speak.</p> + +<p>"It's the Brownies," sang the boys; and on they danced, for they had +worked themselves up into a state<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> of excitement from which it was not +easy to settle down.</p> + +<p>"Where <i>is</i> Brownie?" shouted the father.</p> + +<p>"He's here," said Tommy; "we are the Brownies."</p> + +<p>"Can't you stop that fooling?" cried the Tailor, angrily. "This is +past a joke. Where is the real Brownie, I say?"</p> + +<p>"We are the only Brownies, really, father," said Tommy, coming to a +full stop, and feeling strongly tempted to run down from laughing to +crying. "Ask the Old Owl. It's true, really."</p> + +<p>The Tailor saw the boy was in earnest, and passed his hand over his +forehead.</p> + +<p>"I suppose I'm getting old," he said; "I can't see daylight through +this. If you are the Brownie, who has been tidying the kitchen +lately?"</p> + +<p>"We have," said they.</p> + +<p>"But who found my measure?"</p> + +<p>"I did," said Johnnie.</p> + +<p>"And who sorts your grandmother's scraps?"</p> + +<p>"We do," said they.</p> + +<p>"And who sets breakfast, and puts my things in order?"</p> + +<p>"We do," said they.</p> + +<p>"But when do you do it?" asked the Tailor.</p> + +<p>"Before you come down," said they.</p> + +<p>"But I always have to call you," said the Tailor.</p> + +<p>"We get back to bed again," said the boys.</p> + +<p>"But how was it you never did it before?" asked the Tailor doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"We were idle, we were idle," said Tommy.</p> + +<p>The Tailor's voice rose to a pitch of desperation—</p> + +<p>"But if you do the work," he shouted, "<i>Where is the Brownie?</i>"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Here!" cried the boys, "and we are very sorry we were Boggarts so +long."</p> + +<p>With which the father and sons fell into each other's arms and fairly +wept.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It will be believed that to explain all this to the Grandmother was +not the work of a moment. She understood it all at last, however, and +the Tailor could not restrain a little good-humored triumph on the +subject. Before he went to work he settled her down in the window with +her knitting, and kissed her.</p> + +<p>"What do you think of it all, Mother?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Bairns are a blessing," said the old lady tartly, "<i>I told you so.</i>"</p> + +<p> </p> + +<p>"That's not the end, is it?" asked one of the boys in a tone of +dismay, for the Doctor had paused here.</p> + +<p>"Yes it is," said he.</p> + +<p>"But couldn't you make a little more end?" asked Deordie, "to tell us +what became of them all?"</p> + +<p>"I don't see what there is to tell," said the Doctor.</p> + +<p>"Why, there's whether they ever saw the Old Owl again, and whether +Tommy and Johnnie went on being Brownies," said the children.</p> + +<p>The Doctor laughed.</p> + +<p>"Well, be quiet for five minutes," he said.</p> + +<p>"We'll be as quiet as mice," said the children.</p> + +<p>And as quiet as mice they were. Very like mice, indeed. Very like mice +behind a wainscot at night, when you have just thrown something to +frighten them away. Death-like stillness for a few seconds, and then +all the rustling and scuffling you please. So the children sat holding +their breath for a moment or two, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> then shuffling feet and +smothered bursts of laughter testified to their impatience, and to the +difficulty of understanding the process of story-making as displayed +by the Doctor, who sat pulling his beard, and staring at his boots, as +he made up "a little more end."</p> + +<p>"Well," he said, sitting up suddenly, "the Brownies went on with their +work in spite of the bottle-green suit, and Trout's luck returned to +the old house once more. Before long Tommy began to work for the +farmers, and Baby grew up into a Brownie, and made (as girls are apt +to make) the best house-sprite of all. For, in the Brownie habits of +self-denial, thoughtfulness, consideration, and the art of little +kindnesses, boys are, I am afraid, as a general rule, somewhat +behindhand with their sisters. Whether this altogether proceeds from +constitutional deficiency on these points in the masculine character, +or is one result among many of the code of by-laws which obtains in +men's moral education from the cradle, is a question on which +everybody has their own opinion. For the present the young gentlemen +may appropriate whichever theory they prefer, and we will go back to +the story. The Tailor lived to see his boy-Brownies become men, with +all the cares of a prosperous farm on their hands, and his +girl-Brownie carry her fairy talents into another home. For these +Brownies—young ladies!—are much desired as wives, whereas a man +might as well marry an old witch as a young Boggartess."</p> + +<p>"And about the Owl?" clamored the children, rather resentful of the +Doctor's pausing to take breath.</p> + +<p>"Of course," he continued, "the Tailor heard the whole story, and +being both anxious to thank the Old Owl for her friendly offices, and +also rather curious to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span> see and hear her, he went with the boys one +night at moon-rise to the shed by the mere. It was earlier in the +evening than when Tommy went, for before daylight had vanished—and at +the first appearance of the moon, the impatient Tailor was at the +place. There they found the Owl, looking very solemn and stately on +the beam. She was sitting among the shadows with her shoulders up, and +she fixed her eyes so steadily on the Tailor, that he felt quite +overpowered. He made her a civil bow, however, and said—</p> + +<p>"I'm much obliged to you, Ma'am, for your good advice to my Tommy."</p> + +<p>The Owl blinked sharply, as if she grudged shutting her eyes for an +instant, and then stared on, but not a word spoke she.</p> + +<p>"I don't mean to intrude, Ma'am," said the Tailor; "but I was wishful +to pay my respects and gratitude."</p> + +<p>Still the Owl gazed in determined silence.</p> + +<p>"Don't you remember me?" said Tommy pitifully. "I did everything you +told me. Won't you even say good-bye?" and he went up towards her.</p> + +<p>The Owl's eyes contracted, she shuddered a few tufts of fluff into the +shed, shook her wings, and shouting "Oohoo!" at the top of her voice, +flew out upon the moor. The Tailor and his sons rushed out to watch +her. They could see her clearly against the green twilight sky, +flapping rapidly away with her round face to the pale moon. +"Good-bye!" they shouted as she disappeared; first the departing owl, +then a shadowy body with flapping sails, then two wings beating the +same measured time, then two moving lines still to the old tune, then +a stroke, a fancy, and then—the green sky and the pale moon, but the +Old Owl was gone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Did she never come back?" asked Tiny in subdued tones, for the Doctor +had paused again.</p> + +<p>"No," said he; "at least not to the shed by the mere. Tommy saw many +owls after this in the course of his life; but as none of them would +speak, and as most of them were addicted to the unconventional customs +of staring and winking, he could not distinguish his friend, if she +were among them. And now I think that is all."</p> + +<p>"Is that the very very end?" asked Tiny.</p> + +<p>"The very very end," said the Doctor.</p> + +<p>"I suppose there might be more and more ends," speculated +Deordie—"about whether the Brownies had any children when they grew +into farmers, and whether the children were Brownies, and whether +<i>they</i> had other Brownies, and so on and on." And Deordie rocked +himself among the geraniums, in the luxurious imagining of an endless +fairy tale.</p> + +<p>"You insatiable rascal!" said the Doctor. "Not another word. Jump up, +for I'm going to see you home. I have to be off early to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"Where?" said Deordie.</p> + +<p>"Never mind. I shall be away all day, and I want to be at home in good +time in the evening, for I mean to attack that crop of groundsel +between the sweet-pea hedges. You know, no Brownies come to my +homestead!"</p> + +<p>And the Doctor's mouth twitched a little till he fixed it into a stiff +smile.</p> + +<p>The children tried hard to extract some more ends out of him on the +way to the Rectory; but he declined to pursue the history of the Trout +family through indefinite generations. It was decided on all hands, +however,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> that Tommy Trout was evidently one and the same with the +Tommy Trout who pulled the cat out of the well, because "it was just a +sort of thing for a Brownie to do, you know!" and that Johnnie Green +(who, of course, was not Johnnie Trout,) was some unworthy village +acquaintance, and "a thorough Boggart."</p> + +<p>"Doctor!" said Tiny, as they stood by the garden-gate, "how long do +you think gentlemen's pocket handkerchiefs take to wear out?"</p> + +<p>"That, my dear Madam," said the Doctor, "must depend, like other +terrestrial matters, upon circumstances; whether the gentleman bought +fine cambric, or coarse cotton with pink portraits of the reigning +Sovereign, to commence with; whether he catches many colds, has his +pocket picked, takes snuff, or allows his washerwoman to use washing +powders. But why do you want to know?"</p> + +<p>"I shan't tell you that," said Tiny, who was spoilt by the Doctor, and +consequently tyrannized in proportion; "but I will tell you what I +mean to do. I mean to tell Mother that when Father wants any more +pocket handkerchiefs hemmed, she had better put them by the bath in +the nursery, and perhaps some Brownie will come and do them."</p> + +<p>"Kiss my fluffy face!" said the Doctor in sepulchral tones.</p> + +<p>"The owl is too high up," said Tiny, tossing her head.</p> + +<p>The Doctor lifted her four feet or so, obtained his kiss, and set her +down again.</p> + +<p>"You're not fluffy at all," said she in a tone of the utmost contempt; +"you're tickly and bristly. Puss is more fluffy, and Father is scrubby +and scratchy, because he shaves."<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And which of the three styles do you prefer?" said the Doctor.</p> + +<p>"Not tickly and bristly," said Tiny with firmness; and she strutted up +the walk for a pace or two, and then turned round to laugh over her +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Good-night!" shouted her victim, shaking his fist after her.</p> + +<p>The other children took a noisy farewell, and they all raced into the +house, to give joint versions of the fairy tale, first to the parents +in the drawing-room, and then to nurse in the nursery.</p> + +<p>The Doctor went home also, with his poodle at his heels, but not by +the way he came. He went out of his way, which was odd; but then the +Doctor was "a little odd," and moreover this was always the end of his +evening walk. Through the churchyard, where spreading cedars and stiff +yews rose from the velvet grass, and where among tombstones and +crosses of various devices lay one of older and uglier date, by which +he stayed. It was framed by a border of the most brilliant flowers, +and it would seem as if the Doctor must have been the gardener, for he +picked off some dead ones, and put them absently in his pocket. Then +he looked round, as if to see that he was alone. Not a soul was to be +seen, and the moonlight and shadow lay quietly side by side, as the +dead do in their graves. The Doctor stooped down and took off his hat.</p> + +<p>"Good-night, Marcia," he said, in a low quiet voice. "Good-night, my +darling!" The dog licked his hand, but there was no voice to answer, +nor any that regarded.</p> + +<p>Poor foolish Doctor! Most foolish to speak to the departed with his +face earthwards. But we are weak mortals, the best of us; and this man +(one of the very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> best) raised his head at last, and went home like a +lonely owl with his face to the moon and the sky.</p> + + +<h3>A BORROWED BROWNIE.</h3> +<p>"I can't imagine," said the Rector, walking into the drawing-room the +following afternoon, "I can't imagine where Tiny is. I want her to +drive to the other end of the parish with me."</p> + +<p>"There she comes," said his wife, looking out of the window, "by the +garden-gate, with a great basket; what has she been after?"</p> + +<p>The Rector went out to discover, and met his daughter looking +decidedly earthy, and seemingly much exhausted by the weight of a +basketful of groundsel plants.</p> + +<p>"Where have you been?" said he.</p> + +<p>"In the Doctor's garden," said Tiny triumphantly, "and look what I +have done! I've weeded his sweet-peas, and brought away the groundsel; +so when he gets home to-night he'll think a Brownie has been in the +garden, for Mrs. Pickles has promised not to tell him."</p> + +<p>"But look here!" said the Rector, affecting a great appearance of +severity, "you're my Brownie, not his. Supposing Tommy Trout had gone +and weeded Farmer Swede's garden, and brought back his weeds to go to +seed on the Tailor's flower-beds, how do you think he would have liked +it?"</p> + +<p>Tiny looked rather crestfallen. When one has fairly carried through a +splendid benevolence of this kind, it is trying to find oneself in the +wrong. She crept up to the Rector, however, and put her golden head +upon his arm.</p> + +<p>"But, Father dear," she pleaded, "I didn't mean not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> to be your +Brownie; only, you know, you had got five left at home, and it was +only for a short time, and the Doctor hasn't any Brownie at all. Don't +you pity him?"</p> + +<p>And the Rector, who was old enough to remember that grave-stone story +we wot of, hugged his Brownie in his arms, and answered—</p> + +<p>"My Darling, I do pity him!"</p> + + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>Handy Illustrated Volumes by popular authors, including <span class="smcap">Louisa M. + Alcott</span>, <span class="smcap">Susan Coolidge</span>, <i>Nora Perry</i>, <span class="smcap">Helen Hunt Jackson</span>,<br /> + <span class="smcap">Louise Chandler Moulton</span>, <span class="smcap">Juliana H. Ewing</span>, <span class="smcap">Laura E. Richards</span>, <span class="smcap">A. G. 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Plympton</span>, author of "Dear +Daughter Dorothy," etc.</li> +<li><b>Man Without a Country.</b> By <span class="smcap">Edward Everett Hale</span>.</li> +<li><b>Marjorie's Three Gifts.</b> By <span class="smcap">Louisa M. Alcott</span>.</li> +<li><b>May Flowers.</b> <span class="smcap">Louisa M. Alcott</span>.</li> +<li><b>Miss Toosey's Mission.</b></li> +<li><b>Nonsense Songs.</b> <span class="smcap">Edward Lear</span>.</li> +<li><b>Rags and Velvet Gowns.</b> By <span class="smcap">A. G. Plympton</span>.</li> +<li><b>Story of a Short Life.</b> By <span class="smcap">Juliana H. Ewing</span>.</li> +<li><b>Sundown Songs.</b> By <span class="smcap">Laura E. 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Alcott Library for Little People.</b> 7 vols. $3.50.</li> +<li><b>The Susan Coolidge Library for Little People.</b> 6 vols. $3.00.</li> +<li><b>The Juliana H. Ewing Library for Little People.</b> 7 vols. $3.50.</li> +<li><b>The Louise Chandler Moulton Library for Little People.</b> 4 vols. $2.00.</li> +<li><b>The Nora Perry Library for Little People.</b> 4 vols. $2.00.</li> +<li><b>The Laura E. Richards Library for Little People.</b> 3 vols. $1.50.</li> +<li><b>The A. G. Plympton Library for Little People.</b> 4 vols. $2.00.</li> +<li><b>Mary Caroline Hyde's Christmas Library. 3 vols. $1.50.</b></li></ul> + + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> +<h3>LITTLE, BROWN, & CO.</h3> + +<h4>Publishers, 254 Washington Street, Boston</h4> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Land of Lost Toys, by Juliana Horatia Ewing + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAND OF LOST TOYS *** + +***** This file should be named 33880-h.htm or 33880-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/8/8/33880/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Chris Curnow, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Land of Lost Toys + +Author: Juliana Horatia Ewing + +Release Date: October 24, 2010 [EBook #33880] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAND OF LOST TOYS *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Chris Curnow, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + [Illustration: "Aunt Penelope's stories were + charming."