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diff --git a/34045-h/34045-h.htm b/34045-h/34045-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..51bbe9b --- /dev/null +++ b/34045-h/34045-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7108 @@ +<!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"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Christmas Child, by Mrs. Molesworth</title> +<style type="text/css"> + body {background:#fdfdfd; + color:black; + font-size: large; + margin-top:100px; + margin-left:15%; + margin-right:15%; + text-align:justify; } + h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {text-align: center; } + hr.minimal { width: 25%; + text-align: center; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; } + hr.tiny { width: 10%; + text-align: center; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + clear: both; } + hr { width: 100%; } + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 3px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + table {font-size: large; } + table.sm {font-size: medium; } + p {text-indent: 3%; } + .big { font-size: 130%} + .caption { font-size: small; + font-weight: bold; } + .center { text-align: center; } + img { border: 0; } + .ind1 { margin-left: 1em; } + .ind2 { margin-left: 2em; } + .ind3 { margin-left: 3em; } + ins { text-decoration: none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray;} + .nowrap { white-space: nowrap; } + .small { font-size: 70%; } + .smallcaps { font-variant: small-caps; } + .wide { letter-spacing: .15em; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red; + text-decoration: underline; } + + hr.pg { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 75%;} +</style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Christmas Child, by Mrs. Molesworth, +Illustrated by Walter Crane</h1> +<pre> +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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: A Christmas Child</p> +<p> A Sketch of a Boy-Life</p> +<p>Author: Mrs. Molesworth</p> +<p>Release Date: October 8, 2010 [eBook #34045]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS CHILD***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Paul Dring,<br /> + and the Online Distributed Proofreading Canada Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdpcanada.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="pg" /> +<p> </p> +<p><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a></p> +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="Illustration"> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <a href="images/frontis.jpg"> + <img src="images/frontis.jpg" height="450" + alt="Story of Sunny" /></a> + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="center"><span class="small">"The Story of Sunny."—<i>Frontispiece</i>.</span><br /> + <span class="caption">Click to <a href="images/frontis.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> +<h1>A CHRISTMAS CHILD</h1> + +<h2><i>A Sketch of a Boy-Life</i></h2> +<p> </p> + +<h6>BY</h6> + +<h3>MRS. MOLESWORTH</h3> + +<h5>AUTHOR OF<br /> +'CARROTS,' 'CUCKOO CLOCK,' ETC.</h5> + +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="Illustration"> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <a href="images/title_page.jpg"> + <img src="images/title_page.jpg" height="250" + alt="BOY SKATING" /></a> + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <span class="caption">Click to <a href="images/title_page.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<h5><span class="wide">ILLUSTRATED BY WALTER CRANE</span></h5> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">'O Christmas, merry Christmas!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="ind1">Is it really come again?</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">With its memories and greetings,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="ind1">With its joy and with its pain.'</span></td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> +<h4><i>London</i><br /> +<span class="wide">MACMILLAN AND CO.</span><br /> +1880</h4> +<p> </p> + +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="center">TO</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><span class="big"><i><b>The Two Friends</b></i></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">WHO WILL BEST UNDERSTAND THIS</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">SIMPLE LITTLE STORY</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">I DEDICATE IT</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">WITH MUCH AFFECTION<br /> + </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">Paris, <i>May</i> 1880.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="2" summary="Contents"> +<tr><th align="center" colspan="2">CONTENTS.</th></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</a> </td><td align="left" valign="top"><span class="smallcaps">Baby Ted</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</a> </td><td align="left" valign="top"><span class="smallcaps">In the Garden</span> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</a> </td><td align="left" valign="top"><span class="smallcaps">Wishes and Fears</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</a> </td><td align="left" valign="top"><span class="smallcaps">The Story of Sunny</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</a> </td><td align="left" valign="top"><span class="smallcaps">The Story of Sunny</span> (<i>Concluded</i>)</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</a> </td><td align="left" valign="top"><span class="smallcaps">Little Narcissa</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</a> </td><td align="left" valign="top"><span class="smallcaps">Getting Big</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a> </td><td align="left" valign="top">"<span class="smallcaps">Statistics</span>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</a> </td><td align="left" valign="top"><span class="smallcaps">A Peacock's Feather and a Kiss</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</a> </td><td align="left" valign="top"><span class="smallcaps">Some Rainy Adventures</span> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</a> </td><td align="left" valign="top">"<span class="smallcaps">It's only I, Mother</span>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</a> </td><td align="left" valign="top"><span class="smallcaps">The White Cross</span></td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="tiny" /> +<p> </p> +<div class="center"> +<table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="2" summary="Illustrations"> +<tr><th align="center">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.</th></tr> +<tr><td> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">"<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#frontis">The Story of Sunny</a></span>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">"<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#img032">I wish thoo'd let me help thoo to cut the Grass</a></span>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">"<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#img083">She hunted about among the Leaves and<br /> +Branches till she found a little silver +Knob</a></span>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">"<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#img098">Baby showed, or Ted <i>thought</i> she did, a quite<br /> +extraordinary Love for the Bouquets her<br /> +little Brother arranged for her</a></span>" </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">"<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#img133">Oh dear, oh dear!" cries Beauty, jumping up in a<br /> +Fright, "he's coming to eat me</a></span>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">"<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#img170">They were neatly tacked on to the Feather<br /> +Card, which had a very fine effect on the<br /> +Wall of the Museum</a></span>"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">"<span class="smallcaps"><a href="#img194">Master Ted, very wet indeed, made his<br /> +appearance with rosy cheeks and a<br /> +general look of self-satisfaction</a></span>" </td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h3> +<h4>BABY TED.</h4> +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">"Where did you get those eyes so blue?"</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left">"Out of the sky as I came through."</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Christmas week a good many years ago. Not an +"old-fashioned" Christmas this year, for there was no +snow or ice; the sky was clear and the air pure, but +yet without the sharp, bracing clearness and purity +that Master Jack Frost brings when he comes to see +us in one of his nice, bright, sunny humours. For he +has humours as well as other people—not only is he +fickle in the extreme, but even <i>black</i> sometimes, and +he is then, I can assure you, a most disagreeable +visitor. But this Christmas time he had taken it into +his head not to come at all, and the world looked +rather reproachful and disconcerted. The poor, bare +December world—it misses its snow garment, so +graciously hiding all imperfections revealed by the +absence of green grass and fluttering leaves; it misses, +too, its winter jewels of icicles and hoar frost. Poor +old world! What a great many Decembers you have +jogged through; no wonder you begin to feel that you +need a little dressing up and adorning, like a beauty +no longer as young as she has been. Yet ever-young +world, too! Who, that gazes at March's daffodils +and sweet April's primroses, can believe that the +world is growing old? Sometimes one could almost +wish that it would leave off being so exquisitely, so +heartlessly young. For the daffodils nod their golden +heads, the primroses smile up through their leafy +nests—year after year, they never fail us. But the +children that loved them so; the little feet that +trotted so eagerly down the lanes, the tiny hands that +gathered the flower-treasures with such delight—where +are they all? Men and women, some in far-off +lands, perhaps; or too wearied by cares and sorrows +to look for the spring flowers of long ago. And +some—the sweetest of all, <i>these</i> seem—farther away +still, and yet surely nearer? in the happier land, +whose flowers our fancy tries in vain to picture.</p> + +<p>But I am forgetting a little, I think, that I am +going to tell about a child to children, and that my +"tellings" begin, not in March or April, but at +Christmas-time. Christmas-time, fortunately, does +not depend on Jack Frost for <i>all</i> its pleasures. +Christmas-boxes are just as welcome without as with +his presence. And never was a Christmas-box more +welcome than one that came to a certain house by +the sea one twenty-sixth of December, now a good +many years ago.</p> + +<p>Yet it was not a very big present, nor a very uncommon +present. But it was very precious, and, to +<i>my</i> thinking, very, very pretty; for it was a wee baby +boy. Such a dear wee baby, I think you would have +called it; so neat and tiny, and with such nice baby-blue +eyes. Its hands and feet, especially, were very +delightful. "<i>Almost</i> as pretty as newly-hatched +ducklings, aren't they?" a little girl I know once said +of some baby feet that she was admiring, and I really +think she was right. No wonder was it, that the +happy people in the house by the sea were very proud +of their Christmas-box, that the baby's mother, especially, +thought there never was, never could be, anything +so sweet as her baby Ted.</p> + +<p>But poor baby Ted had not long to wait for his +share of the troubles which we are told come to all, +though it does seem as if some people, and children +too, had more than others. He was a very delicate +little baby. His mother did not notice it at first +because, you see, he was the first baby she had ever +had of her very own, and she was too pleased to think +him anything but perfect. And indeed he <i>was</i> perfect +of his kind, only there was so little of him! He +was like one of those very, very tiny little white +flowers that one has to hunt under the hedges for, and +which surprise you by their daintiness when you +look at them closely. Only such fragile daintiness +needs tender handling, and these little half-opened +buds sometimes shrink from the touch of even the +kindest of mothers and nurses, and gently fade out of +their sight to bloom in a sunnier and softer clime +than ours. And knowing this, a cold chill crept round +the heart of little Ted's mother when his nurse, who +was older and wiser than she, shook her head sadly +as she owned that he was about the tiniest baby she +had ever seen. But the cold chill did not stay there. +Ted, who was scarcely a month old, gave a sudden +smile of baby pleasure as she was anxiously looking +at him. He had caught sight of some bright flowers +on the wall, and his blue eyes had told him that the +proper thing to do was to smile at them. And his +smile was to his mother like the sun breaking through +a cloud.</p> + +<p>"I will not be afraid for my darling," said she. +"God knows what is best for him, but I think, I do +<i>think</i>, he will live to grow a healthy, happy boy. +How could a Christmas child be anything else?"</p> + +<p>And she was right. Day after day, week by +week, month after month, the wee man grew bigger +and stronger. It was not all smooth sailing, however. +He had to fight pretty hard for his little share of the +world and of life sometimes. And many a sad fit of +baby-crying made his mother's heart ache as she asked +herself if after all it might not be better for her poor +little boy to give up the battle which seemed so trying +to him. But no—that was not Master Ted's opinion +at all. He cried, and he would not go to sleep, +and he cried again. But all through the crying and +the restlessness he was growing stronger and bigger.</p> + +<p>"The world strikes me as not half a bad place. I +mean to look about me in it and see all that there is +to be seen," I could fancy his baby mind thinking to +itself, when he was held at his nursery window, and +his bright eyes gazed out unweariedly at the beautiful +sights to be seen from it—the mountains in the +distance lifting their grand old heads to the glorious +sky, which Ted looked as if he knew a good deal +about if he chose to tell; the sea near at hand with +its ever-changing charm and the white sails scudding +along in the sunlight. Ah yes, little Ted was in the +right—the world <i>is</i> a very pretty place, and a baby +boy whose special corner of it is where his was, is a +very lucky little person, notwithstanding the pains +and grievances of babyhood.</p> + +<p>And before long Ted's fits of crying became so +completely a thing of the past that it was really +difficult to believe in them. All his grumbling and +complaining and tears were got over in these first +few months. For "once he had got a start," as his +nurse called it, never was there a happier little fellow. +Everything came right to him, and the few clouds +that now and then floated over his skies but made +the sunshine seem the brighter.</p> + +<p>And day by day the world grew prettier and +pleasanter to him. It had been very pleasant to be +carried out in his nurse's arms or wheeled along in +his little carriage, but when it came to toddling on +the nice firm sands on his own sturdy legs, and sometimes—when +nurse would let him—going "kite kite +close" to the playful waves, and then jumping back +again when they "pertended," as he said, to wet his +little feet—ah, that was too delightful! And almost +more delightful still was it to pick up nice smooth +stones on the beach and try how far he could throw +them into the sea. The sea was <i>so</i> pretty and kind, +he thought. It was for a long time very difficult for +him to believe that it could ever be angry and raging +and wild, as he used to hear said, for of course on +wet or stormy days little Ted never went down to the +shore, but stayed at home in his own warm nursery.</p> + +<p>There were pretty shells and stones and seaweed +to be found on this delightful sea-shore. Ted was +too little to care much for such quiet business as +gathering stones and shells, but one day when he +was walking with his mother she stopped so often to +pick up and examine any that took her fancy, that at +last Ted's curiosity was awakened.</p> + +<p>"What is thoo doing?" he said gravely, as if not +quite sure that his mother was behaving correctly, +for <i>nurse</i> always told him to "walk on straight, there's +a good boy, Master Ted," and it was a little puzzling +to understand that mammas might do what little +boys must not. It was one of the puzzles which +Ted found there were a good many of in the world, +and which he had to think over a good deal in his +own mind before it grew clear to him. "What is +thoo doing?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I am looking for pretty stones to take home and +keep," replied his mother.</p> + +<p>"Pitty 'tones," repeated Ted, and then he said no +more, but some new ideas had wakened in his baby +mind.</p> + +<p>Nurse noticed that he was quieter than usual +that afternoon, for already Ted was a good deal of a +chatterbox. But his eyes looked bright, and plainly +he had some pleasant thought in his head. The next +day was fine, and he went off with nurse for his walk. +He looked a little anxious as they got to the turn +of the road, or rather to the joining of two roads, one +of which led to the sea, the other into country lanes.</p> + +<p>"Thoo is doing to the sea?" he inquired.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear," nurse replied, and Ted's face cleared. +When they got to the shore he trotted on quietly, +but his eyes were very busy, busier even than usual. +They looked about them in all directions, till at last +they spied what they wanted, and for half a minute +or so nurse did not notice that her little charge had +left her side and was lagging behind.</p> + +<p>"What are you about, Master Ted?" she said +hastily, as glancing round she saw him stooping +down—not that he had very far to stoop, poor little +man—and struggling to lift some object at his feet.</p> + +<p>"A 'tone," he cried, "a beauty big 'tone for Ted's +muzzer," lifting in his arms a big round stone—one +of the kind that as children we used to say had +dropped from the moon—which by its nice round +shape and speckledness had caught his eye. "Ted +will cally it hisself."</p> + +<p>And with a very red face, he lugged it manfully +along.</p> + +<p>"Let me help you with it, dear," said nurse.</p> + +<p>But "No, zank thoo," he replied firmly each time +that the offer was repeated. "Ted must cally it his +own self."</p> + +<p>And "cally" it he did, all the way. Nurse could +only succeed in getting him to put it down now and +then to rest a bit, as she said, for the stone was really +so big a one that she was afraid of it seriously tiring +his arms. More than once she pointed out prettier +and smaller stones, and tried to suggest that his +mother might like them quite as well, or better; but +no. The bigness, the heaviness even, was its charm; +to do something that cost him an effort for mother he +felt vaguely was his wish; the "lamp of sacrifice," of +<i>self</i>-sacrifice, had been lighted in his baby heart, never +again to be extinguished.</p> + +<p>And, oh, the happiness in that little heart when +at last he reached his mother's room, still lugging the +heavy stone, and laid it at her feet!</p> + +<p>"Ted broughtened it for thoo," he exclaimed +triumphantly. And mother was <i>so</i> pleased! The +stone took up its place at once on the mantelpiece as +an ornament, and the wearied little man climbed up +on to his mother's knee, with a look of such delight +and satisfaction as is sweet to be seen on a childish +face.</p> + +<p>So Ted's education began. He was growing beyond +the birds and the flowers already, though only +a tiny man of three; and every day he found new +things to wonder at, and admire, and ask questions +about, and, unlike some small people of his age, he +always listened to the answers.</p> + +<p>After a while he found prettier presents to bring +home to his mother than big stones. With the spring +days the flowers came back, and Ted, who last year +had been too little to notice them much, grew to +like the other turning of the road almost better than +that which led to the sea. For down the lanes, hiding +in among the hedges, or more boldly smiling up +at him in the fields, he learnt to know the old friends +that all happy children love so dearly.</p> + +<p>One day he found some flowers that seemed to him +prettier than any he had ever seen, and full of +delight he trudged home with a baby bouquet of them +in his little hot hands. It was getting past spring +into summer now, and Ted felt a little tired by the +time he and his nurse had reached the house, and he +ran in as usual to find his mother and relate his +adventures.</p> + +<p>"Ted has broughtened some most beauty flowers," +he eagerly cried, and his mother stooped down to kiss +and thank him, even though she was busy talking to +some ladies who had come to see her, and whom Ted +in his hurry had hardly noticed. He glanced round +at them now with curiosity and interest. He rather +liked ladies to come to see his mother, only he would +have liked it still better if they would have just let +him stay quietly beside her, looking at them and +listening to what they said, without noticing him. +But that way of behaving would not have seemed +kind, and as Ted grew older he understood this, and +learnt that it was right to feel pleased at being +spoken to and even kissed.</p> + +<p>"How well Ted is looking," said one of the ladies +to his mother. "He is growing quite a big, strong boy. +And what pretty flowers he has brought you. Are +you very fond of flowers, my little man?"</p> + +<p>"Ses," said Ted, looking up in the lady's face.</p> + +<p>"The wild flowers about here are very pretty," +said another of the ladies.</p> + +<p>"Very pretty," said his mother; "but it is curious, +is it not, that there are no cowslips in this country? +They are such favourites of mine. I have such +pleasant remembrances of them as a child."</p> + +<p>She turned, for Ted was tugging gently at her +sleeve. "What is towslips?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Pretty little yellow flowers, something like primroses," +said his mother.</p> + +<p>"Oh!" said Ted. Then nurse knocked at the +door, and told him his tea was ready, and so he +trotted off.</p> + +<p>"Mother loves towslips," he said to himself two +or three times over, till his nurse asked him what he +was talking about.</p> + +<p>"But there's no cowslips here," said nurse, when +he had repeated it.</p> + +<p>"No," said Ted; "but p'raps Ted could find some. +Ted will go and look to-morrow with nursey."</p> + +<p>"To-morrow's Sunday, Master Ted," said nurse; +"I'll be going to church."</p> + +<p>"What's church?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Church is everybody praying to God, all together +in a big house. Don't you remember, Master Ted?"</p> + +<p>"Oh ses, Ted 'members," he replied. "What's +praying to 'Dod, nurse?"</p> + +<p>"Why, I am sure you know that, Master Ted. +You must have forgotten. Ask your mamma again."</p> + +<p>Ted took her advice. Later in the evening he +went downstairs to say good-night. His mother was +outside, walking about the garden, for it was a +beautiful summer evening. Ted ran to her; but on +his way something caught his eye, which sent a pang +to his little heart. It was the bunch of flowers he +had gathered for her, lying withered already, poor +little things, on a bench just by the door, where she +had laid them when saying good-bye to her visitors. +Ted stopped short; his face grew very red, and big +tears rose slowly to his eyes. He was carefully +collecting them together in his little hand when his +mother called to him.</p> + +<p>"Come, Ted, dear," she said; "what are you +about?"</p> + +<p>More slowly than his wont Ted trotted towards +her. "Muzzer doesn't care for zem," he said, holding +out his neglected offering. "Poor f'owers dies when +they's leaved out of water."</p> + +<p>"My darling," said his mother with real sorrow +in her voice, "I am so sorry, so very sorry, dear little +Ted," and she stooped to kiss him. "Give them to +me now, and I will <i>always</i> keep them."</p> + +<p>Ted was quickly consoled.</p> + +<p>"Zem's not towslips," he said regretfully. "Ted +would like towslips for muzzer." And then with a +quick change of thought he went on, "What is praying +to 'Dod?" he said, looking up eagerly with his +bright blue eyes.</p> + +<p>"Praying to God means asking Him anything we +want, and then He answers us. Just as you ask me +something, and I answer you. And if what we ask +is good for us, He gives it us. That is one way of +answering our prayers, but there are many ways. +You will understand better when you are bigger, +dear little Ted."</p> + +<p>Ted asked no more, but a bright pleased look +came into his face. He was fond of asking questions, +but he did not ask silly ones, nor tease and tease as +some children do, and, as I said, when he got an +answer he thought it well over in his little head till +he got to understand, or thought he understood. +Till now his mother had thought him too little to +teach him to say his prayers, but now in her own +mind she began to feel he was getting old enough +to say some simple prayer night and morning, and +she resolved to teach him some day soon.</p> + +<p>So now she kissed him and bade him good-night.</p> + +<p>"God bless my little boy," she said, as she patted +his head with its soft fair hair which hung in pretty +careless curls, and was cut across the forehead in +front like one of Sir Joshua Reynolds' cherubs. +"God bless my little boy," she said, and Ted trotted +off again, still with the bright look on his face.</p> + +<p>He let nurse put him to bed very "goodly," +though bed-time never came very welcomely to the +active little man.</p> + +<p>"Now go to sleep, Master Ted, dear," said nurse +as she covered him up and then left the room, as she +was busy about some work that evening.</p> + +<p>Ted's room was next to his mother's. Indeed, if +the doors were left open, it was quite easy to talk +one to the other. This evening his mother happened +to go upstairs not long after he had been tucked into +bed. She was arranging some things in her own +room, moving about quietly not to waken him, if, as +she hoped, he had fallen asleep, for falling asleep did +not come so easily to Ted as to some children. He +was too busy in his mind, he had too many things +to think about and wonder about for his brain to +settle itself quietly all in a minute. And if he had +a strong wish, I think it was that going-to-bed time +should never come at all!</p> + +<p>For a minute or two no sound reached Ted's +mother.</p> + +<p>"I do hope he is asleep," she said to herself, but +just then she stopped short to listen. Ted was speaking +to himself softly, but clearly and distinctly. +What could he be saying? His mother listened +with a smile on her face, but the smile grew into a +sort of sweet gravity as she distinguished the words. +Little Ted was <i>praying</i>. He had not waited for her +to teach him—his baby-spirit had found out the +simple way for itself—he was just asking God for +what he wanted.</p> + +<p>"Please, dear 'Dod," he said, "tell me why thoo +won't make towslips grow in this countly. Muzzer +loves zem so."</p> + +<p>Then came a perfect silence. Ted seemed to be +holding his breath in expectation, and somehow his +mother too stood as still as could be. And after a +minute or two the little voice began again.</p> + +<p>"Please, dear 'Dod, <i>please</i> do tell me," and then the +silence returned as before. It did not last so long, +however, this time—not more than a minute at most +had passed when a sound of faint crying broke upon +Ted's mother's hearing—the little fellow had burst +into tears.</p> + +<p>Then his mother could stay away no longer.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter, my boy?" she said; anxious, +baby though he was, not to make him feel ashamed +of his innocent prayers by finding that she had overheard +what he had said when he thought himself +alone.</p> + +<p>"What is my Ted crying about?"</p> + +<p>The tears, which had stopped for an instant, came +back again.</p> + +<p>"Muzzer," he said, "'Dod <i>won't</i> 'peak to Ted. Ted +p'ayed and p'ayed, and Ted was kite kite kiet, but +'Dod didn't 'amswer.' Is 'Dod a'leep, muzzer?"</p> + +<p>"No, my boy, but what was it that Ted wanted +so much?"</p> + +<p>"Ted wanted towslips for muzzer, but 'Dod <i>won't</i> +amswer," he repeated piteously.</p> + +<p>A shower of kisses was mother's answer, and +gently and patiently she tried to make him understand +the <i>seeming</i> silence which had caused his innocent +tears. And, as was Ted's "way," he listened +and believed. But "some day," he said to his mother, +"some day," would she not take him to "a countly +where towslips <i>did</i> grow?"</p> + +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3> +<h4>IN THE GARDEN.</h4> +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">"Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> Sweet wagging cowslips, they bend and they bow."</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><span class="smallcaps">Songs of Seven</span>.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Down below the garden of Ted's pretty home +flowed, or danced rather, with a constant merry +babble, a tiny stream. A busy, fussy stream it was, +on its way to the beautiful little river that, in its turn, +came rushing down through a mountain-gorge to the +sea. I must tell you about this mountain-gorge +some time, or, if you like, we shall visit it with Ted +and his faithful companion, whom you have not yet +heard about—his father's great big Scotch collie dog, +Cheviott.</p> + +<p>You don't know what a dear dog he was, so brave, +but so gentle and considerate. He came of a brave +and patient race, for you know "collies" are the +famous Scotch sheep-dogs, who to their shepherd +masters are more useful than any <i>two</i>-legged servant +could be. And though I am not sure that "Chevie" +himself had ever had to do with "the keeping of +sheep," like gentle Abel of old, yet, no doubt, as a +baby doggie in his northern home, he must have +heard a good deal about it—no doubt, if his tongue +had had the power of speaking, he could have told +his little master some strange stories of adventures +and narrow escapes which had happened to members +of his family. For up in the Border mountains where +he was born, the storms sometimes come on so suddenly +that shepherd and flock are all but lost, and +but for their faithful collies, might never find their +way home again. Often, too, in the early spring-time, +the poor little lambs go astray, or meet with some +accident, such as being caught in the bushes and +being unable to escape. What, then, would become +of them but for their four-footed guardian, who summons +aid before it is too late, and guides the gentle, +silly lambkins and their mothers along the right +paths? I think Ted's father and mother did well +when they chose for their boy a collie like Cheviott +for his companion.</p> + +<p>Across the stream, just at the foot of the garden +path which sloped down from the house, a couple of +planks were placed as a bridge. A narrow bridge, +and not a very firm one, it must be confessed, and +perhaps for that very reason—because there was +something a little risky and dangerous about it—Ted, +true boy that he was, was particularly fond of crossing +it. He liked to stand on it for a minute or two on +the way, "jigging" up and down to feel the shaking +and trembling of the planks, but that, of course, was +only a kind of playing with danger. I don't think +he <i>would</i> have much liked a sudden tumble into the +mischievous little brook's cold waters, very cold it +would have felt, though it looked so browny bright +and tempting. And many a bath in the brook +Ted would have had, had Chevie been as much +carried away by his spirits as his little master. For +no sooner did the two set off running from the top of +the sloping garden path, than Ted would call out, "A +race, Chevie, a race! Who'll be at the bridge first?" +And on he would run as fast as his sturdy wee legs +could carry him, Cheviott bounding beside him with +a great show of also doing <i>his</i> best. But—and wasn't +this clever of Chevie?—just a little way on this side +of the bridge he would—not stop short, for that might +have disappointed Ted and made him feel as if they +weren't having a <i>real</i> race, but go gradually more +slowly, as if he felt he had no chance of gaining, so +that little Ted always reached the bridge first, and +stood shouting with glee and triumph. The first time +or two that Ted's mother saw this little performance +she had been frightened, for if the dog had gone on +at full speed, or even only at luggage-train speed, beside +the boy, he could not have avoided tumbling him +into the brook. But for anything of this kind Cheviott +was far too much of a gentleman, and after watching +them once or twice, Ted's mother felt perfectly satisfied +that the little man could not be better taken care +of than by his four-footed friend.</p> + +<p>There was another friend, too, who could very well +be trusted to take care of Ted, for though he had, of +course, a very kind, good nurse in the house, nurses +are not able to be the whole day long in the garden, +nor are they always very fond of being much there. +So, even though Ted was still quite a little boy, it +was very nice for him to have two such good out-door +friends as Cheviott and David the gardener, the other +one I am going to tell you of.</p> + +<p>It was a beautiful spring day. Ted woke up +early, and thought to himself how nice and bright +and sunny it was going to be in the garden. He +was rather in a hurry to be dressed, for there were +several things he was in a hurry to do, and the days, +in summer time especially, never seemed long enough +for all he had before him. Just now these summer +days seemed really brimming over with nice things, +for his big cousin Percy—at least he was what <i>Ted</i> +counted a "big" cousin, and he was a good many +years older than Ted—was with him for the holidays, +and though Percy had some lessons to do, still they +had a good deal of time together.</p> + +<p>"Ted wonders if Percy is 'decked' yet," said Ted +to his nurse. "Decked" was the word he always +used for "dressed," and he was often made fun of for +using it. His mind was very full of Percy this +morning, for he had only arrived the evening before, +and besides the pleasure of having him with him, +which was <i>always</i> a pleasure, there was the nice newness +of it,—the things he had to show Percy, the tricks +Chevie had learnt, big dog though he was, the letters +and little words Ted had himself mastered since +Percy was last there.</p> + +<p>"I don't know that Master Percy will be ready +quite so early this morning," said nurse. "He may +be a little tired with travelling yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Ted doesn't <i>zink</i> Percy will be tired," said Ted. +"Percy wants to see the garden. Percy is so big, +isn't he, nurse? Percy can throw sticks up in the +sky <i>so</i> high. Percy throwed one up in the sky up to +heaven, so high that it <i>never</i> comed down again."</p> + +<p>"Indeed," said nurse; "are you quite sure of that, +Master Ted? Perhaps it did come down again, but +you didn't see it."</p> + +<p>Nurse was a sensible person, you see. She did +not all at once begin saying to Ted that he was talking +nonsense, or worse still that he was telling stories. +For very little children often "romance" in a sweet +innocent way which has nothing whatever to do with +story-telling—I mean <i>untruth</i>-telling, for it is better +not to call untruths "stories," is it not? The world +and the people in it, and the things they see and hear, +are all new and strange to the little creatures so lately +started on their puzzling journey. What wonder +that real and fancy are mixed up together sometimes—that +it is difficult to understand that the pretty +blue-bells do not sometimes tinkle in the moonlight, +or that there are no longer bears in the woods or +fairies hidden among the grass? Perhaps it would +be better for us if we were <i>more</i> ready to believe even +such passed-by fancies, than to be so quick as we +sometimes are to accuse others of wishing to deceive.</p> + +<p>Ted looked at nurse thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>"P'raps it did," he said. "P'raps it might have +comed down again after Ted was a'leep."</p> + +<p>"I daresay it caught in a tree or something of that +kind," said nurse, as she finished brushing Ted's soft +curls and lifted him off the chair on which he had +been standing, just as Percy put his head in at the +door to ask if Ted might have a run in the garden +with him before breakfast.</p> + +<p>"They're not down yet," said Percy, nodding his +bright curly head in the direction of Ted's father's and +mother's room; "they're not ready. Nurse, do let +Ted come out with me for a bit before breakfast," and +Ted trotted off, his hand in Percy's, in utmost content.</p> + +<p>Was there ever so clever and kind and wonderful +a big boy as Percy before? Was there ever one +who knew so much about <i>everything</i>—cricket and +croquet and football; skating and fishing and climbing +trees—things on earth and things in water—what +was there he didn't know? These were the thoughts +that were busy in Ted's little brain as he followed +kind Percy about the garden, that bright summer +morning, chattering incessantly, and yet ready enough +to be silent when Percy took it into his head to relate +to his tiny adorer some of his school experiences.</p> + +<p>"Ted will go to school some day, Percy," he said +half questioningly.</p> + +<p>"Of course you will. I hope you'll come to my +school if I've not left by then. I could look after +you, you know, and see that they didn't bully you."</p> + +<p>"What's 'bully'?" asked Ted.</p> + +<p>"Oh, teasing, you know. Setting you down because +you're a little chap, and all that. Knocking +you about if you don't look sharp. All those kinds +of things that big fellows do to small ones."</p> + +<p>Ted opened his eyes. It was not very clear to +him what Percy meant—it was a new idea, and would +have distressed him greatly had he quite taken it in +that big boys could be anything but good to little ones.</p> + +<p>"Thoo doesn't knock Ted about, and thoo is big, +Percy," he said, remonstratingly.</p> + +<p>"No, of course I don't, but that's different. You're +like my brother, you know."</p> + +<p>"And bruvvers <i>couldn't</i> knock theirselves about," +said Ted with an air of satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"N-no, I suppose not," said Percy. Boy as he +was, he felt somehow that he could not bear to destroy +little Ted's beautiful faith. "But never mind about +that just now," he added; "let's run down the bank +and see how the cabbages and cauliflowers are getting +on. They were just put in when I was here last;" +and for some time both boys were intensely interested +in examining the state of the vegetable beds.</p> + +<p>"Ted likes f'owers best," said the child, after a +few moments' silence. "When Ted——"</p> + +<p>"Why don't you say 'I' and 'I like,' Teddy?" +said Percy. "You're getting such a big boy—four +years old."</p> + +<p>"Ted <i>means</i> I," persisted the small man. "<i>I</i> sall +have all f'owers in Ted's garden, when me is big."</p> + +<p>Percy was obliged to leave off what he was about—hunting +for the slugs and caterpillars among the +cabbages—in order that he might stand still and laugh.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid you wouldn't get the prize for grammar +at our school, Ted," he said. But Ted only laughed too.</p> + +<p>"I haven't learnt grammar," he said slowly and +distinctly. "But please, Percy, Ted doesn't like +cabbages. Come and see the f'owers. There was +lots of c'ocodiles at that side. Ted likes zem best of +all, but zem's done now."</p> + +<p>"<i>Crocodiles</i>," said Percy. "What can crocodiles +be?"</p> + +<p>"Little f'owers with pointy leaves," said Ted. +"P'raps it isn't c'ocodiles but somesing like coc—coco——"</p> + +<p>"Crocuses perhaps," said Percy, as they made +their way up to the house. "Yes, they're very pretty, +but they're soon done."</p> + +<p>"When I'm big I'll have a garden where they'll +<i>never</i> be done," said Ted. "I'll have c'ocodiles and +towslips for muzzer and—and——"</p> + +<p>"Come in to breakfast, my man," called out his +father from the dining-room. "What have you been +about this morning?"</p> + +<p>"We'se been in the garden," said Ted, "and Percy's +been 'samining the cabbages. He's caught slugs upon +slugs, worms upon worms, earwigs upon earwigs."</p> + +<p>"My dear little boy," said Ted's father, though he +couldn't help laughing, "you mustn't learn to exaggerate."</p> + +<p>"What's 'saggerate?" began Ted, but looking round +another idea caught him. "Where's muzzer?" he +said suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Mother is rather tired this morning," said his +father. "Eat your breakfast, dear," and then he +turned to talk to Percy and ask him questions as to +how he was getting on at school.</p> + +<p>For a minute or two neither of them noticed Ted. +He sat quietly at his place, his bowl of bread and +milk before him, but he made no attempt to eat it. +Then Percy happened to see him.</p> + +<p>"Aren't you hungry, Ted?" he said.</p> + +<p>Ted looked up with his two blue eyes full of tears.</p> + +<p>"Ses," he said, "Ted's hungry. But if muzzer +doesn't come down Ted can't eat. Ted won't eat +nothing all day, and he'll die."</p> + +<p>"Not quite so bad as that," said his father quietly, +for he did not want Ted to see that it was difficult not +to smile at his funny way of speaking, "for see here +is mother coming."</p> + +<p>Ted danced off his seat with pleasure.</p> + +<p>"It's dedful when thoo's not here," he said feelingly, +and now the bread and milk was quickly +despatched. "When I'm big," he continued, in the +intervals of the spoonfuls, "I'll have a house as big—as +big as a mountain," his eyes glancing out of the +window, "and all the little boys in the world shall +live there with all their favers and muzzers, and +Percies, and everybodies, and nobody shall never go +away, not to school or bidness, or nothing, so that +they'll all be togever always."</p> + +<p>Ted looked round for approval, and then took +another spoonful.</p> + +<p>"What a nice place you'll make of the world, my +boy, when you're big," said his father.</p> + +<p>"Ses," said Ted with satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"But as that time hasn't come yet, I'm afraid I +<i>must</i> go to my 'bidness,'" his father went on. For +he had to go several times a week a good way into +the country, to see that his men were all doing their +work properly. "And Percy must go with me to-day," +he went on, "for he needs some new clothes, and I +shall be driving through A——," which was the +nearest town to which they lived.</p> + +<p>Percy's face looked very pleased, but Ted's grew +rather sad.</p> + +<p>"Never mind, Teddy," whispered Percy. "We'll +have lots of days. You must have a good game +with Chevie to keep up your spirits."</p> + +<p>"And David is going to cut the grass to-day," said +his father, "so you will have plenty of fun."</p> + +<p>"But Ted must be careful," said his mother; +"don't touch David's sharp tools, Ted. I was quite +frightened the other day," she added; "Ted was +trying to open and shut those great big shears for +clipping the borders."</p> + +<p>"Zem was sticked fast," said Ted. "Zem opens +kite easy sometimes."</p> + +<p>"Well, don't you touch them any way," said his +mother, laughing. But though Ted said "No," I +don't feel sure that he really heard what his mother +was saying. His wits were already off, I don't know +where to—running after Cheviott perhaps, or farther +away still, up among the little clouds that were +scudding across the blue sky that he caught sight of +out of the window.</p> + +<p>And then his father and Percy set off, and his +mother went away about her housekeeping, sending +Ted up to the nursery, and telling him that he might +ask nurse to put his big blouse on, so that he might play +about the garden without risk of soiling his clothes.</p> + +<p>Ted felt, for him, a very little sad as he trotted +out into the garden. He had hoped for such a nice +merry day with Percy. But low spirits never +troubled him long. Off he set with Cheviott for the +race down to the little bridge, always the first bit of +Ted's programme, and careful Chevie as usual pulled +up in plenty of time to avoid any risk of toppling +his master into the brook. Arrived on the bridge, +Ted stood still and "jigged" a little as usual. Then +he peered down at the shiny water with the bright +brown pebbles sparkling up through it, and wondered +what it would feel like to be a little fish.</p> + +<p>"Little fisses," he said to himself, "always has +each other to play with. They don't go to school, +and they hasn't no bidness, nor no cooks that they +must be such a long time ordering the dinners with, +nor—nor beds to make and stockings to mend. I +wish nurse would 'tum out this morning. Ted +doesn't like being all alone. Ted would like somebody +littler to play with, 'cos then they wouldn't go +to school or out d'ives with papa."</p> + +<p>But just as he was thinking this, he caught sight +of some one coming across the garden, and his ideas +took another turn at once.</p> + +<p>"David, old David," he cried, "is thoo going to cut +the grass? Do let me come and help thoo, David."</p> + +<p>And he ran back across the bridge again and made +his way to David as fast as he could.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Master Ted," said the gardener. +"Is it beautiful day, Master Ted, to be sure. Yes +indeed."</p> + +<p>"Ses," agreed Ted. "Good morning, old David. +I'm going to stay out in the garden a long time, a +tevible long time, 'cos it's such a sprendid lovely day. +What is thoo going to do, David? Can't Ted help +thoo?"</p> + +<p>"I am going to cut the grass, Master Ted, but +I not be very long—no; for it is only the middle +that's be cut. All the rest stand for hay, to be sure. +Ay, indeed."</p> + +<p>"And when will the hay be cuttened?" inquired +Ted.</p> + +<p>"That's be as Master order, and not as Master +can choose neither—no," said David. "He not able +to make for the sun to shine; no, indeed; nor the +rain neither,—no."</p> + +<p>"'<i>Dod</i> sends rain and sun," said Ted, reverently, +but yet looking at David with a sort of curiosity.