--_Frontispiece._] + + + + THE + + LAND OF LOST TOYS + + + + BY + + JULIANA HORATIA EWING + + AUTHOR OF "JACKANAPES," "DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT," + "THE STORY OF A SHORT LIFE," "MARY'S MEADOW," ETC + + + + Illustrated + + + + + + BOSTON + + LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY + + + + + _Copyright, 1900_, + + BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY + + * * * * * + + + + +THE LAND OF LOST TOYS + + +AN EARTHQUAKE IN THE NURSERY. + +It was certainly an aggravated offence. It is generally understood in +families that "boys will be boys," but there is a limit to the +forbearance implied in the extenuating axiom. Master Sam was condemned +to the back nursery for the rest of the day. + +He always had had the knack of breaking his own toys,--he not +unfrequently broke other people's; but accidents will happen, and his +twin sister and factotum, Dot, was long-suffering. + +Dot was fat, resolute, hasty, and devotedly unselfish. When Sam +scalped her new doll, and fastened the glossy black curls to a wigwam +improvised with the curtains of the four-post bed in the best bedroom, +Dot was sorely tried. As her eyes passed from the crownless doll on +the floor to the floss-silk ringlets hanging from the bed-furniture, +her round rosy face grew rounder and rosier, and tears burst from her +eyes. But in a moment more she clenched her little fists, forced back +the tears, and gave vent to her favorite saying, "I don't care." + +That sentence was Dot's bane and antidote; it was her vice and her +virtue. It was her standing consolation, and it brought her into all +her scrapes. It was her one panacea for all the ups and downs of her +life (and in the nursery where Sam developed his organ of +destructiveness there were ups and downs not a few); and it was the +form her naughtiness took when she was naughty. + +"Don't care fell into a goose-pond, Miss Dot," said nurse, on one +occasion of the kind. + +"I don't care if he did," said Miss Dot; and as nurse knew no further +feature of the goose-pond adventure which met this view of it, she +closed the subject by putting Dot into the corner. + +In the strength of _Don't care_, and her love for Sam, Dot bore much +and long. Her dolls perished by ingenious but untimely deaths. Her +toys were put to purposes for which they were never intended, and +suffered accordingly. But Sam was penitent, and Dot was heroic. +Fiorinda's scalp was mended with a hot knitting-needle and a perpetual +bonnet, and Dot rescued her paint-brushes from the glue-pot, and smelt +her india-rubber as it boiled down in Sam's waterproof manufactory, +with long-suffering forbearance. + +There are, however, as we have said, limits to everything. An +earthquake celebrated with the whole contents of the toy cupboard is +not to be borne. + +The matter was this. Early one morning Sam announced that he had a +glorious project on hand. He was going to give a grand show and +entertainment, far surpassing all the nursery imitations of circuses, +conjurors, lectures on chemistry, and so forth, with which they had +ever amused themselves. He refused to confide his plans to the +faithful Dot; but he begged her to lend him all the toys she +possessed, in return for which she was to be the sole spectator of the +fun. He let out that the idea had suggested itself to him after the +sight of a Diorama to which they had been taken, but he would not +allow that it was anything of the same kind; in proof of which she was +at liberty to keep back her paint-box. Dot tried hard to penetrate the +secret, and to reserve some of her things from the general +conscription. But Sam was obstinate. He would tell nothing, and he +wanted everything. The dolls, the bricks (especially the bricks), the +tea-things, the German farm, the Swiss cottages, the animals, and all +the dolls' furniture. Dot gave them with a doubtful mind, and consoled +herself as she watched Sam carrying pieces of board and a green table +cover into the back nursery, with the prospect of a show. At last, Sam +threw open the door and ushered her into the nursery rocking-chair. + +The boy had certainly some constructive as well as destructive talent. +Upon a sort of impromptu table covered with green cloth he had +arranged all the toys in rough imitation of a town, with its streets +and buildings. The relative proportion of the parts was certainly not +good; but it was not Sam's fault that the doll's house and the German +farm, his own brick buildings, and the Swiss cottages, were all on +totally different scales of size. He had ingeniously put the larger +things in the foreground, keeping the small farm-buildings from the +German box at the far end of the streets, yet after all the +perspective was extreme. The effect of three large horses from the toy +stables in front, with the cows from the small Noah's Ark in the +distance, was admirable; but the big dolls seated in an unroofed +building, made with the wooden bricks on no architectural principle +but that of a pound, and taking tea out of the new china tea things, +looked simply ridiculous. + +Dot's eyes, however, saw no defects, and she clapped vehemently. + +"Here, ladies and gentlemen," said Sam, waving his hand politely +towards the rocking-chair, "you see the great city of Lisbon, the +capital of Portugal----" + +At this display of geographical accuracy Dot fairly cheered, and +rocked herself to and fro in unmitigated enjoyment. + +"--as it appeared," continued the showman, "on the morning of November +1st, 1755." + +Never having had occasion to apply Mangnall's Questions to the +exigencies of every-day life, this date in no way disturbed Dot's +comfort. + +"In this house," Sam proceeded, "a party of Portuguese ladies of rank +may be seen taking tea together." + +"_Breakfast_, you mean," said Dot; "you said it was in the morning, +you know." + +[Illustration: "'Suddenly the ground split and opened with a fearful +yawn.'"--_Page_ 5.] + +"Well, they took tea to their breakfast," said Sam. "Don't interrupt +me, Dot. You are the audience, and you mustn't speak. Here you see the +horses of the English ambassador out airing with his groom. There you +see two peasants--no! they are _not_ Noah and his wife, Dot, and if +you go on talking I shall shut up. I say they are peasants peacefully +driving cattle. At this moment a rumbling sound startles every one in +the city"--here Sam rolled some croquet balls up and down in a box, +but the dolls sat as quiet as before, and Dot alone was +startled,--"this was succeeded by a slight shock"--here he shook the +table, which upset some of the buildings belonging to the German +farm.--"Some houses fell."--Dot began to look anxious.--"This shock +was followed by several others.--" "Take care," she begged--"of +increasing magnitude--" "Oh, Sam!" Dot shrieked, jumping up, "you're +breaking the china!--" "The largest buildings shook to their +foundations,--" "Sam! Sam! the doll's house is falling," Dot cried, +making wild efforts to save it: but Sam held her back with one arm, +whilst with the other he began to pull at the boards which formed his +table--"Suddenly the ground split and opened with a fearful +yawn"--Dot's shrieks shamed the impassive dolls, as Sam jerked out the +boards by a dexterous movement, and doll's house, brick buildings, the +farm, the Swiss cottages, and the whole toy-stock of the nursery, sank +together in ruins. Quite unabashed by the evident damage, Sam +continued--"and in a moment the whole magnificent city of Lisbon was +swallowed up. Dot! Dot! don't be a muff! What's the matter? It's +splendid fun. Things must be broken sometime, and I'm sure it was +exactly like the real thing. Dot! why don't you speak? Dot! my dear +Dot! You don't care, do you? I didn't think you'd mind it so. It was +such a splendid earthquake. Oh! try not to go on like that!" + +But Dot's feelings were far beyond her own control, much more that of +Master Sam, at this moment. She was gasping and choking, and when at +last she found breath it was only to throw herself on her face upon +the floor with bitter and uncontrollable sobbing. + +It was certainly a mild punishment that condemned Master Sam to the +back nursery for the rest of the day. It had, however, this additional +severity, that during the afternoon Aunt Penelope was expected to +arrive. + + +AUNT PENELOPE. + +Aunt Penelope was one of those dear, good souls, who, single +themselves, have, as real or adopted relatives, the interests of a +dozen families, instead of one, at heart. There are few people whose +youth has not owned the influence of at least one such friend. It may +be a good habit, the first interest in some life-loved pursuit or +favorite author, some pretty feminine art, or delicate womanly counsel +enforced by those narratives of real life that are more interesting +than any fiction: it may be only the periodical return of gifts and +kindness, and the store of family histories that no one else can tell; +but we all owe something to such an aunt or uncle--the fairy +godmothers of real life. + +The benefits which Sam and Dot reaped from Aunt Penelope's visits, may +be summed up under the heads of presents and stories, with a general +leaning to indulgence in the matters of punishment, lessons, and going +to bed, which perhaps is natural to aunts and uncles who have no +positive responsibilities in the young people's education, and are not +the daily sufferers by the lack of due discipline. + +Aunt Penelope's presents were lovely. Aunt Penelope's stories were +charming. There was generally a moral wrapped up in them, like the +motto in a cracker-bonbon; but it was quite in the inside, so to +speak, and there was abundance of smart paper and sugar-plums. + +All things considered, it was certainly most proper that the +much-injured Dot should be dressed out in her best, and have access to +dessert, the dining-room, and Aunt Penelope, whilst Sam was kept +upstairs. And yet it was Dot who (her first burst of grief being +over), fought stoutly for his pardon all the time she was being +dressed, and was afterwards detected in the act of endeavoring to push +fragments of raspberry tart through the nursery key-hole. + +"You GOOD thing!" Sam emphatically exclaimed, as he heard her in +fierce conflict on the other side of the door with the nurse who +found her--"You GOOD thing! leave me alone, for I deserve it." + +He really was very penitent. He was too fond of Dot not to regret the +unexpected degree of distress he had caused her; and Dot made much of +his penitence in her intercessions in the drawing-room. + +"Sam is so very sorry," she said, "he says he knows he deserves it. I +think he ought to come down. He is so _very_ sorry!" + +Aunt Penelope, as usual, took the lenient side, joining her entreaties +to Dot's, and it ended in Master Sam's being hurriedly scrubbed and +brushed, and shoved into his black velvet suit, and sent down-stairs, +rather red about the eyelids, and looking very sheepish. + +"Oh, Dot!" he exclaimed, as soon as he could get her into a corner, "I +am so very, very sorry! particularly about the tea-things." + +"Never mind," said Dot, "I don't care; and I've asked for a story, and +we're going into the library." As Dot said this, she jerked her head +expressively in the direction of the sofa, where Aunt Penelope was +just casting on stitches preparatory to beginning a pair of her famous +ribbed socks for Papa, whilst she gave to Mamma's conversation that +sympathy, which (like her knitting-needles) was always at the service +of her large circle of friends. Dot anxiously watched the bow on the +top of her cap as it danced and nodded with the force of Mamma's +observations. At last it gave a little chorus of jerks, as one should +say, "Certainly, undoubtedly." And then the story came to an end, and +Dot, who had been slowly creeping nearer, fairly took Aunt Penelope by +the hand, and carried her off, knitting and all, to the library. + +"Now, please," said Dot, when she had struggled into a chair that was +too tall for her. + +"Stop a minute!" cried Sam, who was perched in the opposite one, "the +horsehair tickles my legs." + +"Put your pocket-handkerchief under them, as I do," said Dot. "_Now_, +Aunt Penelope." + +"No, wait," groaned Sam; "it isn't big enough; it only covers one +leg." + +Dot slid down again, and ran to Sam. + +"Take my handkerchief for the other." + +"But what will you do?" said Sam. + +"Oh, I don't care," said Dot, scrambling back into her place. "Now, +Aunty, please." + +And Aunt Penelope began. + + +THE LAND OF LOST TOYS. + +"I suppose people who have children transfer their childish follies +and fancies to them, and become properly sedate and grown-up. Perhaps +it is because I am an old maid, and have none, that some of my nursery +whims stick to me, and I find myself liking things, and wanting +things, quite out of keeping with my cap and time of life. For +instance. Anything in the shape of a toy-shop (from a London bazaar to +a village window, with Dutch dolls, leather balls, and wooden +battledores) quite unnerves me, so to speak. When I see one of those +boxes containing a jar, a churn, a kettle, a pan, a coffee-pot, a +cauldron on three legs, and sundry dishes, all of the smoothest wood, +and with the immemorial red flower on one side of each vessel, I +fairly long for an excuse for playing with them, and for trying +(positively for the last time) if the lids _do_ come off, and whether +the kettle will (literally, as well as metaphorically) hold water. +Then if, by good or ill luck, there is a child flattening its little +nose against the window with longing eyes, my purse is soon empty; and +as it toddles off with a square parcel under one arm, and a lovely +being in black ringlets and white tissue paper in the other, I wish +that I were worthy of being asked to join the ensuing play. Don't +suppose there is any generosity in this. I have only done what we are +all glad to do. I have found an excuse for indulging a pet weakness. +As I said, it is not merely the new and expensive toys that attract +me; I think my weakest corner is where the penny boxes lie, the wooden +tea-things (with the above-named flower in miniature), the soldiers on +their lazy tongs, the nine-pins, and the tiny farm. + +"I need hardly say that the toy booth in a village fair tries me very +hard. It tried me in childhood, when I was often short of pence, and +when 'the Feast' came once a year. It never tried me more than on one +occasion, lately, when I was revisiting my old home. + +"It was deep Midsummer, and the Feast. I had children with me of +course (I find children, somehow, wherever I go), and when we got into +the fair, there were children of people whom I had known as children, +with just the same love for a monkey going up one side of a yellow +stick and coming down the other, and just as strong heads for a +giddy-go-round on a hot day and a diet of peppermint lozenges, as +their fathers and mothers before them. There were the very same +names--and here and there it seemed the very same faces--I knew so +long ago. A few shillings were indeed well expended in brightening +those familiar eyes: and then there were the children with me.... +Besides, there really did seem to be an unusually nice assortment of +things, and the man was very intelligent (in reference to his +wares:).... Well, well! It was two o'clock P. M. when we went in at +one end of that glittering avenue of drums, dolls, trumpets, +accordions, work-boxes and what not; but what o'clock it was when I +came out at the other end, with a shilling and some coppers in my +pocket, and was cheered, I can't say, though I should like to have +been able to be accurate about the time, because of what followed. + +"I thought the best thing I could do was to get out of the fair at +once, so I went up the village and struck off across some fields into +a little wood that lay near. (A favorite walk in old times.) As I +turned out of the booth, my foot struck against one of the yellow +sticks of the climbing monkeys. The monkey was gone, and the stick +broken. It set me thinking as I walked along. + +"What an untold number of pretty and ingenious things one does (not +wear out in honorable wear and tear, but) utterly lose, and wilfully +destroy, in one's young days--things that would have given pleasure to +so many more young eyes, if they had been kept a little longer--things +that one would so value in later years, if some of them had survived +the dissipating and destructive days of Nurserydom. I recalled a young +lady I knew, whose room was adorned with knick-knacks of a kind I had +often envied. They were not plaster figures, old china, wax-work +flowers under glass, or ordinary ornaments of any kind. They were her +old toys. Perhaps she had not had many of them, and had been the more +careful of those she had. She had certainly been very fond of them, +and had kept more of them than any one I ever knew. A faded doll slept +in its cradle at the foot of her bed. A wooden elephant stood on the +dressing-table, and a poodle that had lost his bark put out a +red-flannel tongue with quixotic violence at a windmill on the +opposite corner of the mantelpiece. Everything had a story of its own. +Indeed the whole room must have been redolent with the sweet story of +childhood, of which the toys were the illustrations, or like a poem of +which the toys were the verses. She used to have children to play with +them sometimes, and this was a high honor. She is married now, and has +children of her own, who on birthdays and holidays will forsake the +newest of their own possessions to play with 'mamma's toys.' + +"I was roused from these recollections by the pleasure of getting into +the wood. + +"If I have a stronger predilection than my love for toys, it is my +love for woods, and, like the other, it dates from childhood. It was +born and bred with me, and I fancy will stay with me till I die. The +soothing scents of leaf mould, moss, and fern (not to speak of +flowers)--the pale green veil in spring, the rich shade in summer, the +rustle of the dry leaves in autumn, I suppose an old woman may enjoy +all these, my dears, as well as you. But I think I could make 'fairy +jam' of hips and haws in acorn cups now, if any child would be +condescending enough to play with me. + +"_This_ wood, too, had associations. + +"I strolled on in leisurely enjoyment, and at last seated myself at +the foot of a tree to rest. I was hot and tired; partly with the +mid-day heat and the atmosphere of the fair, partly with the exertion +of calculating change in the purchase of articles ranging in price +from three farthings upwards. The tree under which I sat was an old +friend. There was a hole at its base that I knew well. Two roots +covered with exquisite moss ran out from each side, like the arms of +a chair, and between them there accumulated year after year a rich, +though tiny store of dark leaf-mould. We always used to say that +fairies lived within, though I never saw anything go in myself but +wood beetles. There was one going in at that moment. + +"How little the wood was changed! I bent my head for a few seconds, +and, closing my eyes, drank in the delicious and suggestive scents of +earth and moss about the dear old tree. I had been so long parted from +the place that I could hardly believe that I was in the old familiar +spot. Surely it was only one of the many dreams in which I had played +again beneath those trees! But when I reopened my eyes there was the +same hole, and, oddly enough, the same beetle or one just like it. I +had not noticed till that moment how much larger the hole was than it +used to be in my young days. + +"'I suppose the rain and so forth wears them away in time,' I said +vaguely. + +"'Suppose it does,' said the beetle politely; 'will you walk in?' + +"I don't know why I was not so overpoweringly astonished as you would +imagine. I think I was a good deal absorbed in considering the size of +the hole, and the very foolish wish that seized me to do what I had +often longed to do in childhood, and creep in. I _had_ so much regard +for propriety as to see that there was no one to witness the escapade. +Then I tucked my skirts round me, put my spectacles into my pocket for +fear they should get broken, and in I went. + +"I must say one thing. A wood is charming enough (no one appreciates +it more than myself), but, if you have never been there, you have no +idea how much nicer it is inside than on the surface. Oh, the +mosses--the gorgeous mosses! The fretted lichens! The fungi like +flowers for beauty, and the flowers like nothing you have ever seen! + +"Where the beetle went to I don't know. I could stand up now quite +well, and I wandered on till dusk in unwearied admiration. I was among +some large beeches as it grew dark, and was beginning to wonder how I +should find my way (not that I had lost it, having none to lose), when +suddenly lights burst from every tree, and the whole place was +illuminated. The nearest approach to this scene that I ever witnessed +above ground was in a wood near the Hague in Holland. There, what look +like tiny glass tumblers holding floating wicks, are fastened to the +trunks of the fine old trees, at intervals of sufficient distance to +make the light and shade mysterious, and to give effect to the full +blaze when you reach the spot where hanging chains of lamps illuminate +the 'Pavilion' and the open space where the band plays, and where the +townsfolk assemble by hundreds to drink coffee and enjoy the music. I +was the more reminded of the Dutch 'bosch' because, after wandering +some time among the lighted trees, I heard distant sounds of music, +and came at last upon a glade lit up in a similar manner, except that +the whole effect was incomparably more brilliant. + +"As I stood for a moment doubting whether I should proceed, and a good +deal puzzled about the whole affair, I caught sight of a large spider +crouched up in a corner with his stomach on the ground and his knees +above his head, as some spiders do sit, and looking at me, as I +fancied, through a pair of spectacles. (About the spectacles I do not +feel sure. It may have been two of his bent legs in apparent +connection with his prominent eyes.) I thought of the beetle, and said +civilly, 'Can you tell me, sir, if this is Fairyland?' The spider took +off his spectacles (or untucked his legs), and took a sideways run out +of his corner. + +"'Well,' he said, 'it's a Province. The fact is, it's the Land of Lost +Toys. You haven't such a thing as a fly anywhere about you, have you?' + +"'No,' I said, 'I'm sorry to say I have not.' This was not strictly +true, for I was not at all sorry; but I wished to be civil to the old +gentleman, for he projected his eyes at me with such an intense (I had +almost said greedy) gaze, that I felt quite frightened. + +"'How did you pass the sentries?' he inquired. + +"'I never saw any,' I answered. + +"'You couldn't have seen anything if you didn't see them,' he said; +'but perhaps you don't know. They're the glow-worms. Six to each tree, +so they light the road, and challenge the passers-by. Why didn't they +challenge you?' + +"'I don't know,' I began, 'unless the beetle----' + +"'I don't like beetles,' interrupted the spider, stretching each leg +in turn by sticking it up above him, 'all shell, and no flavor. You +never tried walking on anything of that sort, did you?' and he pointed +with one leg to a long thread that fastened a web above his head. + +"'Certainly not,' said I. + +"'I'm afraid it wouldn't bear you,' he observed slowly. + +"'I'm quite sure it wouldn't,' I hastened to reply. 'I wouldn't try +for worlds. It would spoil your pretty work in a moment. +Good-evening.' + +"And I hurried forward. Once I looked back, but the spider was not +following me. He was in his hole again, on his stomach, with his knees +above his head, and looking (apparently through his spectacles) down +the road up which I came. + +"I soon forgot him in the sight before me. I had reached the open +place with the lights and the music; but how shall I describe the +spectacle that I beheld? + +"I have spoken of the effect of a toy-shop on my feelings. Now imagine +a toy-fair, brighter and gayer than the brightest bazaar ever seen, +held in an open glade, where forest-trees stood majestically behind +the glittering stalls, and stretched their gigantic arms above our +heads, brilliant with a thousand hanging lamps. At the moment of my +entrance all was silent and quiet. The toys lay in their places +looking so incredibly attractive that I reflected with disgust that +all my ready cash, except one shilling and some coppers, had melted +away amid the tawdry fascinations of a village booth. I was counting +the coppers (sevenpence halfpenny), when all in a moment a dozen +sixpenny fiddles leaped from their places and began to play, +accordions of all sizes joined them, the drumsticks beat upon the +drums, the penny trumpets sounded, and the yellow flutes took up the +melody on high notes, and bore it away through the trees. It was weird +fairy-music, but quite delightful. The nearest approach to it that I +know of above ground is to hear a wild dreamy air very well whistled +to a pianoforte accompaniment. + +"When the music began, all the toys rose. The dolls jumped down and +began to dance. The poodles barked, the pannier donkeys wagged their +ears, the windmills turned, the puzzles put themselves together, the +bricks built houses, the balls flew from side to side, the +battle-doors and shuttlecocks kept it up among themselves, and the +skipping-ropes went round, the hoops ran off, and the sticks went +after them, the cobbler's wax at the tails of all the green frogs gave +way, and they jumped at the same moment, whilst an old-fashioned +go-cart ran madly about with nobody inside. It was most exhilarating. + +"I soon became aware that the beetle was once more at my elbow. + +"'There are some beautiful toys here,' I said. + +"'Well, yes,' he replied, 'and some odd-looking ones, too. You see, +whatever has been really used by any child as a plaything gets a right +to come down here in the end; and there is some very queer company, I +assure you. Look there.' + +"I looked, and said, 'It seems to be a potato.' + +"'So it is,' said the beetle. 'It belonged to an Irish child in one of +your great cities. But to whom the child belonged I don't know, and I +don't think he knew himself. He lived in a corner of a dirty, +over-crowded room, and into this corner, one day, the potato rolled. +It was the only plaything he ever had. He stuck two cinders into it +for eyes, scraped a nose and mouth, and loved it. He sat upon it +during the day, for fear it should be taken from him, but in the dark +he took it out and played with it. He was often hungry, but he never +ate that potato. When he died it rolled out of the corner, and was +swept into the ashes. Then it came down here.' + +"'What a sad story!' I exclaimed. + +"The beetle seemed in no way affected. + +"'It is a curious thing,' he rambled on, 'that potato takes quite a +good place among the toys. You see, rank and precedence down here is +entirely a question of age; that is, of the length of time that any +plaything has been in the possession of a child; and all kinds of ugly +old things hold the first rank; whereas the most costly and beautiful +works of art have often been smashed or lost, by the spoilt children +of rich people, in two or three days. If you care for sad stories, +there is another queer thing belonging to a child who died.' + +"It appeared to be a large sheet of canvas with some strange kind of +needlework upon it. + +"'It belonged to a little girl in a rich household,' the beetle +continued; 'she was an invalid, and difficult to amuse. We have lots +of her toys, and very pretty ones too. At last some one taught her to +make caterpillars in wool-work. A bit of work was to be done in a +certain stitch and then cut with scissors, which made it look like a +hairy caterpillar. The child took to this, and cared for nothing else. +Wool of every shade was procured for her, and she made caterpillars of +all colors. Her only complaint was that they did not turn into +butterflies. However, she was a sweet, gentle-tempered child, and she +went on, hoping that they would do so, and making new ones. One day +she was heard talking and laughing in her bed for joy. She said that +all the caterpillars had become butterflies of many colors, and that +the room was full of them. In that happy fancy she died.' + +"'And the caterpillars came down here?' + +"'Not for a long time,' said the beetle; 'her mother kept them while +_she_ lived, and then they were lost and came down. No toys come down +here till they are broken or lost.' + +"'What are those sticks doing here?' I asked. + +"The music had ceased, and all the toys were lying quiet. Up in a +corner leaned a large bundle of walking-sticks. They are often sold in +toy-shops, but I wondered on what grounds they came here. + +"'Did you ever meet with a too benevolent old gentleman wondering +where on earth his sticks go to?' said the beetle. 'Why do they lend +them to their grandchildren? The young rogues use them as hobby-horses +and lose them, and down they come, and the sentinels cannot stop them. +The real hobby-horses won't allow them to ride with them, however. +There was a meeting on the subject. Every stick was put through an +examination. 'Where is your nose? Where is your mane? Where are your +wheels?' The last was a poser. Some of them had got noses, but none of +them had got wheels. So they were not true hobby-horses. Something of +the kind occurred with the elder whistles.' + +"'The what?' I asked. + +"'Whistles that boys make of elder sticks with the pith scooped out,' +said the beetle. 'The real instruments would not allow them to play +with them. The elder-whistles said they would not have joined had they +been asked. They were amateurs, and never played with professionals. +So they have private concerts with the combs and curl-papers. But, +bless you, toys of this kind are endless here! Teetotums made of old +cotton reels, tea-sets of acorn cups, dinner-sets of old shells, +monkeys made of bits of sponge, all sorts of things made of +breastbones and merrythoughts, old packs of cards that are always +building themselves into houses and getting knocked down when the band +begins to play, feathers, rabbits' tails---- + +"'Ah! I have heard about rabbits' tails,' I said. + +"'There they are,' the beetle continued; 'and when the band plays you +will see how they skip and run. I don't believe you would find out +that they had no bodies, for my experience of a warren is, that when +rabbits skip and run it is the tails chiefly that you do see. But of +all the amateur toys the most successful are the boats. We have a lake +for our craft, you know, and there's quite a fleet of boats made out +of old cork floats in fishing villages. Then, you see, the old bits of +cork have really been to sea, and seen a good deal of service on the +herring nets, and so they quite take the lead of the smart shop ships, +that have never been beyond a pond or a tub of water. But that's an +exception. Amateur toys are mostly very dowdy. Look at that box.' + +"I looked, thought I must have seen it before, and wondered why a very +common-looking box without a lid should affect me so strangely, and +why my memory should seem struggling to bring it back out of the past. +Suddenly it came to me--it was our old Toy Box. + +"I had completely forgotten that nursery institution till recalled by +the familiar aspect of the inside, which was papered with proof-sheets +of some old novel on which black stars had been stamped by way of +ornament. Dim memories of how these stars, and the angles of the box, +and certain projecting nails interfered with the letter-press and +defeated all attempts to trace the thread of the nameless narrative, +stole back over my brain; and I seemed once more, with my head in the +Toy Box, to beguile a wet afternoon by apoplectic endeavors to follow +the fortunes of Sir Charles and Lady Belinda, as they took a favorable +turn in the left-hand corner at the bottom of the trunk. + +"'What are you staring at?' said the beetle. + +"'It's my old Toy Box!' I exclaimed. + +"The beetle rolled on to his back, and struggled helplessly with his +legs: I turned him over. (Neither the first nor the last time of my +showing that attention to beetles.) + +"'That's right,' he said, 'set me on my legs. What a turn you gave me! +You don't mean to say you have any toys here? If you have, the sooner +you make your way home the better.' + +"'Why?' I inquired. + +"'Well,' he said, 'there's a very strong feeling in the place. The +toys think that they are ill-treated, and not taken care of by +children in general. And there is some truth in it. Toys come down +here by scores that have been broken the first day. And they are all +quite resolved that if any of their old masters or mistresses come +this way they shall be punished.' + +"'How will they be punished?' I inquired. + +"'Exactly as they did to their toys, their toys will do to them. All +is perfectly fair and regular.' + +"'I don't know that I treated mine particularly badly,' I said; 'but I +think I would rather go.' + +"'I think you'd better,' said the beetle. 'Good-evening!' and I saw +him no more. + +"I turned to go, but somehow I lost the road. At last, as I thought, I +found it, and had gone a few steps when I came on a detachment of +wooden soldiers, drawn up on their lazy tongs. I thought it better to +wait till they got out of the way, so I turned back, and sat down in a +corner in some alarm. As I did so, I heard a click, and the lid of a +small box covered with mottled paper burst open, and up jumped a +figure in a blue striped shirt and a rabbit-skin beard, whose eyes +were intently fixed on me. He was very like my old Jack-in-a-box. My +back began to creep, and I wildly meditated escape, frantically trying +at the same time to recall whether it were I or my brother who +originated the idea of making a small bonfire of our own one 5th of +November, and burning the old Jack-in-a-box for Guy Fawkes, till +nothing was left of him but a twirling bit of red-hot wire and a +strong smell of frizzled fur. At this moment, he nodded to me and +spoke. + +"'Oh! that's you, is it?' he said. + +"'No, it is not,' I answered, hastily; for I was quite demoralized by +fear and the strangeness of the situation. + +"'Who is it, then?' he inquired. + +"'I'm sure I don't know,' I said; and really I was so confused that I +hardly did. + +"'Well, _we_ know,' said the Jack-in-a-box, 'and that's all that's +needed. 'Now, my friends,' he continued, addressing the toys who had +begun to crowd round us, 'whoever recognizes a mistress and remembers +a grudge--the hour of our revenge has come. Can we any of us forget +the treatment we received at her hands? No! When we think of the +ingenious fancy, the patient skill, that went to our manufacture; that +fitted the delicate joints and springs, laid on the paint and varnish, +and gave back-hair combs, and ear-rings to our smallest dolls, we feel +that we deserved more care than we received. When we reflect upon the +kind friends who bought us with their money, and gave us away in the +benevolence of their hearts, we know that for their sakes we ought to +have been longer kept and better valued. And when we remember that the +sole object of our own existence was to give pleasure and amusement to +our possessors, we have no hesitation in believing that we deserved a +handsomer return than to have had our springs broken, our paint +dirtied, and our earthly careers so untimely shortened by wilful +mischief or fickle neglect. My friends, the prisoner is at the bar.' + +"'I am not, I said; for I was determined not to give in as long as +resistance was possible. But as I said it I became aware, to my +unutterable amazement, that I was inside the go-cart. How I got there +is to this moment a mystery to me--but there I was. + +"There was a great deal of excitement about the Jack-in-a-box's +speech. It was evident that he was considered an orator, and, indeed, +I have seen counsel in a real court look wonderfully like him. +Meanwhile, my old toys appeared to be getting together. I had no idea +that I had had so many. I had really been very fond of most of them, +and my heart beat as the sight of them recalled scenes long forgotten, +and took me back to childhood and home. There were my little gardening +tools, and my slate, and there was the big doll's bedstead, that had a +real mattress, and real sheets and blankets, all marked with the +letter D, and a work-basket made in the blind school, and a shilling +School of Art paint box, and a wooden doll we used to call the +Dowager, and innumerable other toys which I had forgotten till the +sight of them recalled them to my memory, but which have again passed +from my mind. Exactly opposite to me stood the Chinese mandarin, +nodding as I had never seen him nod since the day when I finally +stopped his performances by ill-directed efforts to discover how he +did it. + +"And what was that familiar figure among the rest, in a yellow silk +dress and maroon velvet cloak and hood trimmed with black lace? How +those clothes recalled the friends who gave them to me! And surely +this was no other than my dear doll Rosa--the beloved companion of +five years of my youth, whose hair I wore in a locket after I was +grown up. No one could say I had ill-treated _her_. Indeed, she fixed +her eyes on me with a most encouraging smile--but then she always +smiled, her mouth was painted so. + +"'All whom it may concern, take notice,' shouted the Jack-in-a-box, at +this point, 'that the rule of this honorable court is tit for tat.' + +"'Tit, tat, tumble two,' muttered the slate in a cracked voice. (How +well I remembered the fall that cracked it, and the sly games of tit +tat that varied the monotony of our long multiplication sums!) + +"'What are you talking about?' said the Jack-in-a-box, sharply; 'if +you have grievances, state them, and you shall have satisfaction, as I +told you before.' + +"'----and five make nine,' added the slate promptly, 'and six are +fifteen, and eight are twenty-seven--there we go again! I wonder why I +never get up to the top of a line of figures right. It will never +prove at this rate.' + +"'His mind is lost in calculations,' said the Jack-in-a-box, +'besides--between ourselves--he has been "cracky" for some time. Let +some one else speak, and observe that no one is at liberty to pass a +sentence on the prisoner heavier than what he has suffered from her. I +reserve _my_ judgment to the last.' + +"'I know what that will be,' thought I; 'oh dear! oh dear! that a +respectable maiden lady should live to be burnt as a Guy Fawkes!" + +"'Let the prisoner drink a gallon of iced water at once, and then be +left to die of thirst.' + +"The horrible idea that the speaker might possibly have the power to +enforce his sentence diverted my attention from the slate, and I +looked round. In front of the Jack-in-a-box stood a tiny red +flower-pot and saucer, in which was a miniature cactus. My thoughts +flew back to a bazaar in London where, years ago, a stand of these +fairy plants had excited my warmest longings, and where a benevolent +old gentleman whom I had not seen before, and never saw again, bought +this one and gave it to me. Vague memories of his directions for +re-potting and tending it reproached me from the past. My mind misgave +me that after all it had died a dusty death for lack of water. True, +the cactus tribe being succulent plants do not demand much moisture, +but I had reason to fear that, in this instance, the principle had +been applied too far, and that after copious baths of cold spring +water in the first days of its popularity it had eventually perished +by drought. I suppose I looked guilty, for it nodded its prickly head +towards me, and said, 'Ah! you know me. You remember what I was, do +you? Did you ever think of what I might have been? There was a fairy +rose which came down here not long ago--a common rose enough, in a +broken pot patched with string and white paint. It had lived in a +street where it was the only pure beautiful thing your eyes could see. +When the girl who kept it died there were eighteen roses upon it. She +was eighteen years old, and they put the roses in the coffin with her +when she was buried. That was worth living for. Who knows what I might +have done? And what right had you to cut short a life that might have +been useful?' + +"Before I could think of a reply to these too just reproaches, the +flower-pot enlarged, the plant shot up, putting forth new branches as +it grew; then buds burst from the prickly limbs, and in a few moments +there hung about it great drooping blossoms of lovely pink, with long +white tassels in their throats. I had been gazing at it some time in +silent and self-reproachful admiration when I became aware that the +business of this strange court was proceeding, and that the other toys +were pronouncing sentence against me. + +"'Tie a string round her neck and take her out bathing in the brooks,' +I heard an elderly voice say in severe tones. It was the Dowager Doll. +She was inflexibly wooden, and had been in the family for more than +one generation. + +"'It's not fair,' I exclaimed, 'the string was only to keep you from +being carried away by the stream. The current is strong, and the bank +steep by the Hollow Oak Pool, and you had no arms or legs. You were +old and ugly, but you would wash, and we loved you better than many +waxen beauties.' + +"'Old and ugly!' shrieked the Dowager. 