</p> + +<p>"Well, indeed you are right, Master Ted. Yes, +yes. But I must get on with my work. God gives +us work to do, too; ay, indeed; and them as not +work never expect to eat, no, never; they not care for +their victual anyhow if they not work for it. No."</p> + +<p>Ted looked rather puzzled. "Ted eats," he said,—"not +victuals—Ted doesn't know that meat—but +bread and butter, and tea, and potatoes, and rice +pudding, and meat, and <i>sometimes</i> 'tawberry jam and +apple pie and—and—lots of things. And Ted likes +zem very much, but him doesn't work."</p> + +<p>"I not know for that, Master Ted," said David, +"is it all kinds of work; ay, indeed; and I see you +very near always busy—dear me, yes; working very +good, Master Ted—ay."</p> +<p><a name="img032" id="img032"></a></p> +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="Illustration"> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <a href="images/img032.jpg"> + <img src="images/img032.jpg" height="400" + alt="Let me help to cut the grass" /></a> + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="center"><span class="small">"I wish thoo'd let me help thoo to cut the grass."</span><br /> + <span class="caption">Click to <a href="images/img032.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>"I <i>like</i> to be busy. I wish thoo'd let me help +thoo to cut the grass," said Ted, eyeing David wistfully, +as he started his big scythe, for the old gardener +knew nothing of mowing machines, and would most +likely have looked upon them with great contempt. +But he stopped short a moment to look down at wee +Ted, staring up at him and wishing to be in his place.</p> + +<p>"No, indeed, Master Ted <i>bach</i>!" he said; "you +soon have your cliver little legs and arms cut to pieces, +if you use with my scythe, Master Ted—ay, indeed, +d'rectly. It look easy, to be sure, but it not so easy +even for a cliver man like you, Master Ted—no, indeed. +But I tell you what you shall do. You shall help to +make the grass to a heaps, and then I put it in a barrow +and wheel it off. Ay, indeed; that be the best."</p> + +<p>This proposal was very much to Ted's taste. +Chevie and he, at a safe distance from David's scythe, +thought it great fun to toss about the soft fine grass +and imagine they were helping David tremendously. +And after a while, when Chevie began to think he had +had enough of it, and with a sort of condescending +growl by way of explanation, stretched himself out +in the sunshine for a little forenoon sleep, David +left off cutting, and, with Ted's help of course, filled +the barrow and wheeled it off to the corner where +the grass was to lie to be out of the way. It was +beginning to be rather hot, though still quite early, +and Ted's face grew somewhat red with his exertions +as he ran beside David.</p> + +<p>"You better ride now; jump in, Master Ted," said +the gardener, when his barrow was empty. So he +lifted him in and wheeled him back to the lawn, +which was <i>quite</i> after Ted's own heart.</p> + +<p>"Isn't thoo going to cut with thoo's big scissors?" +said Ted after a while.</p> + +<p>"It is want oiling," said David, "and I forget to +do them. I shall leave the borders till after dinner,—ay, +sure," and he was going on with his scything +when suddenly a voice was heard from the house +calling him.</p> + +<p>"David, David, you're wanted," said the voice, and +then the cook made her appearance at the side of +the house. "There's a note to take to——."</p> + +<p>They could not hear to where, but David had to +go. He glanced round him, and, afraid of Ted's +experiments, shouldered his scythe and walked off +with it for fear of accidents.</p> + +<p>"Are you going in, Master Ted?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Nurse is going to call me when she's ready," +said Ted composedly, and knowing that the little +fellow often played about by himself for a while, +good David left him without any more anxiety. He +had got his scythe safe, he never thought of the big +pair of shears he had left lying in the grass!</p> + +<p>Now these gigantic "scissors" as he called them +had always had a wonderful attraction for Ted. He +used to think how funny they would look beside the +very tiny fine pair his mother worked with—the +pretty scissors that lay in her little case lined with +velvet and satin. Ted had not, in those days, heard +of Gulliver and his strange adventures, but if he +had, one might have imagined that to his fancy the +two pairs of scissors were like a Brobdignag and a +Lilliputian. And no sooner had David disappeared +than unfortunately the great scissors caught his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Zem's still sticked fast," he said to himself. +"David says zem needs oil. Wiss I had some oil. +P'raps the fissy oil to make Ted grow big would do. +But the scissors is big enough. Ted wonders if the +fissy oil would make zem bigger. Zem <i>couldn't</i> be +much bigger."</p> + +<p>Ted laughed a little to himself at the funny fancy. +Then he sat and stared at the scissors. What did +they remind him of? Ah yes, they were like the +shears of "the great, long, red-legged scissor man," +in the wonderful story of "Conrad Suck-a-thumb," +in his German picture-book. Almost, as he gazed at +them, it seemed to Ted that the figure of the scissors +man would suddenly dart out from among the bushes +and seize his property.</p> + +<p>"But him wouldn't cut <i>Ted's</i> fumbs," thought the +little man to himself, "'cos Ted <i>never</i> sucks zem. +What a pity the scissors is sticked fast! Poor David +can't cut with zem. P'raps Ted could oilen zem for +poor David! Ted will go and get some fissy oil."</p> + +<p>No sooner thought than done. Up jumped Ted, +and was starting off to the house when a growl from +Cheviott made him stop. The dog had just awakened, +and seeing his little master setting off somewhere +thought it his business to inquire where to and why. +He lifted his head and gave it a sort of sleepy shake, +then growled again, but gently of course.</p> + +<p>"What did thoo say, Chevie?" said Ted. "Did +thoo want to know where I was going? Stay here, +Chevie. Ted will be back in a minute—him's on'y going +to get some fissy oil to oilen poor David's scissors."</p> + +<p>And off he set, though a third growl from Cheviott +followed him as he ran.</p> + +<p>"What does Chevie mean?" thought Ted. "P'raps +him's thinking muzzer said Ted mustn't touch zem +big scissors. But muzzer on'y meant Ted wasn't to +cutten with zem. Muzzer would <i>like</i> Ted to help +poor David," and, his conscience quite at rest, he +trotted on contentedly.</p> + +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3> +<h4>WISHES AND FEARS.</h4> +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><i>Children.</i> </td><td align="left" valign="top">"Here are the nails, and may we help?</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><i>Jessie.</i> </td><td align="left" valign="top">You shall if I should want help.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right" valign="top"><i>Children.</i> </td><td align="left" valign="top">Will you want it then?<br /> +Please want it—we like helping."</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>There was no one in the nursery, fortunately for +Ted's plans. <i>Un</i>fortunately rather, we should perhaps +say, for if nurse had been there, she would have +asked for what he wanted the little bottle which had +held the cod-liver oil, that he had lately left off +taking, but of which a few drops still remained.</p> + +<p>Ted climbed on to a chair and reached the shelf +where it stood, and in two minutes he was off again, +bottle in hand, in triumph. He found Cheviott lying +still, where he had left him; he looked up and +yawned as Ted appeared, and then growled with an +air of satisfaction. It was sometimes a little difficult +for Chevie to decide exactly how <i>much</i> care he was +to take of Ted. After all, a little two-legged boy +that could talk was not <i>quite</i> the same as a lamb, or +even a sheep. He could not run round him barking, +to prevent his trotting where he wished—there were +plainly some things Ted had to do with and understood +which Chevie's dog-experience did not reach to.</p> + +<p>So Cheviott lay there and blinked his honest eyes +in the sunshine, and stared at Ted and wondered +what he was after now! For Ted was in a very +tip-top state of delight! He sat down cross-legged +on the grass, drew the delicious big shears to him—they +were heavy for him even to pull—and uncorking +the bottle of "fissy" oil, began operations.</p> + +<p>"Zem <i>is</i> sticked fast, to be soore," he said to himself, +adopting David's favourite expression, as he +tugged and tugged in vain. "If thoo could hold +one side and Ted the other, they would soon come +loosened," he observed to Cheviott. But Cheviott only +growled faintly and blinked at his master sleepily, +and after a good deal more tugging Ted did manage +to open the shears, which indeed at last flew apart so +sharply that the boy toppled over with the shock, and +rolled for a moment or two on the grass, though happily +not on the shears, before he recovered his balance.</p> + +<p>Laughing merrily, he pulled himself up again. +Luckily the bottle had not been overturned. Ted +poured a drop or two carefully on to his fingers, quite +regardless of the fishy smell, and proceeded to anoint +the scissors. This he repeated several times, polishing +them all over till they shone, but not understanding +that <i>the</i> place where the oil was needed was +the hinge, he directed the best of his attention to the +general shininess.</p> + +<p>Then he sat and looked at them admiringly.</p> + +<p>"<i>Won't</i> David be p'eased?" he said. "Zem's +oilened all over now. Ted must see if they don't +sticken fast now."</p> + +<p>With nearly as much difficulty as he had had to +open them, Ted now managed to shut them.</p> + +<p>"Zem's better," thought the busy little man, "but +Ted must see how they cut."</p> + +<p>He laid them flat on the grass, at a place where +the blades had not been completely sheared by the +scythe. Tug number one—the oil had really done +some good, they opened more easily—tug number +two, behold them gaping—tug number three, they +bite the grass, and Ted is just going to shout in +triumph when a quick shock of pain stabs through +him. He had been kneeling almost <i>on</i> the shears, +and their cruel jaws had snipped, with the grass, the +tender fleshy part of his poor little leg!</p> + +<p>It was not the pain that frightened him so much +as the feeling held fast by the now dreadful scissors.</p> + +<p>"David, David," he cried, "oh, please come. Nurse, +please come. Ted has cuttened hisself."</p> + +<p>His little voice sounded clear and shrill in the +summer quiet of the peaceful garden, and nurse, who +had been hastening to come out to him, heard it from +the open window. David too was on his way back, +and poor Ted was soon released. But it was a bad +cut—he had to be carried into the house to have it +bathed and sponged and tenderly bound up by +mother's fingers. He left off crying when he saw +how sorry mother looked.</p> + +<p>"Ted is <i>so</i> sorry to t'ouble thoo," he said.</p> + +<p>"And mother is sorry for Ted," she replied. "But, +my dear little boy," she went on, when the poor leg +was comfortable and its owner forgetting its pain on +mother's knee, "don't you remember that mother +told you not to touch David's tools?"</p> + +<p>"Oh ses," he replied. "Ted wouldn't touch zem +for hisself, but it was to <i>help David</i>," and the innocent +confidence with which he looked up in her face went +to his mother's heart.</p> + +<p>"But <i>still</i>, dear Ted, you must try to understand +that what mother says, you must do exactly. Mother +likes you to be kind and helping to people, but still +mother knows better than you, and that is why, when +she tells you things, you must remember to do what +she says."</p> + +<p>Ted looked grave and a little puzzled, and seeing +this his mother thought it best to say no more just +then. The lesson of obedience was one that Ted +found rather puzzling, you see, but what his mother +had said had made a mark in his mind. He thought +about it often, and as he grew bigger other things +happened, as you will hear, to make him think of it +still more.</p> + +<p>It was rather a trial to Ted not to be able to run +about as usual that afternoon, for had he done so, the +cut might have begun to bleed again, so he had to sit +still in the nursery, looking out at the window and +hoping and hoping that Percy would soon come back. +Once David and his barrow passed underneath, and +the gardener called up to know if Master Ted's leg +was better. Ted shook his head rather dolefully.</p> + +<p>"Him's better," he said, "but Ted can't run about. +Ted's so sad, David. Muzzer's got letters to write and +Percy's out."</p> + +<p>A kind thought struck David. He went round to +the drawing-room window and tapped at it gently. +Ted's mother was writing there. Might he wheel +Master Ted in his barrow to the part of the garden +where he was working?—he would take good care +of him—"the little gentleman never cut himself if +I with him—no, indeed; I make him safe enough."</p> + +<p>And Ted's mother consented gladly. So in a few +minutes he was comfortably installed on a nice heap +of dry grass, with Cheviott close beside him and David +near at hand.</p> + +<p>"You never touch my tools again, Master Ted, for +a bit; no, to be sure; do you now?" said David.</p> + +<p>"No," said Ted. "Muzzer says I mustn't. But +wasn't the big scissors nicely oilened, David?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, fust rate—ay," said David. "Though I not +say it is a cliver smell—no. I not like the smell, +Master Ted."</p> + +<p>"Never mind," replied Ted reassuringly. "Ted +will ask muzzer for some cock-alone for thoo. Thoo +can put some on the scissors."</p> + +<p>"What's that, Master Ted?" inquired David, who +was not at all above getting information out of his +little master.</p> + +<p>"Cock-alone," repeated Ted. "Oh, it's somesing +that smells very nice. I don't know what it is. I +thing it must be skeesed out of f'owers. I'll run and +get thoo some now, David, this minute," and he was +on the point of clambering to his feet when the stiff +feeling of his bandaged leg stopped him. "Oh, I forgot," +he exclaimed regretfully.</p> + +<p>"Yes indeed, Master Ted. You not walk a great +deal to-day, to be sure—no, indeed—for a bit; ay."</p> + +<p>Ted lay still for a minute or two. He was gazing +up at the sky, which that afternoon was very pure +and beautiful.</p> + +<p>"Who paints the sky, David?" he said suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Well indeed, Master Ted, I not think you ask +me such a foolis' question, Master Ted <i>bach</i>!" said +David. "Who's make a sky and a sea and everything +so?"</p> + +<p>"'Dod," said Ted. "Oh, I know that. But I +thoughtened p'raps 'Dod put somebody up there to +paint it. It was <i>so</i> pitty last night, David—<i>all</i> tolours—Ted +tan't say zem all. Why isn't there many tolours +now, David?"</p> + +<p>"I not know for sure," said David, stopping a +moment in his work and looking up at the sky.</p> + +<p>"Ted <i>thought</i>," continued the little fellow slowly, +"Ted <i>thought</i> p'raps 'Dod's paints was getting done. +Could that be why?"</p> + +<p>David was rather matter-of-fact, and I don't know +that that made him any the worse a companion for +Ted, whose brain was already quite full enough of +fancies. So he did not smile at Ted's idea, but +answered quite gravely,</p> + +<p>"No indeed, Master Ted, I not think that untall."</p> + +<p>"If on'y Ted could fly," the child continued in a +minute or two, as just then a flock of birds made +their graceful way between his gazing eyes and the +clear blue vault above. "How pittily birds flies, +don't they, David? If Ted could fly he'd soon find +out all about the sky and everysing. And it wouldn't +matter then that him had hurt his leg. <i>Couldn't</i> Ted +learn to fly, David?"</p> + +<p>Ted was soaring too far above poor David's head +already for him to know what to answer. What could +he say but "No indeed, Master Ted," again? He had +never heard tell of any one that could fly except the +angels. For David was fond of going to church, or +chapel rather, and though he could not read Ted's +Bible, he could read his own very well.</p> + +<p>"Angels," said Ted. The word started his busy +fancy off in a fresh direction. He lay looking up +still, watching now the lovely little feathery clouds +that began to rise as the sun declined, and fancying +they were angels with wings softly floating hither +and thither in the balmy air. He watched one little +group, which seemed to him like three angels with +their arms twined together, so long, that at last his +eyes grew rather tired of watching and their little +white blinds closed over them softly. Little Ted +had fallen asleep.</p> + +<p>"So, so; dear me, he tired," said old David, as, +surprised at the unusual silence, he turned to see +what Ted was about. "Bless him, he tired very bad +with his cliver talk and the pain; ay—but, indeed, +he not one to make fuss—no. He a brave little +gentleman, Master Ted—ay, indeed," and the kind +old man lifted the boy's head so that he should lie +more comfortably, and turned his wheelbarrow up on +one side to shade him from the sun.</p> + +<p>Ted smiled in his sleep as David looked at him. +Shall I tell you what made him smile? In his sleep +he had got his wish. He dreamt that he was flying. +This was the dream that came to him.</p> + +<p>He fancied he was running down the garden path +with Chevie, when all at once Chevie seemed to disappear, +and where he had been there stood a pretty +snow-white lamb. With an eager cry Ted darted +forward to catch it, and laid his hand on its soft +woolly coat, when—it was no lamb but a little cloud +he was trying to grasp. And wonderful to say, the +little cloud seemed to float towards him and settle +itself on his shoulders, and then all of himself Ted +seemed to find out that it had turned into wings!</p> + +<p>"Ted can fly, Ted can fly!" he cried with delight, +or <i>thought</i> he cried. In reality it was just then that +David lifted his head, and feeling himself moving, Ted +fancied it was the wings lifting him upward, and gave +the pleased smile which David noticed. Fly! I +should think so. He mounted and mounted, higher +and higher, the white wings waving him upwards in +the most wonderful way, till at last he found himself +right up in the blue sky where he had so wished to +be. And ever so many—lots and lots of other little +white things were floating or flying about, and, looking +closely at them, Ted saw that they were not +little clouds as they seemed at first, but wings—all +pairs of beautiful white wings, and dear little faces +were peeping out from between them. They were +all little children like himself.</p> + +<p>"Come and play, Ted, come and play. Ted, <i>Ted</i>, +<span class="smallcaps">Ted</span>!" they cried so loud, that Ted opened his eyes—his +real waking eyes, not his dream ones—sharply, +and there he was, lying on the soft grass heap, not +up in the sky among the cloud-children at all!</p> + +<p>At first he was rather disappointed. But as he +was thinking to himself whether it was worth while +to try to go to sleep again and go on with his dream, +he heard himself called as before, "Ted, <i>Ted</i>, <span class="smallcaps">Ted</span>."</p> + +<p>And looking up he forgot all about everything +else when he saw, running down the sloping banks as +fast as his legs would carry him, Percy, his dear Percy!</p> + +<p>Ted jumped up—even his wounded leg couldn't +keep him still now.</p> + +<p>"Was it thoo calling me, Percy?" he said. "I +was d'eaming, do thoo know—<i>such</i> a funny d'eam? +But I'm so glad thoo's come back, Percy. Oh, Ted <i>is</i> +so glad."</p> + +<p>Then all the day's adventures had to be related—the +accident with the scissors and the drive in the +wheelbarrow, and the funny dream. And in his turn +Percy had to tell of all he had seen and done and +heard—the shops he had been at in the little town, +and what he had had for luncheon and—and—the +numberless trifles that make up the interest of a +child's day.</p> + +<p>"Does thoo think there's any shop where we could +get <i>wings</i>, Percy?" asked Ted. He had the vaguest +ideas as to what "shops" were, but Percy had been +telling him of the beautiful little boats he had seen +at a toy-shop in the market-place, "boats with white +sails and all rigged just like real ones;" and if boats +with white sails were to be got, why not white wings?</p> + +<p>"Wings!" exclaimed Percy. "What sort of wings +do you mean, Teddy?"</p> + +<p>"Wings for little boys," Ted explained. "Like +what I was d'eaming about. It would be so nice to +fly, Percy."</p> + +<p>"Beautiful, wouldn't it?" agreed Percy. "But nobody +can fly, Ted. Nobody <i>could</i> make wings that +would be any use for people. People can't fly."</p> + +<p>"But little boys, Percy," persisted Ted. "Little +boys isn't so very much bigger than birds. Oh, you +don't know how <i>lovely</i> it feels to fly. Percy, <i>do</i> let +us try to make some wings."</p> + +<p>But Percy's greater experience was less hopeful.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid it would be no use," he said. "People +have often tried. I've heard stories of it. They +only tumbled down."</p> + +<p>"Did they hurt themselves?" asked Ted.</p> + +<p>"I expect so," Percy replied.</p> + +<p>Just then David, who was passing by, stopped to +tell the boys that some one was calling them in from +the house.</p> + +<p>"Is it your papa, Master Ted; yes, I think," he said.</p> + +<p>Ted's leg was feeling less stiff and painful now. +He could walk almost as well as usual. When they +got to the house-door his father was waiting for him. +He had heard of Ted's misfortune, and there was +rather a comical smile on his face as he stooped to +kiss his little boy.</p> + +<p>"I want you to come in to see Mr. Brand," he +said. "He says he hasn't seen you for a long time, +little Ted."</p> + +<p>Ted raised his blue eyes to his father's face with +a rather puzzled expression.</p> + +<p>"Whom's Mr. Brand?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"Why, don't you remember him, Teddy?" said +Percy. "That great big gentleman—so awfully tall."</p> + +<p>Ted did not reply, but he seemed much impressed.</p> + +<p>"Is him a diant?" he asked, gravely.</p> + +<p>"Very nearly, I should say," said Percy, laughing, +and then, as he had already seen Mr. Brand, who had +met Ted's father on his way back from A——, Percy +ran off in another direction, and Ted followed his +father into the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>Mr. Brand was sitting talking to Ted's mother, +but just as the door opened, he rose from his seat +and came forward.</p> + +<p>"I was just going to ask you if—ah! here's your +little boy," he said to Ted's father. Then, sitting +down again, he drew Ted between his knees and +looked kindly at the small innocent face. He was +very fond of children, but he did not know much +about them, and Ted, looking and feeling rather overawed, +stood more silently than usual, staring seriously +at the visitor.</p> + +<p>He was very tall and very big. Whether he quite +came up to Ted's idea of a "diant" I cannot tell. +But queer fancies began to chase each other round +the boy's brain. There had been a good deal to excite +and upset the little fellow—at no time a strong child—that +day, and his dream when lying asleep on the +grass had added to it all. And now, as he stood looking +up at big Mr. Brand, a strange confusion of ideas +filled his mind—of giants tall enough to reach the +sky, to catch and bring down some of the cloud-wings +Ted wished so for, interspersed with wondering +if it was "fissy oil" that had made this big man so +very big. If he, Ted, were to take a great, great lot +of fissy oil, would <i>he</i> grow as big and strong? Would +he be able to cut the grass like David perhaps, to run +faster than Percy—to—to I don't know what—for at +this moment Mr. Brand's voice brought him back +from his fancies.</p> + +<p>"What an absent-minded little fellow he is," Mr. +Brand was saying, for he had been speaking to Ted +two or three times without the child's paying any +attention.</p> + +<p>"Not generally," said Ted's mother. "He is usually +very wide-awake to all that is going on. What are +you thinking of, Ted, dear?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mr. Brand. "Tell us what you've +got in your head. Are you thinking that I'm a very +tiny little man—the tiniest little man you ever +saw?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Ted solemnly, without the least smile, +at which his mother was rather surprised. For, young +though he was, Ted was usually very quick at seeing +a joke. But he just said "No," and stared again at +Mr. Brand, without another word.</p> + +<p>"Then what were you thinking—that I'm the very +<i>biggest</i> man you ever did see?"</p> + +<p>"Ses," said Ted, gravely still, but with a certain +light in his eyes which encouraged Mr. Brand to continue +his questions.</p> + +<p>"And what more? Were you wishing you were +as big as I am?"</p> + +<p>Ted hesitated.</p> + +<p>"I'd <i>rather</i> fly," he said. "But Percy says nobody +can fly. I'd like to be big if I could get up very +high."</p> + +<p>"How high?" said Mr. Brand. "Up to the top +of the mountain out there?"</p> + +<p>"Is the mountain as high as the clouds?" asked +Ted.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mr. Brand; "when you're up at the +very top, you can look down on the clouds."</p> + +<p>Ted looked rather puzzled.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what," the gentleman went on, +amused by the expression of the child's face, "I'll +tell you what—as I'm so big, supposing I take you +to the top of the mountain—we'll go this very afternoon. +I'll take a jug of cold water and a loaf of +bread, and leave it with you there so that you'll have +something to eat, and then you can stay there quite +comfortable by yourself and find out all you want to +know. You'd like that, wouldn't you? to be all by +yourself on the top of the mountain?"</p> + +<p>He looked at Ted in a rather queer way as he +said it. The truth was that Mr. Brand, who though +so big was not very old, was carried away by the fun +(to <i>him</i>) of watching the puzzled look on the child's +face, and forgot that what to him was a mere passing +joke might be very different to the tender little four-years-old +boy.</p> + +<p>Ted's face grew rather white, he edged away a +little from this strange gentleman, whom he could +not make out, but who was so big that Ted felt it +impossible to doubt his being able to do anything he +wished.</p> + +<p>"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" he repeated, +quite gravely, and glancing at Ted with slightly +knitted brows which made the boy suddenly think +of some of the "ogre" stories he had heard.</p> + +<p>"No," said Ted bluntly. But he was afraid to +say more. Ogres didn't like to be contradicted, and +perhaps—<i>perhaps</i> this strange man really thought he +<i>would</i> like it, and really meant to please him. Any +way, it would never do to answer rudely, though Ted's +face grew still paler, when his glance fell on the +mountain peak clearly to be seen out of the window +from where he stood, and a little shiver ran through +him when he thought that perhaps he would have to +go, whether he liked it or not. He edged away still +farther, but it was no use. Mr. Brand had put his +arm round him, and there was no getting away, when +suddenly a noise outside the window caught the +gentleman's attention and he started up. It was his +dog barking loudly, and Mr. Brand, fearing he might +have got into some mischief, stepped out through the +glass door to see. Ted was on the alert, and before +any one in the room had noticed him he was off.</p> + +<p>Where should he go to? He dared not hide in +the garden, for there he might be seen, especially as +Mr. Brand was running about after his dog; he would +not go up to the nursery, for nurse would ask him why +he had not stayed downstairs; he did not even wish +to find Percy, for though he could not have explained +why, he felt that it would be impossible for him to +tell <i>any one</i> of the strange terror that Mr. Brand's joke +had awakened. He felt ashamed of it, afraid too +that if, as he vaguely thought might be the case, the +offer had been made in real earnest and with a wish +to please him, his dislike to it would be ungrateful +and unkind. Indeed poor Ted was more troubled +than he ever remembered to have been in his whole +little life—he could think of nothing for it but to +hide till all danger was past.</p> + +<p>A brilliant idea struck him—he would go and pay +a visit to cook! It was not very often he went into +the kitchen, and no one would look for him there. +And cook was kind, very kind when not very busy. +So with a slight shudder as, running past the open +front-door, he caught sight of the well-known mountain +peak, frowning at him, as it seemed now, for the +first time in his life, Ted made his way to cook's +quarters.</p> + +<p>She was not in the kitchen, but hearing some one +coming, she called out from the back kitchen where +she was. That was better still, every step the farther +from the drawing-room, or from Mr. Brand rather, +was a gain. So Ted trotted into the back kitchen, +and to prevent cook's thinking there was anything +the matter asked her if he might play with the cat. +He found a piece of string, to which cook tied a cork, +and as pussy was really more of a kitten than a cat, +he amused himself for some time by making her +run after it, whistling now and then to keep up his +heart, though had cook looked at him closely she +could have seen how white he was, and how every +now and then he threw frightened glances over his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Your leg's better, Master Ted?" said cook.</p> + +<p>"Oh ses, zank thoo," said Ted. "Him's much +better."</p> + +<p>"You'll have to take care never to touch sharp +tools again, won't you?" she went on, as she bustled +about with her work.</p> + +<p>"Ses," he said again. But he did not speak with +his usual heartiness, and cook, who, like all the servants, +loved the bright, gentle little fellow, looked at him +rather anxiously. Suddenly a sound was heard—wheels +on the gravel drive.</p> + +<p>"What's that, cook?" said Ted, starting.</p> + +<p>"Only the gentleman's dog-cart—the gentleman +that's been to see your papa. He's going away," said +cook composedly.</p> + +<p>Ted hurried into the kitchen. From the window +the drive could be seen by big people, though not by +him.</p> + +<p>"Lift me up on the table, please, cook," he said, +and when cook good-naturedly did so, and he saw the +giant really, actually driving away, Ted could almost +have cried with pleasure. But his fears and his +relief he kept in his own little heart.</p> + +<p>"Zank thoo, cook," he said gravely, but with the +pretty courtesy he never forgot. "Zank thoo, and +please lift me down again."</p> + +<p>"He's a funny little fellow," said cook to herself, +as she watched Ted trot off. "I wonder what he'd got +in his mind, bless him."</p> + +<p>Ted reappeared in the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>"Where have you been, dear?" said his mother. +"We were looking about for you to say good-bye to +Mr. Brand. Where did you go to?"</p> + +<p>"Ted were in the kitchen, 'peaking to cook," he +replied.</p> + +<p>"But why did you go away, dear, while Mr. Brand +was here?" asked his mother. "Were you frightened +of his dog?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Ted, "Ted's never frightened of dogs."</p> + +<p>"No, dear, I know you're not," said his mother. +But she did not feel satisfied. Her little boy did not +look the same as usual somehow. Still she felt +it was better to ask no more—after a while Ted +would perhaps tell her of himself. And she did well, +for it would have been almost impossible for him to +tell his mingled feelings.</p> + +<p>"Muzzer likes that big man," he was thinking to +himself. "Muzzer thinks he's kind. It's naughty +and unkind of Ted to be frightened," and so the +loyal little man kept silence.</p> + +<p>And it was not for a long time—not till Ted himself +had learnt to "understand" a little better, that +even his mother understood the whole.</p> + +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3> +<h4>THE STORY OF SUNNY.</h4> +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">"Of course he was the giant,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> With beard as white as snow."</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>But whenever Mr. Brand, poor man, came to call, +Ted was sure in some mysterious way to disappear. +After a while his mother began to notice it, though, +as Mr. Brand did not come very often, she did not +do so all at once. She noticed, however, another +thing which she was sorry for. Ted took a dislike to +the big mountain. It was a great pity, for before +that he had been so fond of it—so fond of watching +the different expressions, "looks" Ted called them, +that it wore according to the time of day, or the time +of year, or the weather. And his father and mother +had been pleased to see him so "noticing," for such +a little boy; they thought it showed, as indeed it +did, that he was likely to grow into a happy-minded +and happy-hearted man.</p> + +<p>But now it was quite different. When he sat on +his mother's knee in the drawing-room he would turn +his little face to the side away from the window so +that he should not see the towering mountain-head. +He would never laugh at his old friend's putting on +his nightcap of mist, as he used to do, and all his +pretty fancies about being able to reach the dear +little stars if he were up on the top peak of all, were +spoilt.</p> + +<p>"Something has frightened Ted," said his mother +to his father one day. "I wonder what it can be. +I know <i>you</i> wouldn't frighten him, dear," she added, +turning to Percy who was in the room, though of +course <i>Ted</i> was not there, otherwise his mother would +not have said it, "but still, has there been anything +in your play that could have done so? Have you +been talking about mountains, or telling stories +about them?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Percy, thoughtfully; "I'm sure there +has been nothing. Shall I ask Ted about it? Perhaps +he wouldn't mind telling me, not even as much +as<span class="nowrap">——</span>" Percy stopped and grew a little red. He was +a boy of nice feelings, not rough and knock-about in +his ways like many schoolboys.</p> + +<p>"Not even as much as telling <i>me</i>, you were going +to say," said Ted's mother, smiling. "Never mind, +dear. I daresay it <i>would</i> be easier for him to tell you, +and I am very glad my little boy has such a kind +Percy to talk to. But I think perhaps it is better to +say nothing to him. We may find it out by degrees, +and if it is only a sort of fancy—he may have seen +the mountain looking gloomy some evening—it may +fade away of itself more quickly if we don't notice it."</p> + +<p>That day was a very bright and lovely one. Ted's +mother thought to herself she would like to do something +to make Ted, and Percy too, "extra" happy, +for the weeks had been running on fast—it would +soon be time for Percy, not being a little fish, to go +back to school. And Percy's big sister was with +them too just then. She was even bigger than Percy, +so of course Ted thought her <i>quite</i> grown up, though +in reality she was a good many years off being so. +She was very nice any way, with a gentle pretty face +and kind eyes, and though she was not very old she +was very clever at telling stories, which is a most +delightful thing in a big sister or cousin—is it not? +And she was also able to sing very prettily, another +delightful thing, or at least so Ted thought, for he +<i>was</i> so fond of singing. This big girl's name was +Mabel.</p> + +<p>And after thinking a while and talking about it +to Mabel, Ted's mother thought the nicest thing +would be to have tea in a lonely little nesty place in +the gorge between the mountains that I have told +you of. We were to go there with Ted and Cheviott +some day, by the by, were we not? Well, never mind, +Cheviott shall be—that is to say he <i>was</i>—of the gipsy +tea-party, so that will come to the same thing, will +it not?</p> + +<p>They all set off—Ted's father and mother, another +gentleman and lady who were staying for the summer +in a cottage not far off, that they might be near their +friends, their daughter who was <i>really</i> grown up, and +Mabel and Percy and Ted. You can fancy the bread +and butter there was to cut, the home-made cake, the +tea and sugar and cream that must not be forgotten. +And when all the baskets were ready and everybody +was helping and planning how to carry them, who do +you think got hold of the biggest of all and was trying +to lug it along? Who but our four-years-old Ted?</p> + +<p>"My boy, my boy," cried his mother, laughing, +for he did look comical—the basket being really very +nearly as big as himself and his little face already +quite red with the exertion, "you cannot possibly +take that basket. Why, <i>I</i> could scarcely carry it."</p> + +<p>"But boys is stronger than muzzers," said Ted +gravely, and it was really with difficulty that they +could persuade him to give it up, and only then by +letting him carry another which <i>looked</i> nearly as +important but was in reality much lighter, as it only +held the tablecloth and the teapot and teaspoons.</p> + +<p>I have not told you about the gorge—not told you, +I mean, how lovely it was. Nor if I talked about it +for hours could I half describe its beauty. In spring +time perhaps it was the prettiest of all, for then it +was rich in the early blossoms and flowers that are +so quickly over, and that seem to us doubly precious +after the flower famine of the winter. But not even +in the early spring time, with all the beauty of primroses +and violets, could the gorge look lovelier than +it did this summer afternoon. For the ferns and +bracken never seemed dusty and withered in this +favoured place—the grass and moss too, kept their +freshness through all the hot days as if tended by +fairy fingers. It was thanks to the river you see—the +merry beautiful little river that came dancing +down the centre of this mountain-pass, at one part +turning itself into a waterfall, then, as if tired, for a +little flowing along more quietly through a short +space of less precipitous road. But always beautiful, +always kindly and generous to the happy dwellers on +its banks, keeping them cool in the hottest days, +tossing here and there its spray of pearly drops as if +in pretty fun.</p> + +<p>On each side of the water ran a little footpath, +and here and there roughly-made rustic bridges across +it tempted you to see if the other side was as pretty +as this, though when you had stood still to consider +about it you found it impossible to say! The paths +were here and there almost completely hidden, for +they were so little trodden that the moss had it all its +own way with them, and sometimes too it took a +scramble and a climb to fight one's way through the +tangled knots and fallen fragments of rock which +encumbered them. But now and then there came a +bit of level ground where the gorge widened slightly, +and then the path stopped for a while in a sort of +glade from which again it emerged on the other side. +It was in one of these glades that Ted's mother +arranged the gipsy tea. Can you imagine a prettier +place for a summer day's treat? Overhead the bluest +of blue skies and sunshine, tempered by the leafy +screen-work of the thickly growing trees; at one side +the soft rush of the silvery river, whose song was here +low and gentle, though one could hear in the distance +the boom of the noisy waterfall; at the other side the +mountain slope, whose short brown slippery turf +seemed to tempt one to a climb. And close at hand +the wealth of ferns and bracken and flowers that I +have told you of—a little higher up strange gleaming +balls of many kinds of fungus, yellow and orange, and +even scarlet, flamed out as if to rival the softer tints +of the trailing honeysuckle and delicate convolvulus +and pink foxglove below. It was a lovely dream of +fairyland, and the knowing that not far away the +waves of the broad blue sea were gently lapping the +sandy shore seemed somehow to make it feel all the +lovelier.</p> + +<p>The tea of course was a great success—when was a +gipsy tea, unless people are <i>very</i> cross-tempered and +fidgety and difficult to please, anything else? The +kettle did its duty well, for the water boiled in it +beautifully on the fire of dry sticks and leaves which +Percy and Mabel, and busy Ted <i>of course</i>, had collected. +The tea tasted very good—"not 'moky at all," said +Ted; the slices of bread and butter and cake disappeared +in a wonderful way, till at last everybody +said "No, thank you, not any more," when the boys +handed round the few disconsolate-looking pieces that +remained.</p> + +<p>And after this there was the fun of washing up +and packing away, in which Ted greatly distinguished +himself. <ins title="original has Hs">He</ins> would not leave the least shred of paper +or even crumbs about, for the fairies would be angry, +he said, if their pretty house wasn't left "kite tidy." +And Percy and Mabel were amused at his fancy, and +naturally enough it set them talking about fairies and +such like. For the children were by themselves now—the +ladies had gone on a little farther to a place +where Ted's mother wanted to sketch, and the gentlemen +had set off to climb to the nearest peak, from +whence there was a beautiful view of the sea. It +would have been too much for Ted, and indeed when +his father had asked him if he would like to go part +of the way with them, both his mother and Percy +noticed that a troubled look came over his happy face, +as he said he would rather stay where he was, which +was strange for him, for though such a little boy, he +was always eager for a climb and anxious to do +whatever he saw any one else doing. So kind Percy, +mindful of Ted's mother's words, said he would not +go either, and stayed with the others, helping them to +tidy up the fairies' house.</p> + +<p>"Now," said Ted at last, sitting down on the grass +at Mabel's feet, "now I <i>sink</i> the fairies will be p'eased. +It's all kite tidy. Fairies is always angry if peoples is +untidy."</p> + +<p>"I thought fairies were always in a good humour," +said Percy. "I didn't know they were ever angry."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I think Ted's right," said Mabel. "They are +angry with people who are dirty or untidy. Don't +you remember a story about them coming to work in +a house where the kitchen was always left tidy at +night? And they never would come to the next +house because it was always in a mess."</p> + +<p>"P'ease tell me that story, Mabel," said Ted.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid I don't remember it very well," she +replied.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember," said Percy, who was lying +on the ground staring up at the sky and the bit of +brown mountain peak that could be seen from where +he was, "do you remember, Mab, the story of a little +boy that fell asleep on the top of a mountain, and the +fairies spirited him away, and took him down to their +country, down inside the mountain? And he thought +he had only been away—when he came home again, +I mean, for they had to let him out again after a +while—he thought he had only been away a day or +two, and, fancy, it had been twenty years! All the +children had grown big, and the young people middle-aged, +and the middle-aged people quite old, and none +of them knew him again. He had lost all his childhood. +Wasn't it sad?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, <i>very</i>" said Mabel; "I remember the story."</p> + +<p>"I think it's dedful," said Ted. "I don't like +mountains, and I don't like diants. I'll never go up +a mountain, never."</p> + +<p>"But it wasn't the mountain's fault, Ted," said +Percy. "And it wasn't giants, it was fairies."</p> + +<p>"I sink p'raps it was diants," persisted Ted. "I +don't like zem. Mr. Brand is a diant," he added +mysteriously, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>Percy had been thinking of what Ted's mother +had said. Now he felt sure that it was something to +do with Mr. Brand that had frightened the little fellow. +But Mabel did not know about it.</p> + +<p>"I like mountains," she said. "Indeed I love +them. I am always so glad to live where I can see +their high peaks reaching up into the sky."</p> + +<p>"But it wouldn't be nice to be alone, kite alone, +on the top of one of zem, would it?" said Ted.</p> + +<p>"No, it wouldn't be nice to be alone in any far-off +place like that," said Percy, "but of course nobody +would ever stay up on the top of a mountain alone."</p> + +<p>"But if zem was <i>made</i> to," said Ted doubtfully. +"I wouldn't mind so much if I had Chevie," he added, +putting his arm round the dear doggie's neck and +leaning his little fair head on him, for of course Chevie +was of the party.</p> + +<p>"Poor Ted," said Percy, laughing. "No one would +ever make <i>you</i> live up all alone on the top of a +mountain. Mabel, I wish you'd tell us a story," he +said to his sister. "It's so nice here. I shall go to +sleep if somebody doesn't do something to keep me +awake."</p> + +<p>He was lying at full length on the soft mossy grass, +in the same place still, and gazing up at the blue sky +and brown mountain peak. "Tell us a story, Mab," +he repeated lazily.</p> + +<p>"I haven't got any very nice ones just now," said +Mabel. "I have been so busy with my lessons, +you know, Percy, that I haven't had time for any +stories."</p> + +<p>"Can't you make them up yourself?" said Percy.</p> + +<p>"Sometimes I do, a little," she replied. "But I +can't make them all quite myself. Sometimes in our +German reading-books there are funny little bits of +stories, and I add on to them. There was one—oh +yes, I'll tell you one about a giant who lived on the +top of a mountain."</p> + +<p>Ted drew nearer to Mabel, and nestled in to her +side.</p> + +<p>"A diant on the top of a mountain," he repeated. +"Is it very f'ightening, Mabel?