'Tear her wig off! Scrub the +paint off her face! Flatten her nose on the pavement! Saw off her legs +and give her no crinoline! Take her out bathing, I say, and bring her +home in a wheelbarrow with fern roots on the top of her.' + +"I was about to protest again, when the paint-box came forward, and +balancing itself in an artistic, undecided kind of way on two +camel's-hair brushes which seemed to serve it for feet, addressed the +Jack-in-a-box. + +"'Never dip your paint into the water. Never put your brush into your +mouth----' + +"'That's not evidence,' said the Jack-in-a-box. + +"'Your notions are crude,' said the paint-box loftily; 'it's in +print, and here, all of it, or words to that effect; with which he +touched the lid, as a gentleman might lay his hand upon his heart. + +"'It's not evidence,' repeated the Jack-in-a-box. 'Let us proceed.' + +"'Take her to pieces and see what she's made of, if you please,' +tittered a pretty German toy that moved to a tinkling musical +accompaniment. 'If her works are available after that it will be an +era in natural science.' + +"The idea tickled me, and I laughed. + +"'Hard-hearted wretch!' growled the Dowager Doll. + +"'Dip her in water and leave her to soak on a white soup plate,' said +the paint-box; 'if that doesn't soften her feelings, deprive me of my +medal from the School of Art!' + +"'Give her a stiff neck!' muttered the mandarin. 'Ching Fo! give her a +stiff neck.' + +"'Knock her teeth out,' growled the rake in a scratchy voice; and then +the tools joined in chorus. + +"'Take her out when its fine and leave her out when it's wet, and lose +her in---- + +"'The coal hole,' said the spade. + +"'The hay field,' said the rake. + +"'The shrubbery,' said the hoe. + +"This difference of opinion produced a quarrel, which in turn seemed +to affect the general behavior of the toys, for a disturbance arose +which the Jack-in-a-box vainly endeavored to quell. A dozen voices +shouted for a dozen different punishments and (happily for me) each +toy insisted upon its own wrongs being the first to be avenged, and no +one would hear of the claims of any one else being attended to for an +instant. Terrible sentences were passed, which I either failed to hear +through the clamor then, or have forgotten now. I have a vague idea +that several voices cried that I was to be sent to wash in somebody's +pocket; that the work-basket wished to cram my mouth with unfinished +needlework; and that through all the din the thick voice of my old +leather ball monotonously repeated: + +"'Throw her into the dust-hole.' + +"Suddenly a clear voice pierced the confusion, and Rosa tripped up. + +"'My dears,' she began, 'the only chance of restoring order is to +observe method. Let us follow our usual rule of precedence. I claim +the first turn as the prisoner's oldest toy.' + +"'That you are not, Miss,' snapped the dowager; 'I was in the family +for fifty years.' + +"'In the family. Yes, ma'am; but you were never her doll in +particular. I was her very own, and she kept me longer than any other +plaything. My judgment must be first.' + +"'She is right,' said the Jack-in-a-box, 'and now let us get on. The +prisoner is delivered unreservedly into the hands of our trusty and +well-beloved Rosa--doll of the first class--for punishment according +to the strict law of tit for tat.' + +"'I shall request the assistance of the pewter tea-things,' said Rosa, +with her usual smile. 'And now, my love,' she added, turning to me, +'we will come and sit down.' + +"Where the go-cart vanished to I cannot remember, nor how I got out of +it; I only know that I suddenly found myself free, and walking away +with my hand in Rosa's. I remember vacantly feeling the rough edge of +the stitches on her flat kid fingers, and wondering what would come +next. + +"'How very oddly you hold your feet, my dear,' she said; 'you stick +out your toes in such an eccentric fashion, and you lean on your legs +as if they were table legs, instead of supporting yourself by my hand. +Turn your heels well out, and bring your toes together. You may even +let them fold over each other a little; it is considered to have a +pretty effect among dolls.' + +"Under one of the big trees Miss Rosa made me sit down, propping me +against the trunk as if I should otherwise have fallen; and in a +moment more a square box of pewter tea-things came tumbling up to our +feet, where the lid burst open, and all the tea-things fell out in +perfect order; the cups on the saucers, the lid on the teapot and so +on. + +"'Take a little tea my love?' said Miss Rosa pressing a pewter teacup +to my lips. + +"I made believe to drink, but was only conscious of inhaling a draught +of air with a slight flavor of tin. In taking my second cup I was +nearly choked with the teaspoon, which got into my throat. + +"'What are you doing?' roared the Jack-in-a-box at this moment; 'you +are not punishing her.' + +"'I am treating her as she treated me,' answered Rosa, looking as +severe as her smile would allow. 'I believe that tit for tat is the +rule, and that at present it is my turn.' + +"'It will be mine soon,' growled the Jack-in-a-box, and I thought of +the bonfire with a shudder. However, there was no knowing what might +happen before his turn did come, and meanwhile I was in friendly +hands. It was not the first time my dolly and I had set together under +a tree, and, truth to say, I do not think she had any injuries to +avenge. + +"'When your wig comes off,' murmured Rosa, as she stole a pink kid arm +tenderly round my neck, 'I'll make you a cap with blue and white +rosettes, and pretend that you have had a fever.' + +"I thanked her gratefully, and was glad to reflect that I was not yet +in need of an attention which I distinctly remember having shown to +her in the days of her dollhood. Presently she jumped up. + +"'I think you shall go to bed now, dear,' she said, and, taking my +hand once more, she led me to the big doll's bedstead, which, with its +pretty bedclothes and white dimity furniture, looked tempting enough +to a sleeper of suitable size. It could not have supported one quarter +of my weight. + +"'I have not made you a night-dress, my love,' Rosa continued; 'I am +not fond of my needle you know. _You_ were not fond of your needle, I +think. I fear you must go to bed in your clothes, my dear.' + +"'You are very kind,' I said, 'but I am not tired, and--it would not +bear my weight.' + +"'Pooh! pooh!' said Rosa. 'My love! I remember passing one Sunday in +it with the rag-doll, and the Dowager, and the Punch and Judy (the +amount of pillow their two noses took up I shall never forget!), and +the old doll that had nothing on, because her clothes were in the +dolls' wash and did not get ironed on Saturday night, and the +Highlander, whose things wouldn't come off, and who slept in his kilt. +Not bear you? Nonsense! You must go to bed, my dear. I've got other +things to do, and I can't leave you lying about.' + +"'The whole lot of you did not weigh one quarter of what I do,' I +cried desperately. 'I cannot, and will not get into that bed; I should +break it all to pieces, and hurt myself into the bargain.' + +"'Well, if you will not go to bed, I must put you there,' said Rosa, +and without more ado, she snatched me up in her kid arms, and laid me +down. + +"Of course it was just as I expected. I had hardly touched the two little +pillows (they had a meal-baggy smell from being stuffed with bran), when +the woodwork gave way with a crash, and I fell--fell--fell-- + +"Though I fully believed every bone in my body to be broken, it was +really a relief to get to the ground. As soon as I could, I sat up, +and felt myself all over. A little stiff, but, as it seemed, unhurt. +Oddly enough, I found that I was back again under the tree; and more +strange still, it was not the tree where I sat with Rosa, but the old +oak-tree in the little wood. Was it all a dream? The toys had +vanished, the lights were out, the mosses looked dull in the growing +dusk, the evening was chilly, the hole no larger than it was thirty +years ago, and when I felt in my pocket for my spectacles I found that +they were on my nose. + +"I have returned to the spot many times since, but I never could +induce a beetle to enter into conversation on the subject, the hole +remains obstinately impassable, and I have not been able to repeat my +visit to the Land of Lost Toys. + +"When I recall my many sins against the playthings of my childhood, I +am constrained humbly to acknowledge that perhaps this is just as +well." + + +SAM SETS UP SHOP. + +"I think you might help me, Dot," cried Sam in dismal and rather +injured tones. + +It was the morning following the day of the earthquake, and of Aunt +Penelope's arrival. Sam had his back to Dot, and his face to the fire, +over which indeed he had bent for so long that he appeared to be half +roasted. + +"What do you want?" asked Dot, who was working at a doll's night-dress +that had for long been partly finished, and now seemed in a fair way +to completion. + +"It's the glue-pot," Sam continued. "It does take so long to boil. And +I have been stirring at the glue with a stick for ever so long to get +it to melt. It is very hot work. I wish you would take it for a bit. +It's as much for your good as for mine." + +"Is it?" said Dot. + +"Yes it is, Miss," cried Sam. "You must know I've got a splendid +idea." + +"Not another earthquake, I hope?" said Dot, smiling. + +"Now, Dot, that's truly unkind of you. I thought it was to be +forgotten." + +"So it is," said Dot, getting up. "I was only joking. What is the +idea?" + +"I don't think I shall tell you till I have finished my shop. I want +to get to it now, and I wish you would take a turn at the glue-pot." + +Sam was apt to want a change of occupation. Dot, on the other hand, +was equally averse from leaving what she was about till it was +finished, so they suited each other like Jack Sprat and his wife. It +had been an effort to Dot to leave the night-dress which she had hoped +to finish at a sitting; but when she was fairly set to work on the +glue business she never moved till the glue was in working order, and +her face as red as a ripe tomato. + +By this time Sam had set up business in the window-seat, and was +fastening a large paper inscription over his shop. It ran thus:-- + + MR. SAM, + + _Dolls Doctor and Toymender to Her Majesty the + Queen, and all other Potentates._ + +"Splendid!" shouted Dot, who was serving up the glue as if it had been +a kettle of soup, and who looked herself very like an overtoasted +cook. + +Sam took the glue, and began to bustle about. + +"Now, Dot, get me all the broken toys, and we'll see what we can do. +And here's a second splendid idea. Do you see that box? Into that we +shall put all the toys that are quite spoiled and cannot possibly be +mended. It is to be called the Hospital for Incurables. I've got a +placard for that. At least it's not written yet, but here's the paper, +and perhaps you would write it, Dot, for I am tired of writing and I +want to begin the mending." + +"For the future," he presently resumed, "when I want a doll to scalp +or behead, I shall apply to the Hospital for Incurables, and the same +with any other toy that I want to destroy. And you will see, my dear +Dot, that I shall be quite a blessing to the nursery; for I shall +attend the dolls gratis, and keep all the furniture in repair." + +Sam really kept his word. He had a natural turn for mechanical work, +and, backed by Dot's more methodical genius, he prolonged the days of +the broken toys by skillful mending, and so acquired an interest in +them which was still more favorable to their preservation. When his +birthday came round, which was some months after these events, Dot +(assisted by Mamma and Aunt Penelope), had prepared for him a surprise +that was more than equal to any of his own "splendid ideas." The whole +force of the toy cupboard was assembled on the nursery table, to +present Sam with a fine box of joiner's tools as a reward for his +services, Papa kindly acting as spokesman on the occasion. + +And certain gaps in the china tea-set, some scars on the dolls' faces, +and a good many new legs, both amongst the furniture and the animals, +are now the only remaining traces of Sam's earthquake. + + + + +THE BROWNIES. + + +A little girl sat sewing and crying on a garden seat. She had fair +floating hair, which the breeze blew into her eyes; and between the +cloud of hair, and the mist of tears, she could not see her work very +clearly. She neither tied up her locks, nor dried her eyes, however; +for when one is miserable, one may as well be completely so. + +"What is the matter?" said the Doctor, who was a friend of the +Rector's, and came into the garden whenever he pleased. + +The Doctor was a tall stout man, with hair as black as crows' feathers +on the top, and gray underneath, and a bushy beard. When young, he had +been slim and handsome, with wonderful eyes, which were wonderful +still; but that was many years past. He had a great love for children, +and this one was a particular friend of his. + +"What is the matter?" said he. + +"I'm in a row," murmured the young lady through her veil; and the +needle went in damp, and came out with a jerk, which is apt to result +in what ladies called "puckering." + +"You are like London in a yellow fog," said the Doctor, throwing +himself on to the grass, "and it is very depressing to my feelings. +What is the row about, and how came you to get into it?" + +[Illustration: THE BROWNIES.--_Page 34._] + +"We're all in it," was the reply; and apparently the fog was +thickening, for the voice grew less and less distinct--"the boys and +everybody. It's all about forgetting, and not putting away, and +leaving about, and borrowing, and breaking, and that sort of thing. +I've had father's new pocket-handkerchiefs to hem, and I've been out +climbing with the boys, and kept forgetting and forgetting, and mother +says I always forget; and I can't help it. I forget to tidy his +newspapers for him, and I forget to feed Puss, and I forgot these; +besides, they're a great bore, and mother gave them to Nurse to do, +and this one was lost, and we found it this morning tossing about in +the toy-cupboard." + +"It looks as if it had been taking violent exercise," said the Doctor. +"But what have the boys to do with it?" + +"Why, then there was a regular turn out of the toys," she explained, +"and they're all in a regular mess. You know, we always go on till the +last minute, and then things get crammed in anyhow. Mary and I did +tidy them once or twice; but the boys never put anything away, you +know, so what's the good?" + +"What, indeed!" said the Doctor. "And so you have complained of them?" + +"Oh! no!" answered she. "We don't get them into rows, unless they are +very provoking; but some of the things were theirs, so everybody was +sent for, and I was sent out to finish this, and they are all tidying. +I don't know when it will be done, for I have all this side to hem: +and the soldier's box is broken, and Noah is lost out of the Noah's +Ark, and so is one of the elephants and a guinea-pig, and so is the +rocking-horse's nose: and nobody knows what has become of +Rutlandshire and the Wash, but they're so small, I don't wonder; only +North America and Europe are gone too." + +The Doctor started up in affected horror. "Europe gone, did you say? +Bless me! what will become of us!" + +"Don't!" said the young lady, kicking petulantly with her dangling +feet, and trying not to laugh. "You know I mean the puzzles; and if +they were yours, you wouldn't like it." + +"I don't half like it as it is," said the Doctor. "I am seriously +alarmed. An earthquake is one thing: you have a good shaking, and +settle down again. But Europe gone--lost--Why, here comes Deordie, I +declare, looking much more cheerful than we do; let us humbly hope +that Europe has been found. At present I feel like Aladdin when his +palace had been transported by the magician; I don't know where I am." + +"You're here, Doctor; aren't you?" asked the slow curly-wigged +brother, squatting himself on the grass. + +"_Is_ Europe found?" said the Doctor tragically. + +"Yes," laughed Deordie. "I found it." + +"You will be a great man," said the Doctor. "And--it is only common +charity to ask--how about North America?" + +"Found too," said Deordie. "But the Wash is completely lost." + +"And my six shirts in it!" said the Doctor. "I sent them last Saturday +as ever was. What a world we live in! Any more news? Poor Tiny here +has been crying her eyes out." + +"I'm so sorry, Tiny," said the brother. "But don't bother about it. +It's all square now, and we're going to have a new shelf put up." + +"Have you found everything?" asked Tiny. + +"Well, not the Wash, you know. And the elephant and the guinea-pig are +gone for good; so the other elephant and the other guinea-pig must +walk together as a pair now. Noah was among the soldiers, and we have +put the cavalry into a night-light box. Europe and North America were +behind the book-case; and, would you believe it? the rocking-horse's +nose has turned up in the nursery oven." + +"I can't believe it," said the Doctor. "The rocking-horse's nose +couldn't turn up, it was the purest Grecian, modelled from the Elgin +marbles. Perhaps it was the heat that did it, though. However, you +seem to have got through your troubles very well, Master Deordie. I +wish poor Tiny were at the end of her task." + +"So do I," said Deordie ruefully. "But I tell you what I've been +thinking, Doctor. Nurse is always knagging at us, and we're always in +rows of one sort or another, for doing this, and not doing that, and +leaving our things about. But, you know, it's a horrid shame, for +there are plenty of servants, and I don't see why we should be always +bothering to do little things, and--" + +"Oh! come to the point, please," said the Doctor; "you do go round the +square so, in telling your stories, Deordie. What have you been +thinking of?" + +"Well," said Deordie, who was as good tempered as he was slow, "the +other day Nurse shut me up in the back nursery for borrowing her +scissors and losing them; but I'd got 'Grimm' inside one of my +knickerbockers, so when she locked the door, I sat down to read. And I +read the story of the Shoemaker and the little Elves who came and did +his work for him before he got up; and I thought it would be so jolly +if we had some little Elves to do things instead of us." + +"That's what Tommy Trout said," observed the Doctor. + +"Who's Tommy Trout?" asked Deordie. + +"Don't you know, Deor?" said Tiny. "It's the good boy who pulled the +cat out of the what's-his-name. + + 'Who pulled her out? + Little Tommy Trout.' + +"Is it the same Tommy Trout, Doctor? I never heard anything else about +him except his pulling the cat out; and I can't think how he did +that." + +"Let down the bucket for her, of course," said the Doctor. "But listen +to me. If you will get that handkerchief done, and take it to your +mother with a kiss, and not keep me waiting, I'll have you all to tea, +and tell you the story of Tommy Trout." + +"This very night?" shouted Deordie. + +"This very night." + +"Every one of us?" inquired the young gentleman with rapturous +incredulity. + +"Every one of you.--Now Tiny, how about that work?" + +"It's just done," said Tiny.--"Oh! Deordie, climb up behind, and hold +back my hair, there's a darling, while I fasten off. Oh! Deor, you're +pulling my hair out. Don't." + +"I want to make a pig-tail," said Deor. + +"You can't," said Tiny, with feminine contempt. "You can't plait. +What's the good of asking boys to do anything? There! it's done at +last. Now go and ask mother if we may go.--Will you let me come, +doctor," she inquired, "if I do as you said?" + +"To be sure I will," he answered. "Let me look at you. Your eyes are +swollen with crying. How can you be such a silly little goose?" + +"Did you never cry?" asked Tiny. + +"When I was your age? Well, perhaps so." + +"You've never cried since, surely," said Tiny. + +The Doctor absolutely blushed. + +"What do you think?" said he. + +"Oh, of course not," she answered. "You've nothing to cry about. +You're grown up, and you live all alone in a beautiful house, and you +do as you like, and never get into rows, or have anybody but yourself +to think about; and no nasty pocket-handkerchiefs to hem." + +"Very nice; eh, Deordie?" said the Doctor. + +"Awfully jolly," said Deordie. + +"Nothing else to wish for, eh?" + +"_I_ should keep harriers, and not a poodle, if I were a man," said +Deordie; "but I suppose you could, if you wanted to." + +"Nothing to cry about, at any rate?" + +"I should think not!" said Deordie.--"There's mother, though; let's go +and ask her about the tea;" and off they ran. + +The Doctor stretched his six feet of length upon the sward, dropped +his gray head on a little heap of newly-mown grass, and looked up into +the sky. + +"Awfully jolly--no nasty pocket-handkerchiefs to hem," said he, +laughing to himself. "Nothing else to wish for; nothing to cry about." + +Nevertheless, he lay still, staring at the sky, till the smile died +away, and tears came into his eyes. Fortunately, no one was there to +see. + +What could this "awfully jolly" Doctor be thinking of to make him cry? +He was thinking of a grave-stone in the churchyard close by, and of a +story connected with this grave-stone which was known to everybody in +the place who was old enough to remember it. This story has nothing to +do with the present story, so it ought not to be told. + +And yet it has to do with the Doctor, and is very short, so it shall +be put in, after all. + + +THE STORY OF A GRAVE-STONE. + +One early spring morning, about twenty years before, a man, going to +his work at sunrise through the churchyard, stopped by a flat stone +which he had lately helped to lay down. The day before, a name had +been cut on it, which he stayed to read; and below the name some one +had scrawled a few words in pencil, which he read also--_Pitifully +behold the sorrows of our hearts_. On the stone lay a pencil, and a +few feet from it lay the Doctor, face downwards, as he had lain all +night, with the hoar frost on his black hair. + +Ah! these grave-stones (they were ugly things in those days; not the +light, hopeful, pretty crosses we set up now), how they seem +remorselessly to imprison and keep our dear dead friends away from us! +And yet they do not lie with a feather's weight upon the souls that +are gone, while God only knows how heavily they press upon the souls +that are left behind. Did the spirit whose body was with the dead, +stand that morning by the body whose spirit was with the dead, and +pity him? Let us only talk about what we know. + +After this it was said that the Doctor had got a fever, and was dying, +but he got better of it; and then that he was out of his mind, but he +got better of that, and came out looking much as usual, except that +his hair never seemed quite so black again, as if a little of that +night's hoar frost still remained. And no further misfortune happened +to him that I ever heard of; and as time went on he grew a beard, and +got stout, and kept a German poodle, and gave tea parties to other +people's children. As to the grave-stone story, whatever it was to him +at the end of twenty years, it was a great convenience to his friends; +for when he said anything they didn't agree with, or did anything they +couldn't understand, or didn't say or do what was expected of him, +what could be easier or more conclusive than to shake one's head and +say, + +"The fact is, our Doctor has been a little odd, _ever since_--!" + + +THE DOCTOR'S TEA PARTY. + +There is one great advantage attendant upon invitations to tea with a +doctor. No objections can be raised on the score of health. It is +obvious that it must be fine enough to go out when the doctor asks +you, and that his tea-cakes may be eaten with perfect impunity. + +Those tea-cakes were always good; to-night they were utterly +delicious; there was a perfect _abandon_ of currants, and the amount +of citron peel was enervating to behold. Then the housekeeper waited +in awful splendor, and yet the Doctor's authority over her seemed as +absolute as if he were an Eastern despot. Deordie must be excused for +believing in the charms of living alone. It certainly has its +advantages. The limited sphere of duty conduces to discipline in the +household, demand does not exceed supply in the article of waiting, +and there is not that general scrimmage of conflicting interests which +besets a large family in the most favored circumstances. The +housekeeper waits in black silk and looks as if she had no meaner +occupation than to sit in a rocking chair, and dream of damson cheese. + +Rustling, hospitable, and subservient, this one retired at last, and-- + +"Now," said the Doctor, "for the verandah; and to look at the moon." + +The company adjourned with a rush, the rear being brought up by the +poodle, who seemed quite used to the proceedings; and there under the +verandah, framed with passion flowers and geraniums, the Doctor had +gathered mats, rugs, cushions, and arm-chairs, for the party; while +far up in the sky, a yellow-faced harvest moon looked down in awful +benignity. + +"Now!" said the Doctor. "Take your seats. Ladies first, and gentlemen +afterwards. Mary and Tiny race for the American rocking-chair. Well +done! Of course it will hold both. Now boys, shake down. No one is to +sit on the stone, or put their feet on the grass; and when you're +ready, I'll begin." + +"We're ready," said the girls. + +The boys shook down in a few minutes more, and the Doctor began the +story of + +"THE BROWNIES." + +"Bairns are a burden," said the Tailor to himself as he sat at work. +He lived in a village on some of the glorious moors of the north of +England; and by bairns he meant children, as every Northman knows. + +"Bairns are a burden," and he sighed. + +"Bairns are a blessing," said the old lady in the window. "It is the +family motto. The Trouts have had large families and good luck for +generations; that is, till you're grandfather's time. He had one only +son. I married him. He was a good husband, but he had been a spoilt +child. He had always been used to be waited upon, and he couldn't fash +to look after the farm when it was his own. We had six children. They +are all dead but you, who were the youngest. You were bound to a +tailor. When the farm came into your hands, your wife died, and you +have never looked up since. The land is sold now, but not the house. +No! no! you're right enough there; but you've had your troubles, son +Thomas, and the lads _are_ idle!'" + +It was the Tailor's mother who spoke. She was a very old woman, and +helpless. She was not quite so bright in her intellect as she had +been, and got muddled over things that had lately happened; but she +had a clear memory for what was long past, and was very pertinacious +in her opinions. She knew the private history of almost every family +in the place, and who of the Trouts were buried under which old stones +in the churchyard; and had more tales of ghosts, doubles, warnings, +fairies, witches, hobgoblins, and such like, than even her +grandchildren had ever come to the end of. Her hands trembled with +age, and she regretted this for nothing more than for the danger it +brought her into of spilling the salt. She was past house-work, but +all day she sat knitting hearth-rugs out of the bits and scraps of +cloth that were shred in the tailoring. How far she believed in the +wonderful tales she told, and the odd little charms she practised, no +one exactly knew; but the older she grew, the stranger were the things +she remembered, and the more testy she was if any one doubted their +truth. + +"Bairns are a blessing!" said she. "It is the family motto." + +"_Are they?_" said the Tailor emphatically. + +He had a high respect for his mother, and did not like to contradict +her, but he held his own opinion, based upon personal experience; and +not being a metaphysician, did not understand that it is safer to +found opinions on principles than on experience, since experience may +alter, but principles cannot. + +"Look at Tommy," he broke out suddenly. "That boy does nothing but +whittle sticks from morning till night. I have almost to lug him out +of bed o' mornings. If I send him an errand, he loiters; I'd better +have gone myself. If I set him to do anything, I have to tell him +everything; I could sooner do it myself. And if he does work, it's +done so unwillingly, with such a poor grace; better, far better, to do +it myself. What house-work do the boys ever do but looking after the +baby? And this afternoon she was asleep in the cradle, and off they +went, and when she awoke, _I_ must leave my work to take her. _I_ gave +her her supper, and put her to bed. And what with what they want and I +have to get, and what they take out to play with and lose, and what +they bring in to play with and leave about, bairns give some trouble, +Mother, and I've not an easy life of it. The pay is poor enough when +one can get the work, and the work is hard enough when one has a clear +day to do it in; but housekeeping and bairn-minding don't leave a man +much time for his trade. No! no! Ma'am, the luck of the Trouts is +gone, and 'Bairns are a burden,' is the motto now. Though they are +one's own," he muttered to himself, "and not bad ones, and I did hope +once would have been a blessing." + +"There's Johnnie," murmured the old lady, dreamily, "He has a face +like an apple." + +"And is about as useful," said the Tailor. "He might have been +different, but his brother leads him by the nose." + +His brother led him in as the Tailor spoke, not literally by his snub, +though, but by the hand. They were a handsome pair, this lazy couple. +Johnnie especially had the largest and roundest of foreheads, the +reddest of cheeks, the brightest of eyes, the quaintest and most +twitchy of chins, and looked altogether like a gutta percha cherub in +a chronic state of longitudinal squeeze. They were locked together by +two grubby paws, and had each an armful of moss, which they deposited +on the floor as they came in. + +"I've swept this floor once to-day," said the father, "and I'm not +going to do it again. Put that rubbish outside." + +"Move it Johnnie!" said his brother, seating himself on a stool, and +taking out his knife and a piece of wood, at which he cut and sliced; +while the apple-cheeked Johnnie stumbled and stamped over the moss, +and scraped it out on to the door-step, leaving long trails of earth +behind him, and then sat down also. + +"And those chips the same," added the Tailor; "I will _not_ clear up +the litter you lads make." + +"Pick 'em up, Johnnie," said Thomas Trout, junior, with an exasperated +sigh; and the apple tumbled up, rolled after the flying chips, and +tumbled down again. + +"Is there any supper, Father?" asked Tommy. + +"No, there is not, Sir, unless you know how to get it," said the +Tailor; and taking his pipe, he went out of the house. + +"Is there really nothing to eat Granny?" asked the boy. + +"No, my bairn, only some bread for breakfast to-morrow." + +"What makes Father so cross, Granny?" + +"He's wearied, and you don't help him, my dear." + +"What could I do, Grandmother?" + +"Many little things, if you tried," said the old lady. "He spent +half-an-hour to-day while you were on the moor, getting turf for the +fire, and you could have got it just as well, and he been at his +work." + +"He never told me," said Tommy. + +"You might help me a bit just now, if you would, my laddie," said the +old lady coaxingly; "these bits of cloth want tearing into lengths, +and if you get 'em ready, I can go on knitting. There'll be some food +when this mat is done and sold." + +"I'll try," said Tommy, lounging up with desperate resignation. "Hold +my knife, Johnnie. Father's been cross, and everything has been +miserable, ever since the farm was sold. I wish I were a big man, and +could make a fortune.--Will that do, Granny?" + +The old lady put down her knitting and looked. "My dear, that's too +short. Bless me! I gave the lad a piece to measure by." + +"I thought it was the same length. Oh, dear! I am so tired;" and he +propped himself against the old lady's chair. + +"My dear! don't lean so! you'll tipple me over!" she shrieked. + +"I beg your pardon, Grandmother. Will _that_ do?" + +"It's that much too long." + +"Tear that bit off. Now it's all right." + +"But, my dear, that wastes it. Now that bit is of no use. There goes +my knitting, you awkward lad!" + +"Johnnie, pick it up!--Oh! Grandmother, I _am_ so hungry." + +The boy's eyes filled with tears, and the old lady was melted in an +instant. + +"What can I do for you, my poor bairns?" said she. "There, never mind +the scraps, Tommy." + +"Tell us a tale, Granny. If you told us a new one, I shouldn't keep +thinking of that bread in the cupboard.--Come Johnny, and sit against +me. Now then!" + +"I doubt if there's one of my old-world cracks I haven't told you," +said the old lady, "unless it's a queer ghost story was told me years +ago of that house in the hollow with the blocked-up windows." + +"Oh! not ghosts!" Tommy broke in; "we've had so many. I know it was a +rattling, or a scratching, or a knocking, or a figure in white; and if +it turns out a tombstone or a white petticoat, I hate it." + +"It was nothing of the sort as a tombstone," said the old lady with +dignity. "It's a good half-mile from the churchyard. And as to white +petticoats, there wasn't a female in the house; he wouldn't have one; +and his victuals came in by the pantry window. But never mind! Though +it's as true as a sermon." + +Johnnie lifted his head from his brother's knee. + +"Let Granny tell what she likes, Tommy. It's a new ghost, and I should +like to know who he was, and why his victuals came in by the window." + +"I don't like a story about victuals," sulked Tommy. "It makes me +think of the bread. O Granny dear! do tell us a fairy story. You never +will tell us about the Fairies, and I know you know." + +"Hush! hush!" said the old lady. "There's Miss Surbiton's Love Letter, +and her Dreadful End." + +"I know Miss Surbiton, Granny. I think she was a goose. Why won't you +tell us about the Fairies?" + +"Hush! hush! my dears. There's the Clerk and the Corpse-candles." + +"I know the Corpse-candles, Granny. Besides, they make Johnnie dream +and he wakes me to keep him company. _Why_ won't you tell us about the +Fairies?" + +"My dear, they don't like it," said the old lady. + +"O Granny dear, why don't they? Do tell! I shouldn't think of the +bread a bit, if you told us about the Fairies. I know nothing about +them." + +"He lived in this house long enough," said the old lady. "But it's not +lucky to name him." + +"Oh Granny, we are so hungry and miserable, what can it matter?" + +"Well, that's true enough," she sighed. "Trouts' luck is gone; it went +with the Brownie, I believe." + +"Was that _he_, Granny?" + +"Yes, my dear, he lived with the Trouts for several generations." + +"What was he like, Granny?" + +"Like a little man, they say, my dear." + +"What did he do?" + +"He came in before the family were up, and swept up the hearth, and +lighted the fire, and set out the breakfast, and tidied the room, and +did all sorts of house-work. But he never would be seen, and was off +before they could catch him. But they could hear him laughing and +playing about the house sometimes." + +"What a darling! Did they give him any wages, Granny?" + +"No! my dear. He did it for love. They set a pancheon of clear water +for him over night, and now and then a bowl of bread and milk, or +cream. He liked that, for he was very dainty. Sometimes he left a bit +of money in the water. Sometimes he weeded the garden or threshed the +corn. He saved endless trouble, both to men and maids." + +"O Granny! why did he go?" + +"The maids caught sight of him one night, my dear, and his coat was so +ragged, that they got a new suit, and a linen shirt for him, and laid +them by the bread and milk bowl. But when Brownie saw the things, he +put them on, and dancing round the kitchen, sang, + + 'What have we here? Hemten hamten! + Here will I never more tread nor stampen,' + +and so danced through the door and never came back again." + +"O Grandmother! But why not? Didn't he like the new clothes?" + +"The Old Owl knows, my dear; I don't." + +"Who's the Old Owl, Granny?" + +"I don't exactly know, my dear. It's what my mother used to say when +we asked anything that puzzled her. It was said that the Old Owl was +Nanny Besom, (a witch, my dear!) who took the shape of a bird, but +couldn't change her voice, and that that's why the owl sits silent all +day for fear she should betray herself by speaking, and has no singing +voice like other birds. Many people used to go and consult the Old Owl +at moon-rise, in my young days." + +"Did you ever go, Granny?" + +"Once, very nearly, my dear." + +"Oh! tell us, Granny dear.