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no. Listen and I'll tell you. Once, a long +time ago, there was, a long way off, a strange country. +There were lots and lots of forests in it, and at the +side of the biggest forest of all there rose a chain of +high mountains. The people who lived in this forest +were poor, simple sort of people—they hadn't much +time for anything but work, for it was difficult to +gain enough to live on. Most of them were charcoal-burners, +and there were not very many of them altogether. +Of course in a forest there wouldn't be +much room for cottages and houses, would there? +And their cottages were none of them near together. +Each family had its own hut, quite separated from +the others, and unless you belonged to the forest you +could hardly find your way from one part of it to +the other. The poor people, too, were so busy that +they had not much time for going to see each other, or +for amusing themselves in any way. They all had a +pale sad look, something like the look that I have +heard papa say the poor people in some parts of +England have—the people in those parts where they +work so awfully hard in dark smoky towns and never +see the sun, or the green fields, or anything fresh and +pretty. Of course the forest people were not as +badly off as <i>that</i>—for their work any way was in the +open air, and the forest was clean—not like dirty +factories, even though it was so dark. It was the +want of sunshine that was their worst trouble, and +that gave them that white, dull, half-frightened look. +The forest was too thick and dense for the sun to +get really into it, even in winter, and then, of course, +the rays are so thin and pale that they aren't much +good if they do come. And the mountains at the +side came so close down to the edge of the forest +that there was no getting any sunshine there either, +for it was the north side there, the side that the sunshine +couldn't get to. So for these reasons the place +had come to be called 'the sunless country.'"</p> + +<p>"What was there at the other side of the forest?" +said Percy; "couldn't they have got into the sunshine +at that side?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Mabel. "I think there was a river or +something. Or else it was that the forest was so +very, very big that it would have been quite a journey +to get out at any other side. I think that was it. +Any way they couldn't. And they just had to live +on without sunshine as well as they could. Their +fathers had done so before them, and there was no +help for it, they thought. They were too poor and +too hard-worked to move away to another country, or +to do anything but just go through each day as it +came in a dull sad way, seldom speaking even to each +other.</p> + +<p>"But do you know, it had <i>not</i> always been so in +the sunless forest, though the better times were so +long ago that hardly any of the poor people knew it +had ever been different. There had, once upon a +time, been a way into the sunshine on the other side +of the mountain, and this way lay right through the +great hill itself. But the mountain belonged to a great +and very powerful giant"—at this Ted edged still +closer to Mabel—"who lived in it quite alone. Sometimes +he used to come out at a hole in the top, which +was his door, and stay up there for a while looking +about him, staring at the black forest down at his +feet, and smiling grimly to himself at the thought of +how dark and dull it must be for the people who lived +in it. For he was not a kind giant at all. It was he +that had shut up the passage through which the poor +forest people used to pass to their bright cottages on +the other side, for in those days they didn't <i>live</i> in +the forest, they only went there for their work, and +on Sundays and holidays they were all happy and +merry together, and the little children grew up rosy +and bright, quite different from the poor little wan-faced +creatures that now hung sadly about at the hut +doors in the forest, looking as if they didn't know how +to laugh or play."</p> + +<p>"Why did the naughty diant shut up the way?" +asked Ted.</p> + +<p>"Because he had a quarrel with the forest people. +He wanted them to let their little boys and girls, or +some of them, come to him to be his servants, but +they wouldn't, and so he was so angry that he shut +up the door. But that was so long ago now that the +people had almost forgotten about it—the children +that the giant had wanted to be his servants were old +grandfathers and grandmothers now, and some of them +were dead, I daresay, so that the real history of their +troubles was forgotten by them but not by the giant, +for whenever he came out at the top of the mountain +to take some air, he used to look down at the forest +and think how dull and miserable they must be there."</p> + +<p>"Nasty diant," said Ted.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he was very unkind, but still I think you +would have been rather sorry for him too. He was +old and all alone, and of course nobody loved him. +The people in the forest hardly ever spoke of him. +They knew he was there, or that he used to be there, +and now and then some of the children who had heard +about him used to feel afraid of him and whisper to +each other that he would eat them up if he could +catch them, but that was about all the notice they +took of him. They seemed to have forgotten that he +was the cause of their sad, gloomy lives, and indeed +I am not sure that any except some very old people +really knew. Among these very old people there +were a man and his wife who were almost the poorest +of all in the forest. They were so poor because they +were almost past work, and they had no children to +work for them. All that they had was a little granddaughter, +who lived with them because her father and +mother were dead. And it was a queer thing that +she was quite different from the other poor children +in the forest. They were all pale and sad and crushed-looking +like their parents. This little girl was bright-haired +and bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked. She was +the one merry happy creature in the forest, and all +the poor people used to stand and look at her as she +flitted about, and wish that their children were the +same. I don't know what her real name was; the +story didn't tell, but the name she got to have among +the forest people was Sunshine—at least it was Sunshine +in German, but I think 'Sunny' is a nicer +name, don't you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Percy; and</p> + +<p>"Ses," said Ted, "'Sunny' is nicest."</p> + +<p>"Well, we'll call her 'Sunny.' The reason that +she was so different was partly that she hadn't been +born in the forest. Her father, who was the son of +these old people, had gone away, as some few of the +forest people did, to another country, and there he +had married a bright-haired, pretty girl. But she +had died, and he himself got very ill, and he had only +strength to bring his baby girl back to the forest to +his parents when he too died. So Sunny's history +had been rather sad, you see, but still it hadn't made +<i>her</i> sad—it seemed as if the sunshine was <i>in</i> her +somehow, and that nothing could send it away."</p> + +<p>Mabel stopped. Voices and steps were heard +coming near.</p> + +<p>"They're coming back," she said. "I'll have to +finish the story another time. I didn't think it +would take so long to tell."</p> + +<p>"Oh <i>do</i> go on now, dear, dear Mabel, oh <i>do</i>!" cried +Ted beseechingly.</p> + +<p>But Mabel's fair face grew red.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't, Ted, dear," she said, "not before big +people," and Percy sympathised with her.</p> + +<p>"We'll hear the rest in the garden at home," he +said.</p> + +<p>"Thoo won't tell it without me, not without Ted, +p'ease," asked the little fellow.</p> + +<p>"No, no, of course not, darling," said Mabel as she +kissed his eager face.</p> + +<p>Just then a ray of bright evening sunshine fell on +Ted's brown hair, lighting it up and deepening it to +gold, and as the little fellow caught it in his eyes, he +looked up laughing.</p> + +<p>"There's Sunny kissing Ted too," he said merrily.</p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h3> +<h4>THE STORY OF SUNNY (<i>Concluded</i>).</h4> +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">"A child of light, a radiant lass,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="ind1">And cheerful as the morning air."</span></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>They were all three laughing at Ted's wit when his +mother and the other ladies came upon them.</p> + +<p>"You seem very happy, children," said she.</p> + +<p>"Oh ses," said Ted. "Mabel has been telling us +such a lovely story. It's not finnied yet. She's +going to tell the rest in the garden at home. Oh, I +<i>am</i> so happy. It's been such a sprendid day."</p> + +<p>He began half humming to himself in the excess +of his delight.</p> + +<p>"Ted wishes somebody would sing a song," he said.</p> + +<p>His mother glanced at Mabel. Poor Mabel's face +grew very red again. It would be worse than telling +a story.</p> + +<p>"If we all sang together," she said timidly, "I +wouldn't mind trying to begin."</p> + +<p>So in a minute or two her clear young voice sang +out—like a lark's it seemed to mount higher and still +higher, gathering strength and courage as it grew, +and then softly dropping again as if to fetch the +others, who joined her in the old familiar chorus +of the simple song she had chosen—"Home, sweet +home."</p> + +<p>Ted listened entranced, and his little voice here +and there could be distinguished. But suddenly, as +Mabel stopped and a momentary silence fell on them +all, he turned to his mother, and throwing himself +into her arms, burst into tears.</p> + +<p>"Muzzer," he said, "I can't bear it. It's <i>too</i> +pitty," and though his mother and Mabel soothed +the excited little fellow with gentle words and +caresses, there were tears in more eyes than Ted's as +they all thanked Mabel for her singing.</p> + +<p>It was the next day that they had the rest of the +story. The children were all in the garden together, +not far from Ted's favourite "bridge." They could +hear the babble of the little brook as it chattered +past in the sunshine, and now and then the distant +cry of a sea-bird would sound through the clear air, +making Cheviott prick up his ears and look very +wide-awake all of a sudden, though in reality, being +no longer in the first bloom of youth, he was apt to +get rather drowsy on a hot afternoon.</p> + +<p>"We'se all ready, Mabel," said Ted, settling himself +down comfortably in his favourite rest at her +side. "Now go on p'ease. I can see the top of the +mountain kite nice from here, and zen I can sink I'll +see the old diant poking his head out," evidently the +child's fear of the mountain was fast becoming a +thing of the past, and Percy felt quite pleased.</p> + +<p>"Well," began Mabel, "I was telling you that +Sunny had lived with her old grandfather and grandmother +since she was quite little. They were very +kind to her, but they were very poor, almost the +poorest of all in the forest. And yet their cottage +never seemed quite so dull and sad as the others. +How could it, when there was always Sunny's bright +head flitting about, and her merry voice sounding like +a bird's?</p> + +<p>"The old people looked at her half with pleasure +and half sadly.</p> + +<p>"'It can't last,' the old man said one day, when +the little girl was running and jumping about in her +usual happy way.</p> + +<p>"The old woman knew what he meant without his +explaining, and she nodded her head sadly, and just +then Sunny came flying into the cottage to show them +some flowers she had actually found in the forest, +which, you see, was the greatest wonder possible, for +there were almost <i>never</i> any flowers to be seen. And +Sunny told them how she had found them in a little +corner where the trees did not grow quite so thick, +so that more light could get in. And when she saw +how surprised the old people were, she looked at them +rather strangely, and some new thoughts seemed to +be awaking in her mind, and she said, 'Grandfather, +why aren't there more flowers in the forest, and why +am I the only little girl that laughs and sings? Why +does everybody look sad here? I can remember a +little, just a little, about the other country I lived in +before I came here. People used to laugh and smile +there, and my mother had bright hair like mine, and +father too was not sad till after mother had gone +away and we came to this dark land. Why is it so +dark, and why do you all look so sad?'</p> + +<p>"The old man told her it was all for want of +the sun, 'the blessed sun,' he called it, and Sunny +thought about his words a great deal. And bit by +bit she got the whole story from him, for he was one +of the few remaining old people who knew the reason +of their misfortunes. And Sunny thought and thought +it over so much that she began to leave off dancing +and laughing and singing as she used, so that her +poor grandfather and grandmother began to be afraid +that the sadness of the forest was at last spoiling her +happy nature, and for a while they were very sorry +about her. But one day she told them what she had +in her mind. This was what she said to them—</p> + +<p>"'Dear grandfather and grandmother, I cannot +bear to see the sadness of the poor people here, and +I have been thinking if nothing can be done. And +a few nights ago I had a strange dream. I dreamt +that a beautiful lady stood beside me and said, 'Go, +Sunny, and have no fear. The giant will not harm +you.' And since then it has come into my mind that +I might win back the sunshine for our poor neighbours, +and for you too, dear grandfather and grandmother, +for you are not so very old yet, if you will +let me go to see if I can melt the giant's hard heart.'</p> + +<p>"Sunny was standing in front of the old couple, +and as she spoke, to their amazement, a sudden ray of +sunshine crept in through the little rough window of +the cottage and fell softly on her bright head. Her +grandfather looked at her grandmother, and her grandmother +looked at her grandfather. They didn't know +how to speak—they were so surprised. Never, since +they were quite, quite little children had they seen +such a thing. And they whispered to each other +that it must be a magic sign, they must let the child +go. I think it was very good and kind of them to +let her go, the only thing they had to cheer them. +The tears rolled down their poor old faces as they +said good-bye to her, not knowing if they would live +to see her return. But they said to each other, 'We +have not very many years to live. It would be very +wrong of us to lose the chance of life and happiness +for all the poor forest people just to keep <i>our</i> bit of +sunshine to ourselves.' And so they let her go, for +they were good old people."</p> + +<p>"Ses," said Ted, "zem was very kind. But how +dedful for Sunny to have to go to the diant. Did +her go all alone, Mabel?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, all alone. But she wasn't frightened. And +somehow her grandfather and grandmother weren't +frightened for her either. They had a feeling that +she <i>had</i> to go, and so she did. She set off the very +next morning. Her grandfather explained the way to +her, for old as he was he had never forgotten the days +when the passage through the giant's mountain was left +free and open, so that there was no need for the forest +people to spend all their lives in the gloom and shade.</p> + +<p>"Sunny walked quietly along the dark paths among +the trees. She didn't dance and skip as usual, for +she felt as if all of a sudden she had grown almost +into a woman, with the thought of what she had to +do for her poor neighbours. And as she looked about +her, she felt as if she had never before quite noticed +how dark and chill and gloomy it was. She had a +good way to walk, for since the closing of the passage +the people had moved farther and farther into the +forest. They had grown afraid of the giant, and were +glad to get as far from him as they could, for there +was no good to be got by staying near him. So +Sunny walked on, past the cottages she knew, where +she nodded to the people she saw, but without speaking +to them, which was so unlike her usual merry +way that they all looked after her in surprise and +wondered what had come over the little girl. And +one or two of them shook their heads and said sadly +that she was getting to be like the rest of them. +But Sunny walked on, farther and farther, now and +then smiling quietly to herself, and her bright little +head shining in the darkness almost as if the sun was +lighting it up. She went a good way, but there was +nothing new or different. It was always the dark +forest and the gloomy trees. But at last she saw, +close to her, behind the trees, the dark sides of the +great mountain, and she knew that she must be near +the closed-up door."</p> +<p><a name="img083" id="img083"></a></p> +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="Illustration"> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <a href="images/img083.jpg"> + <img src="images/img083.jpg" height="400" + alt="She hunted for a silver knob" /></a> + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="center"><span class="small">"She hunted about among the leaves and branches till she<br /> +found a little silver knob."</span><br /> + <span class="caption">Click to <a href="images/img083.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>"Oh!" said Ted, "wasn't her afraid of bears?"</p> + +<p>"No," said Mabel, "she wasn't afraid of anything. +She went quietly up to the door and stood before it. +It was barred and barred with iron, and it was so +long since it had been opened that the ivy and those +sorts of plants had grown all over it, creeping round +the iron bars. It looked as if it hadn't been opened +for a hundred years, and I daresay it hadn't been. +But Sunny knew what to do. She hunted about among +the leaves and branches till she found a little silver +knob—her grandfather had told her about it; and the +queer thing was that though the iron bars were quite +rusted over so that you wouldn't have known what +they were, the little silver knob was still bright and +shining as if it had been cleaned every day always."</p> + +<p>"Wif plate-powder," said Ted, who was very +learned about such matters, as he was very fond of +watching the servants at their work.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Mabel, "just as if it had been cleaned +with plate-powder. Well, Sunny pressed this little +knob, and a minute or two after she heard a clear +tinkling bell. That was just what her grandfather +had told her she would hear, so she stood quite still +and waited. In a little while she seemed to hear a +sound as of something coming along the passage, and +suddenly the top part of the door—at least it was +more like a window cut in the door—opened, and a +voice, though she could not see anybody, called out, +'Have you come to stay?' This too was what her +grandfather had told her she would hear, so she knew +what to say, and she answered 'Yes.' Then the voice +said again, 'At what price?' and Sunny answered, +'Sunshine for the forest.' But her heart began to +beat faster when the door slowly opened and she saw +that she must enter the dark passage. There was no +one to be seen, even though the voice had sounded +quite near, so Sunny just walked on, looking about +her, for gradually as she went farther, either her eyes +grew used to the darkness, or a slight light began to +come, and in a few minutes she saw before her a very, +very high staircase. It went straight up, without +turnings or landings, and the steps were quite white, +so she saw them plainly though the light was dim, +and as there was nowhere else to go, she just went +straight on. I can't tell you what a long time she +seemed to keep going upstairs, but at last the steps +stopped, and before her she saw another door. It +wasn't a door like the one down below, it was more +like a gate, for it was a sort of a grating that you could +see through. Sunny pressed her face against it and +peeped in. She saw a large dark room, with a rounded +roof something like a church, and in one corner a very +old, grim-looking man was sitting. He had a very +long beard, but he didn't look so awfully big as Sunny +had expected, for she knew he must be the giant. +He was sitting quite still, and it seemed to Sunny +that he was shivering. Any way he looked very old +and very lonely and sad, and instead of feeling frightened +of him the little girl felt very sorry for him. +She stood there quite still, but though she didn't +make the least noise he found out she was there. +He waved his hand, and the barred door opened and +Sunny walked in. She walked right up to the giant +and made him a curtsey. Rather to her surprise he +made her a bow, then he waved his hands about and +moved his lips as if he were speaking, but no sound +came, and Sunny stared at him in surprise. She +began to wonder if he was deaf and dumb, and if +so how could she explain to him what she had come +for?</p> + +<p>"'I can't understand what you are saying, sir,' she +said very politely, and then, to her still greater surprise, +the waving of his hands and the moving of his lips +seemed to succeed, for in a very queer deep voice he +answered her.</p> + +<p>"'What do you want?' he said. 'I sent my voice +downstairs to speak to you, and he has been loitering +on the way, lazy fellow, all this time. There are no +good servants to be had nowadays, none. I've not +had one worth his salt since I sent my old ones back +to Ogreland when they got past work. What do you +want?'</p> + +<p>"'Sunshine for the forest people.'</p> + +<p>"That was all Sunny said, and she looked at the +grim old giant straight in the face. He looked at +her, and went on shivering and rubbing his hands. +Then he said, with a frown,</p> + +<p>"'Why should they have sunshine? I can't get +it myself, since I'm too old to get up to the top there. +Sunshine indeed!' and then he suddenly stretched +out his hand to her and made a grab at her hair, +screaming out, 'Why, you've got sunshine! Come +here, and let me warm my hands. Ugh! that's the +first time I've felt a little less chilly these hundred +years,' and Sunny stood patiently beside him and +let him stroke her golden hair up and down, and in +a minute or two she said quietly,</p> + +<p>"'Will you unfasten the door, good Mr. Giant, +and let the poor people through to the other side?'</p> + +<p>"The giant still kept hold of her hair. 'It would +be no good cutting it off—the sunshine would go out +of it,' Sunny heard him saying to himself. So she +just said again quietly, 'Will you unfasten the +door, good Mr. Giant?'</p> + +<p>"And at last he said, 'I'll consider about it. Your +hair's getting cold. Go upstairs,' and he nodded +his head towards a door in the corner of the room, +'go upstairs and fetch some sunshine for me, and +come down again.'</p> + +<p>"But Sunny wouldn't stir till she had got something +out of him. And she said for the third time,</p> + +<p>"'Will you unfasten the door, good Mr. Giant, if I +go upstairs to please you?'</p> + +<p>"And the giant gave her a push, and said to her, +'Get off with you, you tiresome child. Yes, I'll +open the door if you'll go and bathe your hair well, +and then come down to warm my hands.'</p> + +<p>"So Sunny went upstairs. This stair wasn't like +the other. It was a turny, screwy stair that went +round and round itself, for you see it was near the +top of the mountain and there wasn't so much room +as down below. Sunny felt rather giddy when she +got to the top, but she got all right again in a minute +when she pushed open the little door she found there +and came out into the sunlight. It was <i>so</i> lovely, +and remember, she hadn't seen sunshine, even though +some of the brightness had stayed with her, since +she was a very little girl. You have no idea how +pretty it was up there, not gloomy at all, and with +the beautiful warm sunshine pouring down all round. +Sunny was very pleased to warm herself in it, and +then when she looked down over the side of the +mountain and saw the dark tops of the forest trees, +she was still more pleased to think that soon her poor +friends would have a chance of enjoying it too. And +when she thought that her hair had caught enough +sunshine to please the giant she called down through +the screwy staircase, 'Have you opened the door, Mr. +Giant?' And when the giant said, 'Come down and +I'll tell you,' she answered, 'No, Mr. Giant, I can't +come till you've opened the door.' And then she +heard him grumbling to himself, and in a minute she +heard a rattling noise, and she knew the door was +opened, and then she came down. She had settled +with her grandfather that if she didn't come straight +back, he would send some of the people to watch for +the door being opened, so she knew it would be all +right, for once the giant had agreed to open it, he +couldn't shut it again—that was settled somehow, +some magic way I suppose, the story didn't say how. +So then Sunny, came downstairs again, and the giant +stroked her hair up and down till his poor old hands +were quite warm, and he grew quite pleased and good-natured. +But he wouldn't let Sunny go away, and +she had to stay, you see, because the top-door, the one +like a gate, was still shut up. And any way she +didn't want to be unkind to the giant. She promised +him that she would come back to see him every day +if he liked if only he would let her go, but he wouldn't, +so she had to stay. I don't know how long she stayed. +It was a long time, for the story said she grew thin +and white with being shut up in the giant's cave and +having no running about. It was worse than the +forest. The only thing that kept her alive was the +sunshine she got every morning, for there was <i>always</i> +sunshine at the top of the mountain, and then, too, the +comfort of knowing that the poor people were enjoying +it too, for when she was up on the top she could +hear their voices down below, as they came to the +door. Day by day she heard their voices grow merrier +and brighter, and after a while she could even hear +the little children laughing and shouting with glee. +And Sunny felt that she didn't mind for herself, she +was <i>so</i> glad to think that she had done some good to +her poor friends. But she got paler and thinner and +weaker—it was so very tiring to stand such a long +time every day while the giant stroked the sunshine +out of her golden hair to warm his withered old hands, +and it was so terribly dark and dull and cold in the +gloomy cavern. She would hardly have known how +the days went or when was day and when was night, +but for the giant sending her upstairs every morning. +But one morning came when she could not go; she +got up a few steps, and then her strength went away +and she seemed to get half asleep, and she said to herself +that she was going to die, and she did not know +anything more. She seemed to be dreaming. She +fancied the giant came to look for her, and that his +old face grew sad and sorry when he saw her. And +then she thought she heard him say, 'Poor little girl, +I did not mean to hurt her. I have done harm enough. +Sunny, forgive me. The giant will do you and your +people no more harm. His day is over.' Then she +really did sleep, for a long time I fancy, for when +she woke up she could not think where she was. +She thought at first she was on the top of the mountain, +it seemed so beautifully bright and warm. She +sat up a little and looked about her, and she <i>couldn't</i> +think where she was, for on one side close to her, she +saw the dark trees of the forest that she knew so well, +and on the other, smiling green fields and orchards +and cottages with gardens filled with flowers, just the +sort of country her grandfather had told her he remembered +when he was a child on the other side of the +great hill. It was just as if the mountain had melted +away. And, just fancy, that <i>was</i> what had happened! +For in a little while Sunny heard voices coming near +her, all talking eagerly. It was the people of the +forest who had found out what had come to pass, and +they were all hurrying to look for Sunny, for they +were terribly afraid that the giant had taken her +away to Ogreland with the mountain. But he hadn't, +you see! And Sunny and all the forest people lived all +their lives as happy as could be—they were happier +even than in the old days the grandfather and grandmother +remembered, for not only were they free to +leave the dark forest and enjoy the sunlight as often +as they liked, but the sunshine now found its way +by all the chinks and crannies among the branches +into the very forest itself."</p> + +<p>"And did they never hear anything more of the +giant?" asked Percy.</p> + +<p>"No," said Mabel, "only in hot summer days sometimes, +when the sun was beating down too much on +the fields and gardens, the people of that country +used to notice a large soft gray cloud that often came +between them and the sunshine, and would stay there +till the great heat grew less. This cloud seemed +always the same shape, and somehow, Sunny, remembering +her vision of the giant, thought to herself that +the cloud was perhaps he, and that he wanted to +make up for his long cruelty. And the children of +the forest having heard her story used to laugh when +they saw the cloud, and say to each other, 'See, there +is the giant warming his hands.' But Sunny would +say softly in a whisper, 'Thank you, Mr. Giant.'</p> + +<p>"And though it is a very, very long time since all +that happened, it has never been quite forgotten, and +the people of that country are noted for their healthy +happy faces, and the little children for their rosy +cheeks and golden hair."</p> + +<p>Mabel stopped.</p> + +<p>"It is a very pretty story," said Percy. "Are +there more like it in the book where you read it?"</p> + +<p>Mabel was just going to answer, when her attention +was caught by Ted.</p> + +<p>"I do believe he's asleep," she said softly, for Ted +had curled himself up like a dormouse in his little +nest at her side. But just then the two-legged dormouse +gave a funny chuckle, which showed that +whether he <i>had</i> been asleep or not, he certainly was +so no longer.</p> + +<p>"What are you laughing at, Teddy?" said Percy.</p> + +<p>"I were just sinking," said Ted, "what a silly boy +Ted were to be afraid of mountains<span class="nowrap">——</span>Ted would +like to go up to the very, very top," he went on +valorously. "Ted wouldn't mind a bit—not," with a +prudent reservation, "not if thoo and Mabel was wif +me."</p> + +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h3> +<h4>LITTLE NARCISSA.</h4> +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">"But, I think, of all new-comers</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="ind1">Little children are the best."</span></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>From this time, I think, Ted lost his fear of mountains +and giants. It was not till a long time afterwards +that he explained to his mother exactly how it had +been, and by that time he was of course quite big +enough to understand that Mr. Brand had only been +joking. But still he did not much care about seeing +that gentleman again. He generally managed to be +out of the way when he saw the dog-cart with the +gray horse driving in at the gate, and just once, when +he would not have had time to run off without actual +rudeness, which little Ted <i>never</i> was guilty of, he only +waited to shake hands and say "Quite well, thank +thoo," before he disappeared in so unaccountable a +manner that he could not be found as long as Mr. +Brand's visit lasted.</p> + +<p>It was a good deal thanks to Mabel's story that +he grew to like his old friend the mountain again. +But partly too, I daresay, he forgot his fears on account +of several very interesting things that happened about +this time. It was a great sorrow to him when Percy +had to go back to school—that was one of little Ted's +lasting or rather returning sorrows, all through his +childhood. Only, like many things in our lives, if we +learn to look at them in the right way, it was certainly +a trouble with a bright side to it, a cloud with a silver +lining—a silver lining which shone indeed all the +brighter for the gray outside—for was there not the +delight, the <i>delicious</i> delight, of the coming back +again, the showing all the changes in the garden since +Percy was last there, the new toys and other little +presents that Ted had received, and listening to Percy's +thrilling accounts of school-life, the relating his own +adventures?</p> + +<p>Still there were times, especially now that Ted +was really growing very sensible, that he wished for +some other companion in his simple daily life, some +one who, like the little fishes, did not have to go to +school. And now and then, when, in his rare expeditions +to the sea-side town not far off, he saw little +groups of brothers and sisters trotting along together, +or when in the stories his mother read to him he heard +of happy nursery parties, Ted used to wish <i>he</i> had a +little "bruvver or sister, even a baby one would be +very nice." For deep down in his loving heart there +was already the true manly spirit, the longing to have +something to take care of and protect; something +tinier and more tender even than wee Ted himself.</p> + +<p>And to make his child-life complete this pretty +thing came to him. With the autumn days, just +when Ted was beginning to feel a little sad at the +summer brightness going away, and his garden work +had come to be chiefly helping old David to sweep up +the fast-falling leaves, there came to Ted a dear little +baby sister. She was the dearest little thing—bright-eyed +and merry, and looking as if she was ready for +all sorts of fun. She was stronger than Ted had been, +and to tell the truth I think I must say prettier. +For sweet and fair and dear as was Ted's face both in +baby-and boy-hood, he was not what one would call +pretty. Not the sort of child whose proud nurse +comes home with wonderful stories of ladies stopping +her in the street to ask whose beautiful baby he was—not +a splendidly vigorous, stalwart little man like a +small eight-years-old of my acquaintance whose +mother was lately afraid to walk about the streets of +Berlin with him lest the old Emperor, as he sometimes +does, should want to have him to make an officer of! +No; Ted, though lithe and active as a squirrel, merry +as a cricket, was not a "showy" child. He was just +our own dear little Ted, our happy-hearted Christmas +child.</p> + +<p>But I suppose there never was in this world any +one so happy but that it was <i>possible</i> for him to be +happier. And this "more happiness" came to Ted in +the shape of his baby sister, Narcissa. Boys who +despise sisters, "girls" in any shape, big or little, +don't know what a great deal they lose. Ted was +still a good way off the "big boy" stage, and indeed +I don't think anything could have made it possible +for him to look at things as too many big boys do. +By the time he reached schoolboy-hood, Narcissa was +a dainty maiden of five or six, and quite able to +stand up for herself in a little queenly way, even had +her brother been less tender and devoted. And of +the years between, though I would like to tell you +something, I cannot tell you half nor a quarter. They +were happy sunny years, though not <i>quite</i> without +clouds of course. And the first summer of little +Cissy's life was a sort of bright opening to them.</p> + +<p>It was again a very beautiful summer. The +children almost lived out-of-doors. Poor nurse found +it difficult to get the work in the house that fell to +her share finished in the morning before Ted was +tugging at her to "tum out into the garden, baby +does <i>so</i> want to tum;" and baby soon learnt to clap +her hands and chuckle with glee when her little hat +was tied on and she was carried downstairs to her +perambulator waiting at the door. And there was +new interest for Ted in hunting for the loveliest wild +flowers he could find, as baby showed, or Ted <i>thought</i> +she did, a quite extraordinary love for the bouquets +her little brother arranged for her.</p> + +<p>"Her knows <i>kite</i> well which is the prettiest ones, +doesn't her, nurse?" he said one day when they were +all three—all four rather, for of course Chevie was +one of the group—established in their favourite place +under the shade of a great tree, whose waving +branches little Cissy loved so much that she would +cry when nurse wheeled her away from it. "I think +baby knows <i>lots</i>, though she can't speak;" and baby, +pleased at his evidently talking of <i>her</i>, burst into a +funny crowing laugh, which seemed exactly as if +she knew and approved of what he was saying.</p> + +<p>"Baby's a darling," said nurse.</p> + +<p>"How soon will her learn to speak?" Ted inquired +gravely.</p> +<p><a name="img098" id="img098"></a></p> +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="Illustration"> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <a href="images/img098.jpg"> + <img src="images/img098.jpg" height="400" + alt="Baby loved the bouquets" /></a> + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="center"><span class="small">"Baby showed, or Ted <i>thought</i> she did, a quite extraordinary love for<br /> +the bouquets her little brother arranged for her."</span><br /> + <span class="caption">Click to <a href="images/img098.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>"Not just yet. She hasn't got any teeth. Nobody +can speak without teeth," said nurse.</p> + +<p>"I hope," said Ted, more gravely still, "I hope +Dod hasn't forgotten them."</p> + +<p>Nurse turned away to hide a smile.</p> + +<p>"No fear, Master Ted," she said in a minute. +"She'll have nice little teeth by and by, you'll see. +They'll be wee tiny white specks at first, and then +they'll grow quite big and strong enough to bite with. +That's how your teeth came. Not all of a sudden, +you see."</p> + +<p>"Ses," said Ted. "Nothing comes all in one sudden. +The f'owers is weeny, weeny buds at first, and then +they gets big. Nurse, I'm going to take my cart to +get a <i>lot</i> of daisies down by the brook for baby. She +likes to roll zem in her hands," and off he set with +his little blue cart and white horse, his best beloved +possession, and which had done good service in its +time, to fill it with flowers for Cissy.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later, as he was manfully dragging +the cart up the path again, gee-upping and gee-whoing +at the horse, which was supposed to find the daisy +heads a heavy load uphill, his mother came out to +the garden.</p> + +<p>"Ted, dear," she said, "your father is going to +drive me to A<span class="nowrap">——</span>. It is a long time since you +were there, and I should like to have my little boy to +go about with me while your papa is busy. I have +a good deal of shopping to do. Would you like to go +with me?"</p> + +<p>Ted gave a shout of pleasure. Then suddenly his +glance fell on the little sister still in her perambulator +under the big tree, and his eyes filled with tears.</p> + +<p>"I would like dedfully to go," he said, "but poor +Cissy. I <i>is</i> so afraid Cissy will cry if I go."</p> + +<p>He lifted his wistful little face to his mother's +with an expression that went to her heart.</p> + +<p>"Dear Ted," she said; "you are a good, kind, little +boy. But don't make yourself unhappy about Cissy. +She is too little to cry for your going away, though +she will laugh to see you come back."</p> + +<p>Ted's face cleared, but suddenly a rosy colour +spread over it.</p> + +<p>"Muzzer," he said, in a low voice, tugging gently +at her dress to make her stoop down, "muzzer, I <i>sink</i> +I were going to cry not all for poor baby being sorry, +but part 'cos I did so want to go."</p> + +<p>Mother understood his simple confession.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear," she said, "I daresay you did, and it +is right of you to tell me. My good little Ted," she +could not resist adding again, and again little Ted's +face grew red, but this time with pleasure at mother's +praise.</p> + +<p>Baby bore the announcement, which he considered +it his duty to make to her with great formality, very +philosophically. Less philosophically did she take +nurse's wheeling her away from under her beloved +tree with its fluttering branches, towards the house, +where nurse had to go to prepare Ted for his expedition. +In fact, I am sorry to say that so little did the young +lady realise what was expected of her, that she burst +into a loud roar, which was quite too much for Ted's +feelings.</p> + +<p>"Dear baby, sweet baby," he cried, "thoo mustn't +be tooked away from thoo's tree. I'll ask muzzer to +deck me, nurse," he went on eagerly, for his mother +had returned to the house, "or I can nearly kite well +deck myself. I'll call thoo if I can't find my things. +I'll run and ask muzzer," and off he went, so eager to +give no trouble, so ready and helpful that nurse thought +it best to let him have his way, and to devote her +attention to the discomposed Miss Baby.</p> + +<p>Ted did not find his mother quite so quickly as he +expected, though he peeped into the drawing-room +and called her by name as he passed her own room +upstairs, on his way to the nursery. The fact was +that mother was in the kitchen consulting with cook +as to the groceries required to be ordered, and it never +came into Ted's head to look for her there at this time +of day. So he went straight on to the nursery, and +managing with a good deal of tugging and pulling +and coaxing to open <i>his</i> drawer in the chest, he got +out his best little coat and hat and prepared to don +them. But first he looked at his hands, which were +none the whiter for their recent ravages among the +daisies.</p> + +<p>"Zem's very dirty," he said to himself; "zem must +be washed."</p> + +<p>There was water in the jug, but Ted's ambition +was aroused, and great things were to be expected of +a little boy who was big enough to "deck himself," +as he would have described the process.</p> + +<p>"Ses, zem's <i>very</i> dirty," he repeated, contemplating +the two sunburnt little paws in question. "Zem +should have hot water. Hot water makes zem ze +most clean."</p> + +<p>He glanced round, the hot water was not far to +seek, for, though it was June, the weather was not +very warm, and nurse generally kept a small fire +burning in the day-nursery. And beside the fire, +temptingly beside the fire, stood the kettle, into which +Ted peeping, satisfied himself that there was water +enough for his purpose. He would hardly have had +patience to fetch it had it not been there, so eager +was he for the delights of putting it on to boil. And, +wonderful to say, he managed it; he got the kettle, +heavy for him to lift, as you can imagine, safely on to +the fire, and then, with immense satisfaction, sat down +in front of it to watch the result. There was very +little water in the kettle, but, though Ted did not think +about that, it was all the less trying for his patience. +And I hardly think either, that the water could have +been quite cold in the first place, or else the fairies +came down the chimney and blew up the fire with +their invisible bellows to help little Ted, for certainly +the kettle began to boil amazingly soon—first +it simmered gently and then it began to sing more +loudly, and at last what Ted called "moke" began to +come out of the spout, and he knew that the kettle +was boiling.</p> + +<p>Ted was so used to hear nurse talking about the +kettle "boiling" for tea, that it never came into his +head that it was not necessary to have "boiling" +water to wash his poor little hands. I don't indeed +know what might not have happened to the whole of +his poor little body had not his mother at that moment +come into the room. A queer sight met her eyes—there +was Ted, more than half undressed, barefooted +and red-faced, in the act of lifting off the steaming +kettle, round the handle of which, with wonderful +precaution, he had wrapped his pocket-handkerchief.</p> + +<p>Ted's mother kept her presence of mind. She did +not speak till the kettle was safely landed on the floor, +and Ted, with a sigh of relief, looked up and saw her +at the door.</p> + +<p>"I is decking myself, muzzer," he said with a +pleased smile, and a charming air of importance, +"Poor baby cried, so I told nurse I would deck myself, +and nurse didn't mind."</p> + +<p>"<i>Didn't</i> she?" said his mother, rather surprised.</p> + +<p>"Oh, she thoughtened p'raps I'd find thoo, I +amember," Ted continued, correcting himself.</p> + +<p>"But did nurse know you were going to boil +water?" said his mother.</p> + +<p>"Oh no," said Ted, "it were only that my hands +is <i>so</i> dirty. Zem needs hot water to make zem +clean."</p> + +<p>"Hot water, but not <i>boiling</i>," said his mother; "my +dear little boy, do you know you might have scalded +yourself dreadfully?"</p> + +<p>"I put my hankerwick not to burn my hands," +said Ted, rather disconsolately.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear. I know you meant it for the best, +but just think if you had dropped the kettle and burnt +yourself. And nurse has always told you not to play +with fire or hot water."</p> + +<p>"Ses," said Ted, "but I weren't <i>playing</i>. I were +going to wash my hands to be nice to go out wif thoo," +and his blue eyes filled with tears. But they were +soon wiped away, and when his mother had with the +help of <i>some</i> of the hot water made face and hands as +clean as could be, and smoothed the tangled curls and +fastened the best little coat, Ted looked very "nice" +indeed, I can assure you, for his drive to A<span class="nowrap">——</span>.</p> + +<p>It was a very happy drive. Perched safely between +his father and mother, Ted was as proud as a +king. It was all so pretty, the driving through the +shady lanes, where the honeysuckle and wild-roses +were just beginning to show some tints of colour, the +peeps now and then of the sea below in its blue beauty, +the glancing up sometimes at the mountain top, Ted's +old friend, along whose sides they were actually +travelling—it was all delightful. And when they +drew near the little town, and the houses began to +stand closer, till at last they came in rows and streets, +and the old mare's hoofs clattered over the stones of +the market-place so that the people in the sleepy little +place came out to see who was coming, Ted's excitement +knew no bounds. He had almost forgotten +A<span class="nowrap">——</span>, it was so long since he had been there—the +sights of the shops and what appeared to him their +wonderful contents, the sight even of so many people +and children walking about, was almost too much for +the little country child; it seemed to take his breath +away.