--There are no Corpse-candles, Johnnie; it's +only moonlight," he added consolingly, as Johnnie crept closer to his +knee and pricked his little red ears. + +"It was when your grandfather was courting me, my dears," said the old +lady, "and I couldn't quite make up my mind. So I went to my mother, +and said, 'He's this on the one side, but then he's that on the other, +and so on. Shall I say yes or no?' And my mother said, 'The Old Owl +knows;' for she was fairly puzzled. So says I, 'I'll go and ask her +to-night, as sure as the moon rises.' + +"So at moon-rise I went, and there in the white light by the gate +stood your grandfather. 'What are you doing here at this time o' +night?' says I. 'Watching your window,' says he. 'What are _you_ doing +here at this time o' night?' 'The Old Owl knows,' said I, and burst +out crying." + +"What for?" said Johnnie. + +"I can't rightly tell you, my dear," said the old lady, "but it gave +me such a turn to see him. And without more ado your grandfather +kissed me. 'How dare you?' said I. 'What do you mean?' 'The Old Owl +knows,' said he. So we never went." + +"How stupid!" said Tommy. + +"Tell us more about Brownie, please," said Johnnie. "Did he ever live +with anybody else?" + +"There are plenty of Brownies," said the old lady, "or used to be in +my mother's young days. Some houses had several." + +"Oh! I wish ours would come back!" cried both the boys in chorus. +"He'd-- + + "tidy the room," said Johnnie; + "fetch the turf," said Tommy; + "pick up the chips," said Johnnie; + "sort your scraps," said Tommy; + "and do everything. Oh! I wish he hadn't gone away." + +"What's that?" said the Tailor coming in at this moment. + +"It's the Brownie, Father," said Tommy. "We are so sorry he went, and +do so wish we had one." + +"What nonsense have you been telling them, Mother?" asked the Tailor. + +"Heighty teighty," said the old lady, bristling. "Nonsense, indeed! As +good men as you, Son Thomas, would as soon have jumped off the crags, +as spoken lightly of _them_, in my mother's young days." + +"Well, well," said the Tailor, "I beg their pardon. They never did +aught for me, whatever they did for my forbears; but they're as +welcome to the old place as ever, if they choose to come. There's +plenty to do." + +"Would you mind our setting a pan of water, Father?" asked Tommy very +gently. "There's no bread and milk." + +"You may set what you like, my lad," said the Tailor; "and I wish +there were bread and milk for your sakes, Bairns. You should have it, +had I got it. But go to bed now." + +They lugged out a pancheon, and filled it with more dexterity than +usual, and then went off to bed, leaving the knife in one corner, the +wood in another, and a few splashes of water in their track. + +There was more room than comfort in the ruined old farm-house, and the +two boys slept on a bed of cut heather, in what had been the old malt +loft. Johnnie was soon in the land of dreams, growing rosier and +rosier as he slept, a tumbled apple among the gray heather. But not so +lazy Tommy. The idea of a domesticated Brownie had taken full +possession of his mind; and whither Brownie had gone, where he might +be found, and what would induce him to return, were mysteries he +longed to solve. "There's an owl living in the old shed by the mere," +he thought. "It may be the Old Owl herself, and she knows, Granny +says. When father's gone to bed, and the moon rises. I'll go." +Meanwhile he lay down. + + * * * * * + +The moon rose like gold, and went up into the heavens like silver, +flooding the moors with a pale ghostly light, taking the color out of +the heather, and painting black shadows under the stone walls. Tommy +opened his eyes, and ran to the window. "The moon has risen," said he, +and crept softly down the ladder, through the kitchen, where was the +pan of water, but no Brownie, and so out on to the moor. The air was +fresh, not to say chilly; but it was a glorious night, though +everything but the wind and Tommy seemed asleep. The stones, the +walls, the gleaming lanes, were so intensely still; the church tower +in the valley seemed awake and watching, but silent; the houses in the +village round it all had their eyes shut, that is, their window blinds +down; and it seemed to Tommy as if the very moors had drawn white +sheets over them, and lay sleeping also. + +"Hoot! hoot!" said a voice from the fir plantation behind him. +Somebody else was awake, then. "It's the Old Owl," said Tommy; and +there she came, swinging heavily across the moor with a flapping +stately flight, and sailed into the shed by the mere. The old lady +moved faster than she seemed to do, and though Tommy ran hard she was +in the shed some time before him. When he got in, no bird was to be +seen, but he heard a crunching sound from above, and looking up, there +sat the Old Owl, pecking and tearing and munching at some shapeless +black object, and blinking at him--Tommy--with yellow eyes. + +"Oh dear!" said Tommy, for he didn't much like it. + +The Old Owl dropped the black mass on to the floor; and Tommy did not +care somehow to examine it. + +"Come up! come up!" said she, hoarsely. + +She could speak, then! Beyond all doubt it was _the_ Old Owl and none +other. Tommy shuddered. + +"Come up here! come up here!" said the Old Owl. + +The Old Owl sat on a beam that ran across the shed. Tommy had often +climbed up for fun; and he climbed up now, and sat face to face with +her, and thought her eyes looked as if they were made of flame. + +"Kiss my fluffy face," said the Owl. + +Her eyes were going round like flaming catherine wheels, but there are +certain requests which one has not the option of refusing. Tommy crept +nearer, and put his lips to the round face out of which the eyes +shone. Oh! it was so downy and warm, so soft, so indescribably soft. +Tommy's lips sank into it, and couldn't get to the bottom. It was +unfathomable feathers and fluffyness. + +"Now, what do you want?" said the Owl. + +"Please," said Tommy, who felt rather re-assured, "can you tell me +where to find the Brownies, and how to get one to come and live with +us?" + +"Oohoo!" said the Owl, "that's it, is it? I know of three Brownies." + +"Hurrah!" said Tommy. "Where do they live?" + +"In your house," said the Owl. + +Tommy was aghast. + +"In our house!" he exclaimed. "Whereabouts? Let me rummage them out. +Why do they do nothing?" + +"One of them is too young," said the Owl. + +"But why don't the others work?" asked Tommy. + +"They are idle, they are idle," said the Old Owl, and she gave herself +such a shake as she said it, that the fluff went flying through the +shed, and Tommy nearly tumbled off the beam in his fright. + +"Then we don't want them," said he. "What is the use of having +Brownies if they do nothing to help us?" + +"Perhaps they don't know how, as no one has told them," said the Owl. + +"I wish you would tell me where to find them," said Tommy; "I could +tell them." + +"Could you?" said the Owl. "Oohoo! Oohoo!" and Tommy couldn't tell +whether she were hooting or laughing. + +"Of course I could," he said. "They might be up and sweep the house, +and light the fire, and spread the table, and that sort of thing, +before father came down. Besides, they could _see_ what was wanted. +The Brownies did all that in Granny's mother's young days. And then +they could tidy the room, and fetch the turf, and pick up my chips, +and sort Granny's scraps. Oh! there's lots to do." + +"So there is," said the Owl. "Oohoo! Well, I can tell you where to +find one of the Brownies; and if you find him, he will tell you where +his brother is. But all this depends upon whether you feel equal to +undertaking it, and whether you will follow my directions." + +"I am quite ready to go," said Tommy, "and I will do as you shall tell +me. I feel sure I could persuade them. If they only knew how every +one would love them if they made themselves useful!" + +"Oohoo! oohoo!" said the Owl. "Now pay attention. You must go to the +north side of the mere when the moon is shining--('I know Brownies +like water,' muttered Tommy)--and turn yourself round three times, +saying this charm: + + 'Twist me, and turn me, and show me the Elf-- + I looked in the water, and saw--' + +When you have got so far, look into the water, and at the same moment +you will see the Brownie, and think of a word that will fill up the +couplet, and rhyme with the first line. If either you do not see the +Brownie, or fail to think of the word, it will be of no use." + +"Is the Brownie a merman," said Tommy, wriggling himself along the +beam, "that he lives under water?" + +"That depends on whether he has a fish's tail," said the Owl, "and +this you can discover for yourself." + +"Well, the moon is shining, so I shall go," said Tommy. "Good-bye, and +thank you, Ma'am;" and he jumped down and went, saying to himself as +he ran, "I believe he is a merman all the same, or else how could he +live in the mere? I know more about Brownies than Granny does, and I +shall tell her so;" for Tommy was somewhat opinionated, like other +young people. + +The moon shone very brightly on the centre of the mere. Tommy knew the +place well for there was a fine echo there. Round the edge grew rushes +and water plants, which cast a border of shadow. Tommy went to the +north side, and turning himself three times, as the Old Owl had told +him, he repeated the charm-- + + "Twist me and turn me, and show me the Elf-- + I looked in the water, and saw--" + +Now for it! He looked in, and saw--the reflection of his own face. + +"Why, there's no one but myself!" said Tommy. "And what can the word +be? I must have done it wrong." + +"Wrong!" said the Echo. + +Tommy was almost surprised to find the echo awake at this time of +night. + +"Hold your tongue!" said he. "Matters are provoking enough of +themselves. Belf! Celf! Delf! Felf! Gelf! Helf! Jelf! What rubbish! +There can't be a word to fit it. And then to look for a Brownie, and +see nothing but myself!" + +"Myself," said the Echo. + +"Will you be quiet?" said Tommy. "If you would tell one the word there +would be some sense in your interference; but to roar 'Myself!' at +one, which neither rhymes nor runs--it does rhyme though, as it +happens," he added; "and how very odd! it runs too-- + + 'Twist me, and turn me, and show me the Elf; + I looked in the water, and saw myself,' + +which I certainly did. What can it mean? The Old Owl knows, as Granny +would say; so I shall go back and ask her." + +"Ask her!" said the Echo. + +"Didn't I say I should?" said Tommy. "How exasperating you are! It is +very strange. _Myself_ certainly does rhyme, and I wonder I did not +think of it long ago." + +"Go," said the Echo. + +"Will you mind your own business, and go to sleep?" said Tommy. "I am +going; I said I should." + +And back he went. There sat the Old Owl as before. + +"Oohoo!" said she, as Tommy climbed up. "What did you see in the +mere?" + +"I saw nothing but myself," said Tommy indignantly. + +"And what did you expect to see?" asked the Owl. + +"I expected to see a Brownie," said Tommy; "you told me so." + +"And what are Brownies like, pray?" inquired the Owl. + +"The one Granny knew was a useful little fellow, something like a +little man," said Tommy. + +"Ah!" said the Owl, "but you know at present this one is an idle +little fellow, something like a little man. Oohoo! oohoo! Are you +quite sure you didn't see him?" + +"Quite," answered Tommy sharply. "I saw no one but myself." + +"Hoot! toot! How touchy we are! And who are you, pray?" + +"I am not a Brownie," said Tommy. + +"Don't be too sure," said the Owl. "Did you find out the word?" + +"No," said Tommy. "I could find no word with any meaning that would +rhyme but 'myself.'" + +"Well, that runs and rhymes," said the Owl. "What do you want? Where's +your brother now?" + +"In bed in the malt-loft," said Tommy. + +"Then now all your questions are answered," said the Owl, "and you +know what wants doing, so go and do it. Good-night, or rather +good-morning, for it is long past midnight;" and the old lady began to +shake her feathers for a start. + +"Don't go yet, please," said Tommy humbly. "I don't understand it. You +know I'm not a Brownie, am I?" + +"Yes, you are," said the Owl, "and a very idle one too. All children +are Brownies." + +"But I couldn't do work like a Brownie," said Tommy. + +"Why not?" inquired the Owl. "Couldn't you sweep the floor, light the +fire, spread the table, tidy the room, fetch the turf, pick up your +own chips, and sort your grandmother's scraps? You know 'there's lots +to do.'" + +"But I don't think I should like it," said Tommy. "I'd much rather +have a Brownie to do it for me." + +"And what would you do meanwhile?" asked the Owl. "Be idle, I suppose; +and what do you suppose is the use of a man's having children if they +do nothing to help him? Ah! if they only knew how every one would love +them if they made themselves useful!" + +"But is it really and truly so?" asked Tommy, in a dismal voice. "Are +there no Brownies but children?" + +"No, there are not," said the owl. "And pray do you think that the +Brownies, whoever they may be, come into a house to save trouble for +the idle healthy little boys who live in it? Listen to me, Tommy," +said the old lady, her eyes shooting rays of fire in the dark corner +where she sat. "Listen to me, you are a clever boy, and can understand +when one speaks; so I will tell you the whole history of the Brownies, +as it has been handed down in our family from my grandmother's +great-grandmother, who lived in the Druid's Oak, and was intimate with +the fairies. And when I have done you shall tell me what you think +they are, if they are not children. It's the opinion I have come to +at any rate, and I don't think that wisdom died with our +great-grandmothers." + +"I should like to hear if you please," said Tommy. + +The Old Owl shook out a tuft or two of fluff, and set her eyes +a-going, and began: + +"The Brownies, or as they are sometimes called, the Small Folk, the +Little People, or the Good People, are a race of tiny beings who +domesticate themselves in a house of which some grown-up human being +pays the rent and taxes. They are like small editions of men and +women, they are too small and fragile for heavy work; they have not +the strength of a man, but are a thousand times more fresh and nimble. +They can run and jump, and roll and tumble, with marvellous agility +and endurance, and of many of the aches and pains which men and women +groan under, they do not even know the names. They have no trade or +profession, and as they live entirely upon other people, they know +nothing of domestic cares; in fact, they know very little upon any +subject, though they are often intelligent and highly inquisitive. +They love dainties, play, and mischief. They are apt to be greatly +beloved, and are themselves capriciously affectionate. They are little +people, and can only do little things. When they are idle and +mischievous, they are called Boggarts, and are a curse to the house +they live in. When they are useful and considerate, they are Brownies, +and are a much-coveted blessing. Sometimes the Blessed Brownies will +take up their abode with some worthy couple, cheer them with their +romps and merry laughter, tidy the house, find things that have been +lost, and take little troubles out of hands full of great anxieties. +Then in time these Little People are Brownies no longer. They grow up +into men and women. They do not care so much for dainties, play, or +mischief. They cease to jump and tumble, and roll about the house. +They know more, and laugh less. Then, when their heads begin to ache +with anxiety, and they have to labor for their own living, and the +great cares of life come on, other Brownies come and live with them, +and take up their little cares, and supply their little comforts, and +make the house merry once more." + +"How nice!" said Tommy. + +"Very nice," said the Old Owl. "But what"--and she shook herself more +fiercely than ever, and glared so that Tommy expected nothing less +than her eyes would set fire to her feathers and she would be burnt +alive. "But what must I say of the Boggarts? Those idle urchins who +eat the bread and milk, and don't do the work, who lie in bed without +an ache or pain to excuse them, who untidy instead of tidying, cause +work instead of doing it, and leave little cares to heap on big cares, +till the old people who support them are worn out altogether." + +"Don't!" said Tommy. "I can't bear it." + +"I hope when Boggarts grow into men," said the Old Owl, "that their +children will be Boggarts too, and then they'll know what it is!" + +"Don't!" roared Tommy. "I won't be a Boggart. I'll be a Brownie." + +"That's right," nodded the Old Owl. "I said you were a boy who could +understand when one spoke. And remember that the Brownies never are +seen at their work. They get up before the household, and get away +before any one can see them. I can't tell you why. I don't think my +grandmother's great-grandmother knew. Perhaps because all good deeds +are better done in secret." + +"Please," said Tommy, "I should like to go home now, and tell Johnnie. +It's getting cold, and I am so