</p> + +<p>He recovered his composure, however, when he +found himself trotting about the streets with his +mother. She had several shops to go to, each, to Ted, +more interesting than the other. There was the ironmonger's +to visit, for cook had begged for a new +preserving pan and the nursery tea-pot handle was +broken; there were various milk jugs and plates to +replace at the china shop; brown holland to get at +the draper's for Ted's summer blouses. At two or +three of the shops his mother, being a regular customer +and having an account with them, did not pay, and +among these was the grocer's, where she had rather a +long list of things needed for the store-closet, and +while she was explaining about them all to the white-aproned +young man behind the counter, Ted marched +about the shop on a voyage of discovery on his own +account. There were so many interesting things—barrels +of sugar, white, brown, and darker brown still, +neat piles of raisins and currants, closely fastened +bottles of French plums, and rows of paper-covered +tin boxes which Ted knew contained biscuits.</p> + +<p>"What a kind man," he said to himself, "to give +muzzer all she wants," as one after another of his +mother's requests was attended to. "Why, he lets +muzzer take whatever her likes!" he added, as having +brought his wanderings to a close for a minute, he +stood beside her and saw her lifting a little square of +honey soap out of a box which the grocer presented +to her for examination, and, greatly impressed, Ted set +off again on another ramble. Doubtless he too might +take whatever he liked, and as the thought occurred +to him he pulled up before another barrel filled with +lumps, little and big, of half clear, whitey-looking +stuff, something like very coarse lump sugar, only not +so white, and more transparent. Ted knew what it +was. It was soda, <i>washing</i> soda I believe it is usually +called. Ted was, as I have said, very wide-awake +about all household matters, for he always used his +eyes, and very often—indeed rather oftener than was +sometimes pleasant for the people about him if they +wanted to be quiet—his tongue too, for he was great +at asking questions.</p> + +<p>"Soda's very useful," Ted reflected; "nurse says it +makes things come cleaner."</p> + +<p>Just then his mother called him.</p> + +<p>"Ted, dear," she said, "I'm going."</p> + +<p>Ted started and ran after her, but just as he did so, +he stretched out his hand and took a lump of soda +out of the barrel. He did it quite openly, he didn't +mind in the very least if the shopman saw him—like +the daisies in the field, so he thought, the soda and +the sugar and the French plums and everything were +there for him or for any one to help themselves to as +they liked. But Ted was not greedy—he was far +better pleased to get something "useful" for mother +than anything for himself. He would have asked her +what he had better take, if he had had time—he +would have stopped to say "Thank you" to the grocer +had he not been in such a hurry to run after his +mother.</p> + +<p>They walked quickly down the street. Ted's +mother was a little absent-minded for the moment—she +was thinking of what she had ordered, and hoping +she had forgotten nothing. And holding her little +boy by the one hand she did not notice the queer +thing he was holding in the other. Suddenly she +stopped before a boot and shoe shop.</p> + +<p>"I must get baby a pair of shoes," she said. "She +is such a little kicker, she has the toes of her cloth +ones out in no time. We must get her a pair of leather +ones I think, Ted."</p> + +<p>"Ses, I sink so," said Ted.</p> + +<p>So his mother went into the shop and asked the +man to show her some little leather shoes. Ted looked +on with great interest, but when the shoes were spread +out on the counter and he saw that they were all +<i>black</i>, he seemed rather disappointed.</p> + +<p>"Muzzer," he said in a low voice, tugging at his +mother's skirts, "I saw such bootly boo boots in the +man's winder."</p> + +<p>His mother smiled.</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear," she replied, "they're very pretty, but +they wouldn't last so long, and I suspect they cost +much more."</p> + +<p>Ted looked puzzled.</p> + +<p>"What does thoo mean?" he said, but before his +mother had time to explain, the active shopman had +reached down the "bootly" boots and held them forward +temptingly.</p> + +<p>"They're certainly very pretty," said baby's mother, +who, to tell the truth, was nearly as much inclined for +the blue boots as Ted himself. "What is the price +of them?"</p> + +<p>"Three and sixpence, ma'am," replied the man.</p> + +<p>"And the black ones, the little black shoes, I +mean?"</p> + +<p>"Two and six," replied the man.</p> + +<p>"A shilling difference, you see, Ted," said his +mother. But Ted only looked puzzled, and his +mother, occupied with the boots, did not particularly +notice him.</p> + +<p>"I think," she said at last, "I think I will take +both. But as the blue boots will be best ones for +a good while, give me them half a size larger than +the little black shoes."</p> + +<p>The shopman proceeded to wrap them up in paper +and handed them to Ted's mother, who took out her +purse and paid the money. The man thanked her, and, +followed by her little boy, Ted's mother left the shop.</p> + +<p>Ted walked on silently, a very unusual state of +things. He was trying to find out how to express +what he wanted to ask, and the ideas in his head +were so new and strange that he could not fit them +with words all at once. His mother turned round +to him.</p> + +<p>"Would you like to carry the parcel of baby's +shoes for her?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh ses," said Ted, holding out his left hand. +But as his mother was giving him the parcel she +noticed that his right hand was already engaged.</p> + +<p>"Why, what have you got there?" she asked, "a +stone? Where did you get it? No, it's not a stone—why, +can it be a lump of soda?"</p> + +<p>"Ses," returned Ted with the greatest composure, +"it are a lump of soda. I thought it would be very +suseful for thoo, so I took it out of that nice man's +shop."</p> + +<p>"My dear little boy!" exclaimed his mother, looking +I don't know how. She was rather startled, but +she could not help being amused too, only she thought +it better not to show Ted that she was amused. "My +dear little boy," she said again, "do you not understand? +The things in the shop belong to the man—they +are his, not ours."</p> + +<p>"Ses," said Ted. "I know. But he lets thoo take +them. Thoo took soap and somesing else, and he +said he'd send them home for thoo."</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear, so he did," said his mother. "But I +<i>pay</i> him for them. You didn't see me paying him, +because I don't pay him every time. He puts down +all I get in a book, and then he counts up how much +it is every month, and then I send him the money. +In some shops I pay as soon as I get the things. You +saw me pay the shoemaker for little Cissy's boots +and shoes."</p> + +<p>"Ses," said Ted, "I saw thoo take money out of +thoo's purse, but I didn't understand. I thought all +those kind men kept nice things for us to get whenever +we wanted."</p> + +<p>"But what did you think money was for, little +Ted? You have often seen money, shillings and +sixpences and pennies? What did you think was +the use of it?"</p> + +<p>"I thought," said Ted innocently, "I thought +moneys was for giving to poor peoples."</p> + +<p>His mother could hardly resist stooping down in +the street to kiss him. But she knew it was better +not. Ted must be made to understand that in his +innocence he had done a wrong thing, and the lesson +of to-day must be made a plain and lasting one.</p> + +<p>"What would poor people do with money if they +could get all the things they wanted out of the shops +for nothing?" she said quietly.</p> + +<p>Ted considered a moment. Then he looked up +brightly.</p> + +<p>"In course!" he said. "I never thought of that."</p> + +<p>"And don't you see, dear Ted, that it would be +wrong to take things out of a shop without paying +for them? They <i>belong</i> to the man of the shop—it +would be just like some one coming to our house and +taking away your father's coat or my bonnet, or your +little blue cart that you like so much, or<span class="nowrap">——</span>"</p> + +<p>"Or Cissy's bootly boo boots," suggested Ted, +clutching hold more tightly of the parcel, as if he +thought the imaginary thief might be at hand.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said his mother, "or Cissy's new boots, +which are mine <i>now</i> because I paid money for them +to the man."</p> + +<p>"Ses," said Ted. Then a very thoughtful expression +came into his face. "Muzzer," he said, "this +soda was that man's—sall I take it back to him and +tell him I didn't understand?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," said his mother. "I do think it is the +best thing to do. Shall we go at once? It is only +just round the corner to his shop."</p> + +<p>She said this thinking that little Ted would find +it easier to do it at once, for she was sorry for her +little boy having to explain to a stranger the queer +mistake he had made, though she felt it was right +that it should be done. "Shall we go at once?" she +repeated, looking rather anxiously at the small figure +beside her.</p> + +<p>"Ses," said Ted, and rather to her surprise his +tone was quite bright and cheery. So they turned +back and walked down the street till they came to +the corner near which was the grocer's shop.</p> + +<p>Ted's mother had taken the parcel of the little +boots from him and held him by the hand, to give +him courage as it were. But he marched on quite +steadily without the least flinching or dragging back, +and when they reached the shop it was he who went +in first. He walked straight up to the counter and +held out the lump of soda to the shopman.</p> + +<p>"Please, man," he said, "I didn't know I should +pay money for this. I didn't understand till muzzer +told me, and so I've brought it back."</p> + +<p>The grocer looked at him in surprise, but with a +smile on his face, for he was a kind man, with little +boys and girls of his own. But before he said anything, +Ted's mother came forward to explain that it +was almost the first time her little boy had been in a +shop; he had not before understood what buying and +selling meant, but now that she had explained it to +him, she thought it right for him himself to bring +back the lump of soda.</p> + +<p>"And indeed it was his own wish to do so," she +added.</p> + +<p>The grocer thanked her. It was not of the least +consequence to him of course he said, but still he was +a sensible man and he respected Ted's mother for +what she had done. And then, half afraid that her +little boy's self-control would not last much longer, +she took him by the hand, and bidding the shopman +good-day they left the shop. As they came out into +the street again she looked down at Ted. To her +surprise his little face was quite bright and happy.</p> + +<p>"He were a kind man," said Ted; "he wasn't +vexed with Ted. He knew I didn't understand."</p> + +<p>"Yes, dear," said his mother, pleased to see the +simple straightforward way in which Ted had taken +the lesson; "but <i>now</i>, Ted, you do understand, and you +would never again touch anything in a shop, would +you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, muzzer, in course not," said Ted, his face +flushing a little. "Ted would <i>never</i> take nothing that +wasn't his—<i>never</i>; thoo knows that, muzzer?" he +added anxiously.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my dear little boy," and this time his mother +<i>did</i> stoop down and kiss him in the street.</p> + +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h3> +<h4>GETTING BIG.</h4> +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">"The children think they'll climb a tree."</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>It was a very happy little Ted that trotted upstairs +to the nursery with the "bootly boo boots" and the +more modest little black shoes for tiny Narcissa.</p> + +<p>"See what Ted has brought thoo," he said, kissing +his baby sister with the pretty tenderness he always +showed her, "and see what muzzer has gave <i>me</i>," he +went on, turning to nurse with another parcel. In +his excitement he didn't know which to unfasten first, +and baby had got hold of one of the black shoes, fortunately +not the blue ones, and was sucking it vigorously +before Ted and nurse saw what she was doing.</p> + +<p>"<i>Isn't</i> she pleased?" said Ted, delightedly. Baby +must be very pleased with her new possessions, to try +to <i>eat</i> them, he thought. And then he had time to +examine and admire his own present. It was a +delightful one—a book, a nice old-fashioned fat book +of all the old nursery rhymes, and filled with pictures +too. And Ted's pride was great when here and there +he could make out a word or two. Thanks to the +pictures, to his own good memory, and the patience +of all the big people about him, it was not long before +he could say nearly all of them. And so a new pleasure +was added to these happy summer days, and to +many a winter evening to come.</p> + +<p>That night when Ted was going to bed he said +his prayers as usual at his mother's knee.</p> + +<p>"Make me a good little boy," he said, and then +when he had ended he jumped up for his good-night +kiss, with a beaming face.</p> + +<p>"I sink God <i>has</i> made me good, muzzer?" he said.</p> + +<p>"Do you, dear? I hope He is <i>making</i> you so," she +answered. "But what makes you say so?"</p> + +<p>"'Cos I <i>feel</i> so happy and so good," said Ted, "and +thoo said I was good to-day when thoo kissed me. +And oh, <i>may</i> I take my sprendid hymn-book to bed +wif me?"</p> + +<p>And with the ancient legends of Jack and Jill +and Little Boy Blue, and Margery Daw, safely under +his pillow, happy Ted fell asleep. I wonder if he +dreamt of them! What a pity that so much of the +pretty fancies and visions of little childhood are lost +to us! What quaint pictures they would make. +What a heavy burden <i>should</i> lie on the consciences +of those who, by careless words or unconsidered tone, +destroy the lovely tenderness of little children's dreams +and conceits, rub off the bloom of baby poetry!</p> + +<p>I could tell you, dear little friends, many pretty +stories of Ted and his tiny sister during the first sunny +year of little Narcissa's life, but I daresay it may be +more interesting to you to hear more of these children +as they grow older. The day-by-day life of simple +happy little people is, I trust, familiar to you all, and +as I want you to <i>know</i> my boy Ted, to think of him +through your own childhood as a friend and companion, +I must not take up too much of the little +book, so quickly filled, with the first years only of his +life. And these had now come to an end—a change, +to Ted a great and wonderful change, happened about +this time. Before little Cissy had learnt to run +alone, before Ted had mastered the longest words in +his precious "hymn-book," these little people had to +leave their beautiful mountain home. One day when +the world was looking pensive and sad in its autumn +dress, the good-byes had to be said—good-bye to the +garden and Ted's shaky bridge; good-bye to old David; +and alas! good-bye to Cheviott's grave, all that was left +of the faithful old collie to say good-bye to; good-bye +to the far-off murmur of the sea and the silent +mountain that little Ted had once been so afraid of; +good-bye to all of the dear old home, where Ted's +blue cart was left forgotten under a tree, where the +birds went on singing and chirping as if there were +no such things as good-byes in the world—and Ted +and Cissy were driven away to a new home, and the +oft-told stories of their first one were all that was left +of it to their childish minds.</p> + +<p>A good many hours' journey from the mountains +and the sea near which these children had spent their +first happy years, in quite another corner of England, +there is to be found a beautiful, quiet old town. It is +beautiful from its position, for it stands on rising +ground; a fine old river flows round the feet of its +castle rock, and on the other side are to be seen high +cliffs with pleasant winding paths, sometimes descending +close to the water's edge, and it is beautiful in +itself. For the castle is such a castle as is not to +be met with many times in one's life. It has taken +centuries of repose after the stormy scenes it lived +through in the long-ago days to make it what it now +is—a venerable old giant among its fellows, grim and +solemn yet with a dreamy peacefulness about it, that +has a wonderful charm. As you cross the unused +drawbridge and your footsteps sink in the mossy +grass of the great courtyard, it would not be difficult +to fancy you were about to enter the castle +of the sleeping-beauty of the dear old fairy-tale—so +still and dream-like it seems, so strange it is to +picture to one's fancy the now grass-grown keep with +the din and clang of horsemen and men-at-arms that +it must once have known. And near by is a grand +old church, solemn and silent too, but differently so +from its twin-brother the castle. The one is like a +warrior resting after his battles, thinking sadly of the +wild scenes he has seen and taken part in; the other +like a holy man of old, silent and solemn too, but +with the weight of human sorrows and anxieties that +have been confided to him, yet ever ready to sympathise +and to point upwards with a hope that never fails.</p> + +<p>These at least were the feelings that the sight of the +old church and the old castle gave <i>me</i>, children dear. +I don't suppose Ted thought of them in this way +when he first made their acquaintance, and yet I +don't know. He might not have been able to say +much of what he felt, he was such a little fellow. But +he <i>did</i> feel, and in a way that was strange and new, +and nearly took his breath away the first time he +entered the beautiful old church, walking quietly up +the aisle behind his father, his little hat in his hand, +gazing up with his earnest eyes at the mysterious +stretch of the lofty roof. "O mother," he said, when +he went home, "when I am big I will always like +the <i>high</i> church best." And when the clear ringing +chimes burst forth, as they did with ever-fresh beauty +four times a day, sounding to the baby fancy as if +they came straight down from heaven, it was all Ted +could do not to burst into tears, as he had done that +summer day when Mabel had sung "Home, sweet +home" in the mountain-gorge.</p> + +<p>For it was in this old town, with its church and +castle and quaint streets, where some of the houses +are still painted black and white, and others lean forward +in the top stories as if they wanted to kiss each +other; where the front doors mostly open right on to +the street, and you come upon the dear old gardens as +a sort of delicious surprise at the back; where each +turn as you walk about these same old streets gives +you a new peep, more delightful than the last, of the +river or the cliffs or the far distant hills with their +tender lights and shadows; where, on market days +the country people come trooping in with their poultry +and butter and eggs, with here and there a scarlet +cloak among them, the coming and going giving the +old High Street the look almost of a foreign town;—here +in this dear old place little Ted took root again, +and learned to love his new home so much that he +forgot to pine for the mountains and the sea. And, +here, some years after we said good-bye to them as +they drove away from the pretty house in the garden, +we find them again—Ted, a big boy of nine or ten, +Cissy looking perhaps older than she really was, so +bright and hearty and capable a little maiden had she +become.</p> + +<p>They are in the garden, the dear garden that was +as delightful a playing place as children could have, +though quite, quite different from the first one you +saw Ted in. There it was all ups and downs, lying +as it did on the side of a hill; here the paths are on +flat ground, though some are zigzaggy of course, as +the little paths in an interesting garden always should +be; while besides these, some fine broad ones run +straight from one end to another, making splendid +highroads for drives in wheelbarrows or toy-carts. +And in this garden too the trees are high and well +grown, and plenty of them. It was just the place for +hide and seek or "I spy."</p> + +<p>Ted and Cissy have been working at their gardens.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear," said the little girl, throwing down her +tiny rake and hoe, "Cissy <i>is</i> so tired. And the f'owers +won't grow if they isn't planted kick. Cissy is so +fond of f'owers."</p> + +<p>"So am I," said Ted, "but girls are so quickly +tired. It's no good their trying to garden."</p> + +<p>Cissy looked rather disconsolate.</p> + +<p>"Boys shouldn't have all the f'owers," she said. +"Zoo's not a summer child, Ted, zoo's a Kismas child. +Zoo should have snow, and Cissy should have f'owers."</p> + +<p>She looked at her brother rather mischievously as +she said this.</p> + +<p>"As it happens, Miss Cissy," said Ted, "there +wasn't any snow the Christmas I was born. Mother +told me so. And any way, if you liked snowballs I'd +let you have them, so I don't see why I shouldn't +have flowers."</p> + +<p>Cissy threw her arms round Ted's neck and kissed +him. "Poor Ted," she said, "zoo shall have f'owers. +But Cissy won't have any in her garden if zey isn't +planted kick."</p> + +<p>"Well, never mind. I'll help you," said Ted; "as +soon as I've done my lessons this evening, I'll work +in your garden."</p> + +<p>"Zank zoo, <i>dear</i> Ted," said Cissy rapturously, and +a new hugging ensued, which Ted submitted to with +a good grace, though lately it had dawned on him +that he was getting rather too big for kissing.</p> + +<p>The children's "gardens" were just under the wall +that skirted their father's real garden. On the other +side of this wall ran the highroad, and the lively +sights and sounds to be heard and seen from the top +of this same wall made the position of their own bit +of ground greatly to their liking. Only the getting +on to the wall! There was the difficulty. For Ted +it was not so tremendous. <i>He</i> could clamber up by +the help of niches which he had managed to make for +his feet here and there between the stones, and the +consequent destruction to trousers and stockings had +never as yet occurred to his boyish mind. But Cissy—poor +Cissy! it was quite impossible to get <i>her</i> up on +to the wall, and for some time an ambitious project +had been taking shape in Ted's brain.</p> + +<p>"Cissy," he said, when he was released, "it's no +good beginning working at your garden now. We +have to go in in ten minutes. I'm going up on the +wall for a few minutes. You stay there, and I'll call +down to you all I see."</p> + +<p>"O Ted," said Cissy, "I <i>wiss</i> I could climb up +the wall too."</p> + +<p>"I know you do," said Ted. "I've been thinking +about that. Wait till I get up, and I'll tell you about +it."</p> + +<p>Full of faith in Ted's wisdom, little Cissy sat +down by the roots of a great elm-tree which stood in +her brother's domain. "My tree" Ted had always +called it, and it was one of the charms of his property. +<i>It</i> was not difficult to climb, even Cissy could be +hoisted some way up—to the level of top of the wall +indeed, without difficulty, but unfortunately between +the tree and the wall there was a space, too wide to +cross. And even when the right level was reached, it +was too far back to see on to the road.