tired!" + +"Very true," said the Old Owl, "and then you will have to be up early +to-morrow. I think I had better take you home." + +"I know the way, thank you," said Tommy. + +"I didn't say _shew_ you the way, I said _take_ you--carry you," said +the Owl. "Lean against me." + +"I'd rather not, thank you," said Tommy. + +"Lean against me," screamed the Owl. "Oohoo! how obstinate boys are to +be sure!" + +Tommy crept up, very unwillingly. + +"Lean your full weight, and shut your eyes," said the Owl. + +Tommy laid his head against the Old Owl's feathers, had a vague idea that +she smelt of heather, and thought it must be from living on the moor, shut +his eyes, and leant his full weight, expecting that he and the Owl would +certainly fall off the beam together. Down--feathers--fluff--he sank and +sank, could feel nothing solid, jumped up with a start to save himself, +opened his eyes, and found that he was sitting among the heather in the +malt-loft, with Johnnie sleeping by his side. + +"How quickly we came!" said he; "that is certainly a very clever Old +Owl. I couldn't have counted ten whilst my eyes were shut. How very +odd!" + +But what was odder still was, that it was no longer moonlight but +early dawn. + +"Get up, Johnnie," said his brother, "I've got a story to tell you." + +And while Johnnie sat up, and rubbed his eyes open, he related his +adventures on the moor. + +"Is all that true?" said Johnnie. "I mean, did it really happen?" + +"Of course it did," said his brother; "don't you believe it?" + +"Oh yes," said Johnnie. "But I thought it was perhaps only a true +story, like Granny's true stories. I believe all those, you know. But +if you were there, you know, it is different--" + +"I was there," said Tommy, "and it's all just as I tell you: and I +tell you what, if we mean to do anything we must get up: though, oh +dear! I should like to stay in bed. I say," he added, after a pause, +"suppose we do. It can't matter being Boggarts for one night more. I +mean to be a Brownie before I grow up, though. I couldn't stand +boggarty children." + +"I won't be a Boggart at all," said Johnnie, "It's horrid. But I don't +see how we can be Brownies, for I'm afraid we can't do the things. I +wish I were bigger!" + +"I can do it well enough," said Tommy, following his brother's example +and getting up. "Don't you suppose I can light a fire? Think of all the +bonfires we have made! And I don't think I should mind having a regular +good tidy-up either. It's that stupid +putting-away-things-when-you've-done-with-them that I hate so!" + +The Brownies crept softly down the ladder and into the kitchen. There +was the blank hearth, the dirty floor, and all the odds and ends lying +about, looking cheerless enough in the dim light, Tommy felt quite +important as he looked round. There is no such cure for untidiness as +clearing up after other people; one sees so clearly where the fault +lies. + +"Look at that door-step, Johnnie," said the Brownie-elect, "what a +mess you made of it! If you had lifted the moss carefully, instead of +stamping and struggling with it, it would have saved us ten minutes' +work this morning." + +This wisdom could not be gainsaid, and Johnnie only looked meek and +rueful. + +"I am going to light the fire," pursued his brother;--"the next turfs, +you know, _we_ must get--you can tidy a bit. Look at that knife I gave +you to hold last night, and that wood--that's my fault though, and so +are those scraps by Granny's chair. What are you grubbing at that +rat-hole for?" + +Johnnie raised his head somewhat flushed and tumbled. + +"What do you think I have found?" said he triumphantly. "Father's +measure that has been lost for a week!" + +"Hurrah!" said Tommy, "put it by his things. That's just a sort of +thing for a Brownie to have done. What will he say? And I say, +Johnnie, when you've tidied, just go and grub up a potato or two in +the garden, and I'll put them to roast for breakfast. I'm lighting +such a bonfire!" + +The fire was very successful. Johnnie went after the potatoes, and +Tommy cleaned the door-step, swept the room, dusted the chairs and the +old chest, and set out the table. There was no doubt he could be handy +when he chose. + +"I'll tell you what I have thought of, if we have time," said Johnnie, +as he washed the potatoes in the water that had been set for Brownie. +"We might run down to the South Pasture for some mushrooms. Father +said the reason we found so few was that people go by sunrise for them +to take to market. The sun's only just rising, we should be sure to +find some, and they would do for breakfast." + +"There's plenty of time," said Tommy; so they went. The dew lay heavy +and thick upon the grass by the road side, and over the miles of +network that the spiders had woven from blossom to blossom of the +heather. The dew is the Sun's breakfast; but he was barely up yet, and +had not eaten it, and the world felt anything but warm. Nevertheless, +it was so sweet and fresh as it is at no later hour of the day, and +every sound was like the returning voice of a long absent friend. Down +to the pastures, where was more network and more dew, but when one has +nothing to speak of in the way of boots, the state of the ground is of +the less consequence. + +The Tailor had been right, there was no lack of mushrooms at this time +of the morning. All over the pasture they stood, of all sizes, some +like buttons, some like tables; and in the distance one or two ragged +women, stooping over them with baskets, looked like huge fungi also. + +"This is where the fairies feast," said Tommy. "They had a large party +last night. When they go, they take away the dishes and cups, for they +are made of gold; but they leave their tables, and we eat them." + +"I wonder whether giants would like to eat our tables," said Johnnie. + +This was beyond Tommy's capabilities of surmise; so they filled a +handkerchief, and hurried back again for fear the Tailor should have +come down-stairs. + +They were depositing the last mushroom in a dish on the table, when +his footsteps were heard descending. + +"There he is!" exclaimed Tommy. "Remember, we musn't be caught. Run +back to bed." + +Johnnie caught up the handkerchief, and smothering their laughter, the +two scrambled back up the ladder, and dashed straight into the +heather. + +Meanwhile the poor Tailor came wearily down-stairs. Day after day, +since his wife's death, he had come down every morning to the same +desolate sight--yesterday's refuse and an empty hearth. This morning +task of tidying was always a sad and ungrateful one to the widowed +father. His awkward struggles with the house-work in which _she_ had +been so notable, chafed him. The dirty kitchen was dreary, the labor +lonely, and it was an hour's time lost to his trade. But life does not +stand still while one is wishing, and so the Tailor did that for which +there was neither remedy nor substitute; and came down this morning as +other mornings to the pail and broom. When he came in he looked round, +and started, and rubbed his eyes; looked round again, and rubbed them +harder; then went up to the fire and held out his hand, (warm +certainly)--then up to the table and smelt the mushrooms, (esculent +fungi beyond a doubt)--handled the loaf, stared at the open door and +window, the swept floor, and the sunshine pouring in, and finally sat +down in stunned admiration. Then he jumped up and ran to the foot of +the stairs, shouting,-- + +"Mother! Mother! Trout's luck has come again." "And yet, no!" he +thought, "the old lady's asleep, it's a shame to wake her, I'll tell +those idle rascally lads, they'll be more pleased than they deserve. +It was Tommy after all that set the water and caught him." "Boys! +boys!" he shouted at the foot of the ladder, "the Brownie has +come!--and if he hasn't found my measure!" he added on returning to +the kitchen, "this is as good as a day's work to me." + +There was great excitement in the small household that day. The boys +kept their own counsel. The old Grandmother was triumphant, and tried +not to seem surprised. The Tailor made no such vain effort, and +remained till bed-time in a state of fresh and unconcealed amazement. + +"I've often heard of the Good People," he broke out towards the end of +the evening. "And I've heard folk say they've known those that have +seen them capering round the gray rocks on the moor at midnight: but +this is wonderful! To come and do the work for a pan of cold water! +Who could have believed it?" + +"You might have believed it if you'd believed me, Son Thomas," said +the old lady tossily. "I told you so. But young people always know +better than their elders!" + +"I didn't see him," said the Tailor, beginning his story afresh; "but +I thought as I came in I heard a sort of laughing and rustling." + +"My mother said they often heard him playing and laughing about the +house," said the old lady. "I told you so." + +"Well, he shan't want for a bowl of bread and milk to-morrow, anyhow," +said the Tailor, "if I have to stick to Farmer Swede's waistcoat till +midnight." + +But the waistcoat was finished by bed-time, and the Tailor set the +bread and milk himself, and went to rest. + +"I say," said Tommy, when both the boys were in bed, "the Old Owl was +right, and we must stick to it. But I'll tell you what I don't like, +and that is, father thinking we're idle still. I wish he knew we were +the Brownies." + +"So do I," said Johnnie; and he sighed. + +"I tell you what," said Tommy, with the decisiveness of elder +brotherhood, "we'll keep quiet for a bit for fear we should leave off; +but when we've gone on a good while, I shall tell him. It was only the +Old Owl's grandmother's great-grandmother who said it was to be kept +secret, and the Old Owl herself said grandmothers were not always in +the right." + +"No more they are," said Johnnie; "look at Granny about this." + +"I know," said Tommy. "She's in a regular muddle." + +"So she is," said Johnnie. "But that's rather fun, I think." + +And they went to sleep. + +Day after day went by, and still the Brownies "stuck to it," and did +their work. It is no such very hard matter after all to get up early +when one is young and light-hearted, and sleeps upon heather in a loft +without window-blind, and with so many broken window-panes that the +air comes freely in. In old times the boys used to play at tents among +the heather, while the Tailor did the house-work; now they came down +and did it for him. + +Size is not everything, even in this material existence. One has heard +of dwarfs who were quite as clever, (not to say as powerful,) as +giants, and I do not fancy that Fairy Godmothers are ever very large. +It is wonderful what a comfort Brownies may be in the house that is +fortunate enough to hold them! The Tailor's Brownies were the joy of +his life; and day after day they seemed to grow more and more +ingenious in finding little things to do for his good. + +Now-a-days Granny never picked a scrap for herself. One day's +shearings were all neatly arranged the next morning, and laid by her +knitting-pins; and the Tailor's tape and shears were no more absent +without leave. + +One day a message came to him to offer him two or three days' +tailoring in a farm-house some miles up the valley. This was pleasant +and advantageous sort of work; good food, sure pay, and a cheerful +change; but he did not know how he could leave his family, unless, +indeed, the Brownie might be relied upon to "keep the house together," +as they say. The boys were sure that he would, and they promised to +set his water, and to give as little trouble as possible; so, finally, +the Tailor took up his shears and went up the valley, where the green +banks sloped up into purple moor, or broke into sandy rocks, crowned +with nodding oak fern. On to the prosperous old farm, where he spent a +very pleasant time, sitting level with the window geraniums on a table +set apart for him, stitching and gossiping, gossiping and stitching, +and feeling secure of honest payment when his work was done. The +mistress of the house was a kind good creature, and loved a chat; and +though the Tailor kept his own secret as to the Brownies, he felt +rather curious to know if the Good People had any hand in the comfort +of this flourishing household, and watched his opportunity to make a +few careless inquiries on the subject. + +"Brownies?" laughed the dame. "Ay, Master, I have heard of them. When +I was a girl, in service at the old hall, on Cowberry Edge, I heard a +good deal of one they said had lived there in former times. He did +house-work as well as a woman, and a good deal quicker, they said. One +night one of the young ladies (that were then, they're all dead now,) +hid herself in a cupboard, to see what he was like." + +"And what was he like?" inquired the Tailor, as composedly as he was +able. + +"A little fellow, they said;" answered the Farmer's wife, knitting +calmly on. "Like a dwarf, you know, with a largish head for his body. +Not taller than--why, my Bill, or your eldest boy, perhaps. And he was +dressed in rags, with an old cloak on, and stamping with passion at a +cobweb he couldn't get at with his broom. They've very uncertain +tempers, they say. Tears one minute, and laughing the next." + +"You never had one here, I suppose?" said the Tailor. + +"Not we," she answered; "and I think I'd rather not. They're not canny +after all; and my master and me have always been used to work, and +we've sons and daughters to help us, and that's better than meddling +with the Fairies, to my mind. No! no!" she added, laughing, "If we had +had one you'd have heard of it, whoever didn't, for I should have had +some decent clothes made for him. I couldn't stand rags and old +cloaks, messing and moth-catching in my house." + +"They say it's not lucky to give them clothes, though," said the +Tailor; "they don't like it." + +"Tell me!" said the dame, "as if any one that liked a tidy room, +wouldn't like tidy clothes, if they could get them. No! no! when we +have one, you shall take his measure, I promise you." + +And this was all the Tailor got out of her on the subject. When his +work was finished, the Farmer paid him at once; and the good dame +added half a cheese, and a bottle-green coat. + +"That has been laid by for being too small for the master now he's so +stout," she said; "but except for a stain or two it's good enough, and +will cut up like new for one of the lads." + +The Tailor thanked them, and said farewell, and went home. Down the +valley, where the river, wandering between the green banks and the +sandy rocks, was caught by giant mosses, and bands of fairy fern, and +there choked and struggled, and at last barely escaped with an +existence, and ran away in a diminished stream. On up the purple hills +to the old ruined house. As he came in at the gate he was struck by +some idea of change, and looking again, he saw that the garden had +been weeded, and was comparatively tidy. The truth is, that Tommy and +Johnnie had taken advantage of the Tailor's absence to do some +Brownie's work in the day-time. + +"It's that Blessed Brownie!" said the Tailor. "Has he been as usual?" +he asked, when he was in the house. + +"To be sure," said the old lady; "all has been well, Son Thomas." + +"I'll tell you what it is," said the Tailor, after a pause. "I'm a +needy man, but I hope I'm not ungrateful. I can never repay the +Brownie for what he has done for me and mine; but the mistress up +yonder has given me a bottle-green coat that will cut up as good as +new; and as sure as there's a Brownie in this house, I'll make him a +suit of it." + +"You'll _what?_" shrieked the old lady. "Son Thomas, Son Thomas, +you're mad! Do what you please for the Brownies, but never make them +clothes." + +"There's nothing they want more," said the Tailor, "by all accounts. +They're all in rags, as well they may be, doing so much work." + +"If you make clothes for this Brownie, he'll go for good," said the +Grandmother, in a voice of awful warning. + +"Well, I don't know," said her son. "The mistress up at the farm is +clever enough, I can tell you; and as she said to me, fancy any one +that likes a tidy room, not liking a tidy coat!" For the Tailor, like +most men, was apt to think well of the wisdom of woman-kind in other +houses. + +"Well, well," said the old lady, "go your own way. I'm an old woman, +and my time is not long. It doesn't matter much to me. But it was new +clothes that drove the Brownie out before, and Trout's luck went with +him." + +"I know, Mother," said the Tailor, "and I've been thinking of it all +the way home; and I can tell you why it was. Depend upon it, _the +clothes didn't fit_. But I'll tell you what I mean to do. I shall +measure them by Tommy--they say the Brownies are about his size--and +if ever I turned out a well-made coat and waistcoat, they shall be +his." + +"Please yourself," said the old lady, and she would say no more. + +"I think you're quite right, Father," said Tommy, "and if I can, I'll +help you to make them." + +Next day the father and son set to work, and Tommy contrived to make +himself so useful, that the Tailor hardly knew how he got through so +much work. + +"It's not like the same thing," he broke out at last, "to have some +one a bit helpful about you; both for the tailoring and for company's +sake. I've not done such a pleasant morning's work since your poor +mother died. I'll tell you what it is, Tommy," he added, "if you were +always like this, I shouldn't much care whether Brownie stayed or +went. I'd give up his help to have yours." + +"I'll be back directly," said Tommy, who burst out of the room in +search of his brother. + +"I've come away," he said squatting down, "because I can't bear it. I +very nearly let it all out, and I shall soon. I wish the things +weren't going to come to me," he added, kicking a stone in front of +him. "I wish he'd measured you, Johnnie." + +"I'm very glad he didn't," said Johnnie. "I wish he'd kept them +himself." + +"Bottle-green, with brass buttons," murmured Tommy, and therewith fell +into a reverie. + +The next night the suit was finished, and laid by the bread and milk. + +"We shall see," said the old lady, in a withering tone. There is not +much real prophetic wisdom in this truism, but it sounds very awful, +and the Tailor went to bed somewhat depressed. + +Next morning the Brownies came down as usual. + +"Don't they look splendid?" said Tommy, feeling the cloth. "When we've +tidied the place I shall put them on." + +But long before the place was tidy, he could wait no longer, and +dressed up. + +"Look at me!" he shouted; "bottle-green and brass buttons! Oh, +Johnnie, I wish you had some." + +"It's a good thing there are two Brownies," said Johnnie, laughing, +"and one of them in rags still. I shall do the work this morning." And +he went flourishing round with a broom, while Tommy jumped madly +about in his new suit. "Hurrah!" he shouted, "I feel just like the +Brownie. What was it Grannie said he sang when he got his clothes? Oh, +I know-- + + 'What have we here? Hemten hamten, + Here will I never more tread nor stampen.'" + +And on he danced, regardless of the clouds of dust raised by Johnnie, +as he drove the broom indiscriminately over the floor, to the tune of +his own laughter. + +It was laughter which roused the Tailor that morning, laughter coming +through the floor from the kitchen below. He scrambled on his things +and stole down-stairs. + +"It's the Brownie," he thought; "I must look, if it's for the last +time." + +At the door he paused and listened. The laughter was mixed with +singing, and he heard the words-- + + "What have we here? Hemten hamten, + Here will I never more tread nor stampen." + +He pushed in, and this was the sight that met his eyes: + +The kitchen in its primeval condition of chaos, the untidy particulars +of which were the less apparent, as everything was more or less +obscured by the clouds of dust, where Johnnie reigned triumphant, like +a witch with her broomstick; and, to crown all, Tommy capering and +singing in the Brownie's bottle-green suit, brass buttons and all. + +"What's this?" shouted the astonished Tailor, when he could find +breath to speak. + +"It's the Brownies," sang the boys; and on they danced, for they had +worked themselves up into a state of excitement from which it was not +easy to settle down. + +"Where _is_ Brownie?" shouted the father. + +"He's here," said Tommy; "we are the Brownies." + +"Can't you stop that fooling?" cried the Tailor, angrily. "This is +past a joke. Where is the real Brownie, I say?" + +"We are the only Brownies, really, father," said Tommy, coming to a +full stop, and feeling strongly tempted to run down from laughing to +crying. "Ask the Old Owl. It's true, really." + +The Tailor saw the boy was in earnest, and passed his hand over his +forehead. + +"I suppose I'm getting old," he said; "I can't see daylight through +this. If you are the Brownie, who has been tidying the kitchen +lately?" + +"We have," said they. + +"But who found my measure?" + +"I did," said Johnnie. + +"And who sorts your grandmother's scraps?" + +"We do," said they. + +"And who sets breakfast, and puts my things in order?" + +"We do," said they. + +"But when do you do it?" asked the Tailor. + +"Before you come down," said they. + +"But I always have to call you," said the Tailor. + +"We get back to bed again," said the boys. + +"But how was it you never did it before?" asked the Tailor doubtfully. + +"We were idle, we were idle," said Tommy. + +The Tailor's voice rose to a pitch of desperation-- + +"But if you do the work," he shouted, "_Where is the Brownie?_" + +"Here!" cried the boys, "and we are very sorry we were Boggarts so +long." + +With which the father and sons fell into each other's arms and fairly +wept. + + * * * * * + +It will be believed that to explain all this to the Grandmother was +not the work of a moment. She understood it all at last, however, and +the Tailor could not restrain a little good-humored triumph on the +subject. Before he went to work he settled her down in the window with +her knitting, and kissed her. + +"What do you think of it all, Mother?" he inquired. + +"Bairns are a blessing," said the old lady tartly, "_I told you so._" + + * * * * * + +"That's not the end, is it?" asked one of the boys in a tone of +dismay, for the Doctor had paused here. + +"Yes it is," said he. + +"But couldn't you make a little more end?" asked Deordie, "to tell us +what became of them all?" + +"I don't see what there is to tell," said the Doctor. + +"Why, there's whether they ever saw the Old Owl again, and whether +Tommy and Johnnie went on being Brownies," said the children. + +The Doctor laughed. + +"Well, be quiet for five minutes," he said. + +"We'll be as quiet as mice," said the children. + +And as quiet as mice they were. Very like mice, indeed. Very like mice +behind a wainscot at night, when you have just thrown something to +frighten them away. Death-like stillness for a few seconds, and then +all the rustling and scuffling you please. So the children sat holding +their breath for a moment or two, and then shuffling feet and +smothered bursts of laughter testified to their impatience, and to the +difficulty of understanding the process of story-making as displayed +by the Doctor, who sat pulling his beard, and staring at his boots, as +he made up "a little more end." + +"Well," he said, sitting up suddenly, "the Brownies went on with their +work in spite of the bottle-green suit, and Trout's luck returned to +the old house once more. Before long Tommy began to work for the +farmers, and Baby grew up into a Brownie, and made (as girls are apt +to make) the best house-sprite of all. For, in the Brownie habits of +self-denial, thoughtfulness, consideration, and the art of little +kindnesses, boys are, I am afraid, as a general rule, somewhat +behindhand with their sisters. Whether this altogether proceeds from +constitutional deficiency on these points in the masculine character, +or is one result among many of the code of by-laws which obtains in +men's moral education from the cradle, is a question on which +everybody has their own opinion. For the present the young gentlemen +may appropriate whichever theory they prefer, and we will go back to +the story. The Tailor lived to see his boy-Brownies become men, with +all the cares of a prosperous farm on their hands, and his +girl-Brownie carry her fairy talents into another home. For these +Brownies--young ladies!--are much desired as wives, whereas a man +might as well marry an old witch as a young Boggartess." + +"And about the Owl?" clamored the children, rather resentful of the +Doctor's pausing to take breath. + +"Of course," he continued, "the Tailor heard the whole story, and +being both anxious to thank the Old Owl for her friendly offices, and +also rather curious to see and hear her, he went with the boys one +night at moon-rise to the shed by the mere. It was earlier in the +evening than when Tommy went, for before daylight had vanished--and at +the first appearance of the moon, the impatient Tailor was at the +place. There they found the Owl, looking very solemn and stately on +the beam. She was sitting among the shadows with her shoulders up, and +she fixed her eyes so steadily on the Tailor, that he felt quite +overpowered. He made her a civil bow, however, and said-- + +"I'm much obliged to you, Ma'am, for your good advice to my Tommy." + +The Owl blinked sharply, as if she grudged shutting her eyes for an +instant, and then stared on, but not a word spoke she. + +"I don't mean to intrude, Ma'am," said the Tailor; "but I was wishful +to pay my respects and gratitude." + +Still the Owl gazed in determined silence. + +"Don't you remember me?" said Tommy pitifully. "I did everything you +told me. Won't you even say good-bye?" and he went up towards her. + +The Owl's eyes contracted, she shuddered a few tufts of fluff into the +shed, shook her wings, and shouting "Oohoo!" at the top of her voice, +flew out upon the moor. The Tailor and his sons rushed out to watch +her. They could see her clearly against the green twilight sky, +flapping rapidly away with her round face to the pale moon. +"Good-bye!" they shouted as she disappeared; first the departing owl, +then a shadowy body with flapping sails, then two wings beating the +same measured time, then two moving lines still to the old tune, then +a stroke, a fancy, and then--the green sky and the pale moon, but the +Old Owl was gone. + +"Did she never come back?" asked Tiny in subdued tones, for the Doctor +had paused again. + +"No," said he; "at least not to the shed by the mere. Tommy saw many +owls after this in the course of his life; but as none of them would +speak, and as most of them were addicted to the unconventional customs +of staring and winking, he could not distinguish his friend, if she +were among them. And now I think that is all." + +"Is that the very very end?" asked Tiny. + +"The very very end," said the Doctor. + +"I suppose there might be more and more ends," speculated +Deordie--"about whether the Brownies had any children when they grew +into farmers, and whether the children were Brownies, and whether +_they_ had other Brownies, and so on and on." And Deordie rocked +himself among the geraniums, in the luxurious imagining of an endless +fairy tale. + +"You insatiable rascal!" said the Doctor. "Not another word. Jump up, +for I'm going to see you home. I have to be off early to-morrow." + +"Where?" said Deordie. + +"Never mind. I shall be away all day, and I want to be at home in good +time in the evening, for I mean to attack that crop of groundsel +between the sweet-pea hedges. You know, no Brownies come to my +homestead!" + +And the Doctor's mouth twitched a little till he fixed it into a stiff +smile. + +The children tried hard to extract some more ends out of him on the +way to the Rectory; but he declined to pursue the history of the Trout +family through indefinite generations. It was decided on all hands, +however, that Tommy Trout was evidently one and the same with the +Tommy Trout who pulled the cat out of the well, because "it was just a +sort of thing for a Brownie to do, you know!" and that Johnnie Green +(who, of course, was not Johnnie Trout,) was some unworthy village +acquaintance, and "a thorough Boggart." + +"Doctor!" said Tiny, as they stood by the garden-gate, "how long do +you think gentlemen's pocket handkerchiefs take to wear out?" + +"That, my dear Madam," said the Doctor, "must depend, like other +terrestrial matters, upon circumstances; whether the gentleman bought +fine cambric, or coarse cotton with pink portraits of the reigning +Sovereign, to commence with; whether he catches many colds, has his +pocket picked, takes snuff, or allows his washerwoman to use washing +powders. But why do you want to know?" + +"I shan't tell you that," said Tiny, who was spoilt by the Doctor, and +consequently tyrannized in proportion; "but I will tell you what I +mean to do. I mean to tell Mother that when Father wants any more +pocket handkerchiefs hemmed, she had better put them by the bath in +the nursery, and perhaps some Brownie will come and do them." + +"Kiss my fluffy face!" said the Doctor in sepulchral tones. + +"The owl is too high up," said Tiny, tossing her head. + +The Doctor lifted her four feet or so, obtained his kiss, and set her +down again. + +"You're not fluffy at all," said she in a tone of the utmost contempt; +"you're tickly and bristly. Puss is more fluffy, and Father is scrubby +and scratchy, because he shaves." + +"And which of the three styles do you prefer?" said the Doctor. + +"Not tickly and bristly," said Tiny with firmness; and she strutted up +the walk for a pace or two, and then turned round to laugh over her +shoulder. + +"Good-night!" shouted her victim, shaking his fist after her. + +The other children took a noisy farewell, and they all raced into the +house, to give joint versions of the fairy tale, first to the parents +in the drawing-room, and then to nurse in the nursery. + +The Doctor went home also, with his poodle at his heels, but not by +the way he came. He went out of his way, which was odd; but then the +Doctor was "a little odd," and moreover this was always the end of his +evening walk. Through the churchyard, where spreading cedars and stiff +yews rose from the velvet grass, and where among tombstones and +crosses of various devices lay one of older and uglier date, by which +he stayed. It was framed by a border of the most brilliant flowers, +and it would seem as if the Doctor must have been the gardener, for he +picked off some dead ones, and put them absently in his pocket. Then +he looked round, as if to see that he was alone. Not a soul was to be +seen, and the moonlight and shadow lay quietly side by side, as the +dead do in their graves. The Doctor stooped down and took off his hat. + +"Good-night, Marcia," he said, in a low quiet voice. "Good-night, my +darling!" The dog licked his hand, but there was no voice to answer, +nor any that regarded. + +Poor foolish Doctor! Most foolish to speak to the departed with his +face earthwards. But we are weak mortals, the best of us; and this man +(one of the very best) raised his head at last, and went home like a +lonely owl with his face to the moon and the sky. + + +A BORROWED BROWNIE. + +"I can't imagine," said the Rector, walking into the drawing-room the +following afternoon, "I can't imagine where Tiny is. I want her to +drive to the other end of the parish with me." + +"There she comes," said his wife, looking out of the window, "by the +garden-gate, with a great basket; what has she been after?" + +The Rector went out to discover, and met his daughter looking +decidedly earthy, and seemingly much exhausted by the weight of a +basketful of groundsel plants. + +"Where have you been?" said he. + +"In the Doctor's garden," said Tiny triumphantly, "and look what I +have done! I've weeded his sweet-peas, and brought away the groundsel; +so when he gets home to-night he'll think a Brownie has been in the +garden, for Mrs. Pickles has promised not to tell him." + +"But look here!" said the Rector, affecting a great appearance of +severity, "you're my Brownie, not his. Supposing Tommy Trout had gone +and weeded Farmer Swede's garden, and brought back his weeds to go to +seed on the Tailor's flower-beds, how do you think he would have liked +it?" + +Tiny looked rather crestfallen. When one has fairly carried through a +splendid benevolence of this kind, it is trying to find oneself in the +wrong. She crept up to the Rector, however, and put her golden head +upon his arm. + +"But, Father dear," she pleaded, "I didn't mean not to be your +Brownie; only, you know, you had got five left at home, and it was +only for a short time, and the Doctor hasn't any Brownie at all. Don't +you pity him?" + +And the Rector, who was old enough to remember that grave-stone story +we wot of, hugged his Brownie in his arms, and answered-- + +"My Darling, I do pity him!" + + * * * * * + + + + + Handy Illustrated Volumes by popular authors, including + LOUISA M. ALCOTT, SUSAN COOLIDGE, _Nora Perry_, HELEN HUNT + JACKSON, LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON, JULIANA H. EWING, LAURA E. + RICHARDS, A. G. PLYMPTON, EDWARD EVERETT HALE, etc. Choicely + printed and attractively bound in cloth, with gold and ink + stamp on side. Issued at the popular price of 50 cents per + volume. + +[Illustration] + +Against Wind and Tide. By LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON, author of "Bed-Time +Stories," etc. + +A Hole in the Wall. By LOUISA M. ALCOTT, author of "Little Women," +etc. + +A Little Knight of Labor. By SUSAN COOLIDGE, author of "What Katy +Did," etc. + +Children's Hour. By MARY W. TILESTON, author of "Daily Strength for +Daily Needs," etc. + +Chop Chin and the Golden Dragon. By LAURA E. RICHARDS, author of "The +Joyous Story of Toto," etc. + +Cottage Neighbors. NORA PERRY, author of "Hope Benham," etc. + +Curly Locks. By SUSAN COOLIDGE. + +Daddy Darwin's Dovecot. By JULIANA H. EWING, author of "Jackanapes," +etc. + +Four of Them. By LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. + +Golden-Breasted Kootoo. By LAURA E. RICHARDS. + +Goostie. MARY CAROLINE HYDE, author of "Holly-Berry and Mistletoe." + +Hunter Cats of Connorloa. By HELEN HUNT JACKSON, author of "Nelly's +Silver Mine," etc. + +Jackanapes. JULIANA H. EWING. + +Little Olive the Heiress. By A. G. PLYMPTON, author of "Dear Daughter +Dorothy," etc. + +Man Without a Country. By EDWARD EVERETT HALE. + +Marjorie's Three Gifts. By LOUISA M. ALCOTT. + +May Flowers. LOUISA M. ALCOTT. + +Miss Toosey's Mission. + +Nonsense Songs. EDWARD LEAR. + +Rags and Velvet Gowns. By A. G. PLYMPTON. + +Story of a Short Life. By JULIANA H. EWING. + +Sundown Songs. By LAURA E. RICHARDS. + +That Little Smith Girl. By NORA PERRY. + +Under the Stable Floor. By MARY CAROLINE HYDE. + +Christmas at Tappan Sea. By MARY CAROLINE HYDE. + +May Bartlett's Stepmother. By NORA PERRY. + +Two Dogs and a Donkey. By A. G. PLYMPTON. + +Mary's Meadow. By JULIANA H. EWING. + +Book of Heroic Ballads. By MARY W. TILESTON. + +Golden Opportunity. By JEAN INGELOW, author of "Stories Told to a +Child," etc. + +Land of Lost Toys. By JULIANA H. EWING. + +Great Emergency. By JULIANA H. EWING. + +Two Girls. By SUSAN COOLIDGE. + +Little Tommy Tucker. By SUSAN COOLIDGE. + +Poppies and Wheat. By LOUISA M. ALCOTT. + +Candy Country. By LOUISA M. ALCOTT. + +Jessie's Neighbors. By LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. + +A Brave Coward. A. G. PLYMPTON. + +A Christmas Dream. By LOUISA M. ALCOTT. + +A Lost Hero. ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS and HERBERT D. WARD. + +Benjy in Beastland. By JULIANA H. EWING. + +Bruno. BYRD SPILMAN DEWEY. + +Fairy Favorites. By PERRAULT and MME. D'AULNOY. + +Her Baby Brother. By LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON. + +Ivanhoe and Rob Roy Retold for Children. Condensed from Scott, +by SIR EDWARD SULLIVAN. + +Ju Ju's Christmas Party. By NORA PERRY. + +Little Bo-Peep and Queen Blossom. By SUSAN COOLIDGE. + +Little Button Rose. By LOUISA M. ALCOTT. + +Once Upon a Time. By MME. D'AULNOY and PERRAULT. + +The Kingdom of Coins. By BRADLEY GILMAN. + +Uncle and Aunt. SUSAN COOLIDGE. + + +IN BOXED SETS BY AUTHORS + +The Louisa M. Alcott Library for Little People. 7 vols. $3.50. + +The Susan Coolidge Library for Little People. 6 vols. $3.00. + +The Juliana H. Ewing Library for Little People. 7 vols. $3.50. + +The Louise Chandler Moulton Library for Little People. 4 vols. $2.00. + +The Nora Perry Library for Little People. 4 vols. $2.00. + +The Laura E. Richards Library for Little People. 3 vols. $1.50. + +The A. G. Plympton Library for Little People. 4 vols. $2.00. + +Mary Caroline Hyde's Christmas Library. 3 vols. $1.50. + + * * * * * + + +LITTLE, BROWN, & CO. + +Publishers, 254 Washington Street, Boston + + * * * * * + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Land of Lost Toys, by Juliana Horatia Ewing + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAND OF LOST TOYS *** + +***** This file should be named 33880.txt or 33880.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/8/8/33880/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Chris Curnow, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +(This file was produced from images generously made +available by The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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