</p> + +<p>"If only the tree grew close to the wall," Ted had +often said to himself; and now as Cissy sat down +below wondering what Ted was going to do, his quick +eyes were examining all about to see if a plan that +had struck him would be possible.</p> + +<p>"Cissy," he cried suddenly, and Cissy started to +her feet. "Oh what, Ted?" she cried.</p> + +<p>"I see how it could be done. If I had a plank of +wood I could fasten it to the tree on one side, and—and—I +could find <i>some</i> way if I tried, of fastening it +to the wall on the other, and then I could pull the +branches down a little—they're nearly down far +enough, to make a sort of back to the seat, and oh, +Cissy, it would be such a lovely place! We could +both sit on it, and see all that passed. I'll tell you +what I'm seeing now. There's a man with a wheelbarrow +just passing, and such a queer little dog running +beside, and farther off there's a boy with a basket, +and two girls, and one of them's carrying a baby, and—yes +there's a cart and horse coming—awfully fast. +I do believe the horse is running away. No, he's +pulled it up, and<span class="nowrap">——</span>"</p> + +<p>"O Ted," said Cissy, clasping her hands, "how +<i>lovely</i> it must be! O Ted, do come down and be +kick about making the place for me, for Cissy."</p> + +<p>Just then the dinner-bell rang. Ted began his +descent, Cissy eagerly awaiting him. She took his +hand and trotted along beside him.</p> + +<p>"<i>Do</i> zoo think zoo can do it, Ted?" she said.</p> + +<p>"I must see about the wood first," said Ted, not +without a little importance in his tone; "I think +there's some pieces in the coach-house that would do."</p> + +<p>At luncheon the big people, of whom there were +several, for some uncles and aunts had been staying +with the children's father and mother lately, noticed +that Ted and Cissy looked very eager about something.</p> + +<p>"What have you been doing with yourselves, you +little people, this morning?" said one of the aunties +kindly.</p> + +<p>Cissy was about to answer, but a glance from Ted +made her shut tight her little mouth again. There +must be some reason for it—perhaps this delightful +plan was to be a secret, for her faith in Ted was unbounded.</p> + +<p>"We've been in the garden, in <i>our</i> gardens," Ted +replied.</p> + +<p>"Digging up the plants to see if they were growing—eh?" +said an uncle who liked to tease a little +sometimes.</p> + +<p>Ted didn't mind teasing. He only laughed. Cissy +looked a little, a very little offended. She did <i>not</i> +like teasing, and she specially disliked any one teasing +her dear Ted. Her face grew a little red.</p> + +<p>"Ted knows about f'owers bootilly," she said; "Ted +knows lots of things."</p> + +<p>"<i>Cissy!</i>" said Ted, whose turn it was now to grow +a little red, but Cissy maintained her ground.</p> + +<p>"Ses," she said. "Ted does."</p> + +<p>"Ted's to grow up a very clever man, isn't he, +Cissy?" said her father encouragingly—"as clever as +<i>Uncle</i> Ted here."</p> + +<p>"Oh no," the little fellow replied, blushing still +more, for Ted never put himself forward so as to be +noticed; "I never could be that. Uncle Ted writes +books with lots of counting and stick-sticks in them +and<span class="nowrap">——</span>"</p> + +<p>"Lots of <i>what</i>?" asked his uncle.</p> + +<p>"Stick-sticks," said Ted simply. "I don't know +what it means, but mother told me it was a sort of +counting—like how many days in a year were fine +and how many rainy."</p> + +<p>"Or how many old women with baskets, and how +many without, passed down the road this morning—eh, +Ted?" said his other uncle, laughing heartily.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I suppose so," said Ted. "Are stick-sticks +any good?" he inquired, consideringly.</p> + +<p>"It's to be hoped so," said Uncle Ted.</p> + +<p>A bright idea struck the little fellow. He must +talk it over with Cissy. If only that delightful seat +between the tree and the wall was arranged <i>they</i> +might make "stick-sticks"! What fun, and how +pleased Uncle Ted would be! Already Ted's active +brain began to plan it all. They should have a nice +big ruled sheet of paper and divide it into rows, as +for columns of sums: one row should be for horses +alone, and one for horses with carts, and one for +people, and one for children, and another for dogs, +and another for wheelbarrows perhaps. And then +sometimes donkeys passed, and now and then pigs +even, on their way to market—yes, a lot of rows +would be needed. And at the top of the paper he +would write in nice big letters "stick"—no, mother +would tell him how to write it nicely, he knew that +wasn't quite the real word, mother would spell it for +him: "St—something—of what passed the tree." It +would be almost like writing a book.</p> + +<p>He was so eager about it that he could hardly +finish his dinner. For a great deal was involved in +his plan, as you shall hear.</p> + +<p>In the first place, it became evident to him after +an examination of the bits of wood in the unused +coach-house, that there was nothing there that would +do. He could get a nice little plank, a plank that +would not scratch poor Cissy's legs or tear her frocks, +from the carpenter, but then it would cost money, for +Ted had gained some worldly wisdom since the days +when he thought the kind shopkeepers spread out +their wares for everybody to help themselves as they +liked. And Ted was rather short of money, and Ted +was of rather an independent spirit. He would much +prefer not asking mother for any. The seat in the +tree would be twice as nice if he could manage it all +his own self, as Cissy would say.</p> + +<p>Ted thought it all over a great deal, and talked +about it to Cissy. It was a good thing, they agreed, +that it was holiday-time just now, even though Ted +had every day <i>some</i> lessons to do. And though Cissy +was very little, it was, after all, she who thought of a +plan for gaining some money, as you shall hear.</p> + +<p>Some few times in their lives Ted and Cissy had +seen Punch and Judy, and most delightful they +thought it. Perhaps I am wrong in saying Cissy had +seen it more than once, but <i>Ted</i> had, and he used to +amuse Cissy by acting it over to please her. And I +think it was from this that her idea came.</p> + +<p>"Appose, Ted," she said the next day when they +were out in the garden having a great consultation—"appose +we make a show, and all the big people +would give us pennies."</p> + +<p>Ted considered for a minute. They were standing, +Cissy and he, by the railing which at one side of their +father's pretty garden divided it from some lovely +fields, where sheep, with their dear little lambs skipping +about beside them, were feeding. Far in the distance +rose the soft blue outlines of a lofty hill, "our precious +hill" Ted's mother used to call it, and indeed it was +almost worthy of the name of mountain, and for this +she valued it still more, as it seemed to her like a +reminder of the mountain home she had loved so +dearly. Ted's glance fell on it, and it carried back +his thoughts to the mountain of his babyhood and the +ogre stories mixed up with it in his mind. And then +his thoughts went wandering away to his old "hymn +book," still in a place of honour in his bookshelves, +and to the fairy stories at the end of it—Cinderella +and the others. He turned to Cissy with a beaming +face.</p> + +<p>"I'll tell you what we'll do, Cis," he said; "we'll +have a show of Beauty and the Beast. What a good +idea it was of yours, Cis, to have a show."</p> + +<p>Cissy was <i>greatly</i> flattered. Only she didn't quite +like the idea of her dear Ted being the Beast. But +when Ted reminded her that the Beast was <i>really</i> so +good and kind, she grew satisfied.</p> + +<p>"And how awfully pleased Percy will be when +he comes to see the seat, <i>won't</i> he?" said Ted. And +this thought reconciled him to what hitherto had been +rather a grief to him—that Percy's holidays were +shorter and fell later in the season than his.</p> + +<p>You can imagine, children, better than I could +tell what a bustle and fuss Ted and Cissy were in all +that day. They looked so important, Ted's eyes were +so bright, and Cissy's little mouth shut close in such a +dignified way, that the big people must have been <i>very</i> +stupid big people not to suspect something out of the +common. But as they were very kind big people, and +as they understood children and children's ways, they +took care not to seem as if they did notice, and +Mabel and her sister, who were also of the home party, +even helped Cissy to stitch up an old muslin window +curtain in a wonderful way for Beauty's dress, without +making any indiscreet remarks. At which little Cissy +greatly rejoiced. "<i>Wasn't</i> I clever not to let zoo find +out?" she said afterwards, with immense satisfaction.</p> + +<p>Late that evening—late for the children that is to +say—about seven o'clock, for Cissy had got leave to +sit up an hour longer, there came a ring at the hall +bell, and a very funny-looking letter was handed in, +which a boy in a muffled voice told the servant was +for the ladies and gentlemen, and that she was to tell +them the "act" would begin in five minutes "in the +theatre hall of the day nursery." The parlour maid, +who (of course!) had not the least idea in the world +that the messenger was Master Ted, gravely handed +the letter to Miss Mabel, who was the first person she +saw, and Mabel hastened to explain to the others that +its contents, quarters of old calling-cards with numbers +marked on them, were evidently meant to be tickets +for the performance. The big people were all much +amused, but all of course were quite ready to "assist" +at the "act." They thought it better to wait a little +more than five minutes before going upstairs to the +theatre hall, to give Ted time to get ready before the +spectators arrived, not understanding, you see, that +all he had to do was to pin his father's rough brown +railway rug on, to imitate the Beast. So when they +at last all marched upstairs the actors were both ready +awaiting them.</p> +<p><a name="img133" id="img133"></a></p> +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="Illustration"> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <a href="images/img133.jpg"> + <img src="images/img133.jpg" height="400" + alt="He's coming to eat me!" /></a> + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="center"><span class="small">"Oh dear, oh dear!" cries Beauty, jumping up in a fright,<br /> +"he's coming to eat me."</span><br /> + <span class="caption">Click to <a href="images/img133.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>There was a row of chairs arranged at one side of +the nursery for the visitors, and the hearth-rug, pulled +out of its place, with a couple of footstools at each side, +served for the stage. Scene first was Miss Beauty +sitting in a corner crying, after her father had left her +in the Beast's garden.</p> + +<p>"He'll eat me up! oh, he'll eat me up!" she sobs out; +and then a low growl is heard, and from a corner +behind a table where no one had noticed him, a very +remarkable-looking shapeless sort of dark brown lump +rolls or waddles along the floor.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, oh dear!" cries Beauty, jumping up in +a fright, "he's coming to eat me."</p> + +<p>"No, I'm not going to eat you, dear Beauty," the +growly voice replies; "I'm not going to hurt you, dear +Beauty. I've brought you something nice to eat for +your tea. I'm sure you must be hungry;" and from +somewhere or other the Beast produces a plate with +some biscuits, which he humbly lays at her feet and +then waddles off again. Beauty nibbles at the biscuits, +then murmuring to herself, "He's a very kind Beast," +she moves away, her window curtain train sweeping +gracefully after her, behind the screen, which is supposed +to represent the inside of the Beast's Castle, +and where he himself has already disappeared. And +this is the end of the first scene, the "act" being +divided into two scenes.</p> + +<p>The audience all clap their hands in applause.</p> + +<p>"Capital!" and "Bravo!" they call out, so that Ted +and Cissy feel their cheeks quite red, even behind +the screen.</p> + +<p>"Let's get it done quick, Cissy," said Ted; "it +makes me feel so silly when they call out like +that."</p> + +<p>And the last scene is hurried on. It is not a very +long one. Beauty has been away. She has gone, as +everybody knows, on a visit to her old home, and on +her return poor Beast is nowhere to be found. At +last she discovers him lying quite still in a corner of +the garden.</p> + +<p>"Oh, poor Beast!" she exclaims, "Cis—Booty, I +mean, is so sorry. Oh, poor Beast! I is afraid you is +kite deaded, and I do love zoo, poor Beast," at which +up jumps poor Beast, Beast no longer, for his rough +skin rolls off as if by magic, and lo and behold there +is Ted, got up ever so fine, with a scarlet scarf round +his waist and an elegant old velvet smoking-cap with a +long tassel on his head, and goodness knows what more.</p> + +<p>"Oh, you bootiful P'ince," cries Beauty, and then +they take hands and bow most politely to the audience, +and then in a sudden fit of shamefacedness +and shyness, they both scurry off behind the screen, +Ted toppling over Cissy's long train on the way, at +which there is renewed applause, and great laughter +from the actors themselves. But the manager is +quite up to his business. "That's all," calls out a +little voice from behind the screen; "zoo may all go +now, and <i>pay at the door</i>." And sure enough as the +big people make their way out, there is Ted in his +usual attire standing at the door, with a little basket +in his hand, gracefully held out for contributions.</p> + +<p>"Why, how did you get here already?" asks his +father.</p> + +<p>"I slipped round by the other side of the screen +while you were all laughing and clapping," says Ted, +looking up with a beaming face. And the pennies +and sixpennies that find their way into the basket +are several. When the actors count up their gains +before they go to bed, they are the happy possessors +of two shillings and sevenpence. Far more than +enough to pay for the wood for the seat in the tree!</p> + +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h3> +<h4>"STATISTICS."</h4> +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">"Are they not busy?—the creatures!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="ind1">Wanting to go to their beds?—not they!"</span></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>How delightful it was to wake the next morning and +to see sparkling in the early sunshine the neat little +silver coins, and the big copper ones, laid out in a row +on his table! Ted jumped out of bed, not quite so +early as he had intended, for he had been up rather +later than usual the night before, and by the time he +had had his nice cold bath and was dressed, he heard +the prayer bell ring, and was only ready to take his +seat as usual on a little chair in a corner of the room +not far from where his dear old nurse and the other +servants were placed. He liked better to sit there, +for it gave him somehow a little uncomfortable feeling +to see the servants quite by themselves, as it were, so +separated from the family, and he had got into the way +of sitting between the two sets of seats, and though +little Narcissa from her perch on her mother's knee +would sometimes smile and nod and beckon to him +to come nearer, Ted always kept to his own place. +This morning many thoughts were dancing about his +brain, and it was a little difficult for him to listen +with his usual attention, even though it was one of +the chapters he was very fond of, especially when his +father read it in his nice clear voice. It was that one +about the boy Jesus, staying behind His father and +mother to talk with the learned doctors in the temple, +and though some part of it puzzled Ted rather, yet he +liked to listen and think about it. How frightened that +father and mother must have been! How was it that +Jesus knew that it was right for Him to stay behind—even +though it was without His father's and mother's +leave? For other little boys it would have been +wrong, but then,—oh yes, of course, Jesus was not like +other little boys. If only they, if only he, Ted, could +learn to be more like <i>Him</i>, the one perfect Christmas +child! And even the puzzling part of it grew clearer +as this unconscious prayer rose out of the innocent +heart. For Ted's own father and mother, even if they +were frightened for a little, would not be <i>vexed</i> if he +did something without their leave that was good and +right. Only it was difficult to tell, very difficult—on +the whole Ted felt that he understood what his +mother told him about being obedient, better than he +used. That was what God had given little boys fathers +and mothers for, for they, when they were good and +wise, could not but know best. When they were <i>not</i> +good and wise, like the fathers and mothers of some of +the poor London street boys he had heard of—oh, how +fearful that must be! And then as his own father's +voice went on, it all came before Ted like a picture—he +had once seen a picture of it, he thought—the first +setting-out of old Joseph and the sweet-faced mother, +the distress and fear, the delight of finding the Child +again, and then the long walk home all together to +the carpenter's shop in the narrow Eastern street. +And, child-like, Ted's fancy turned again with the +association to what was before him this morning. +<i>He</i> was to go to the carpenter's to choose the wood +for the seat in the tree, and oh, how delightful it would +be to see it arranged, and how surprised Percy would +be, and what beautiful rows of stick-sticks Cissy and +he would be able to make to help Uncle Ted. All +kinds of pleasant hopes and fancies were racing round +Ted's brain again as he knelt down with the others to +listen to the prayer that followed the reading. It was +not till the murmured chorus of "Our Father," repeated +all together at the end, caught his ear, that with a +sudden start Ted realised that he had not been +listening.</p> + +<p>He did feel sorry and ashamed, but he was so +happy that morning, the world outside was so +bright and sunny, and the people inside so kind +and cheerful, as they all sat round the breakfast +table, that Ted's self-reproach did not last. And +as soon as he had finished the short morning lessons +he had to do in the holidays, he got leave from +mother to go off to order the plank for the seat.</p> + +<p>It turned out a little dearer than he had expected. +Two and sevenpence were the funds in hand.</p> + +<p>"I could give you a piece of wood for much less +of course, sir," said the good-natured carpenter, +who was a great ally of Ted's, "but as you explain +it to me it needs something more than a bit of wood, +else it wouldn't be safe for you and the young lady +to sit on;" and then he showed the boy how it +should be done, with a small iron bolt driven into +the wall and another of a different kind fixed to +the tree. "Then," said he, "it will be as safe as +safe, and I'll plane you a neat little seat with no +splinters or sharp edges to tear Missy's frocks."</p> + +<p>Ted was delighted. His quick eye caught at +once the carpenter's plan, and he saw how much +more satisfactory and complete it would be than +the rough idea he had had at first. But the price? +Ted felt much afraid that here was to be the +difficulty.</p> + +<p>"How much will it cost, Mr. Newton?" he +inquired anxiously.</p> + +<p>The carpenter reflected a moment.</p> + +<p>"Wood, so much; bolts, so much; nails; time;" +Ted heard him half whispering to himself. Then +he looked up.</p> + +<p>"A matter of three shilling or so, sir," he replied. +"I'll try that it shan't be more. But you +see the bolts I have to buy, they're not things as +we use every day. And for the time, sir, I'm not +thinking much of that. The evenings are light now. +I'll try and see to it myself after work's over."</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much, Mr. Newton," said Ted. +"I think it'll be all right. But I'd like first to +tell my mother how much it will cost, and then +I'll run back and settle about it."</p> + +<p>"All right, sir," the carpenter replied; and after +pausing a moment at the door to pat the great big +gentle dog, that was lying there blinking in the sunshine, +and thinking to himself that its eyes somehow +reminded him of long ago Cheviott whom Ted still +remembered, though Newton's dog wasn't at all the +same kind, the boy ran off again, whistling as he +went, with light dancing steps down the in-and-out +zigzag streets of the old town, stopping a moment, +eager as he was, to admire the peeps of lovely view +he came upon now and then as he turned a corner, +or crossed the open market-place.</p> + +<p>He was in great spirits. Fivepence short he felt +sure could easily be made up.</p> + +<p>"Either mother will give it me," he thought, +"or she'll find some way of my earning it. I'm +sure she'd like it properly done, and there'll be no +fear of Cissy or me hurting ourselves."</p> + +<p>On he danced again, for now he was in more +open ground, running along the country highroad +where was his home. A few cottages stood not far +from where he was passing—cottages of respectable +people, with several of whom sociable Ted was on +friendly terms, and just as he was nearing the first +of these, a boy about his own age came out, a basket +on his arm and in his hands something tied up in +a cloth which he was carrying carefully. But boys +will be boys!</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Jamie," said Ted as they met, +for he recognised the boy as the son of a man living +farther down the road, who had sometimes worked +for his father; "where have you been, and what's +that you've got?" and in pure fun Ted tapped +with a switch he was carrying on the mysterious +bundle.</p> + +<p>Jamie looked up laughingly.</p> + +<p>"O Master Ted," he was just beginning, but +somehow—<i>how</i> I cannot tell, and I feel pretty sure +that neither Ted nor Jamie could have told either—Ted's +friendly tap had either distracted his attention +so that he trod on a stone and lost his balance, or +else it had destroyed the equilibrium of the bundle +itself, so that almost before he had time even to say +"O Master Ted," the mischief was done. Down +plumped the bundle, with a crash of broken crockery, +and a brown liquid at once oozed out through the +cloth, making a melancholy puddle on the road. +Jamie's half-spoken words changed into a cry of +despair. It was the Sunday's dinner which had +come to grief, the pie which his poor mother had +prepared so carefully, and which he was taking +home from his grandmother's, in whose oven it had +been baking.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear, oh dear, what ever <i>shall</i> I do?" cried +the poor little boy. "What will mother say? Oh +dear, oh dear!—O Master Ted, what shall I do?"</p> + +<p>Jamie's tears and sobs were pitiful. Ted, with +a pale concerned face stood beside him, speechless.</p> + +<p>"It was all my fault, Jamie," he said at last. +"It's me your mother must scold, not you. I must +go home with you, and tell her it wasn't your fault."</p> + +<p>"Oh but it were," sobbed the child. "Mother +always tells me to look neither to right nor to left +when I'm carrying anything like this here. Oh +deary me, what ever shall I do?"</p> + +<p>He stooped down and untied the knots of the +large checked handkerchief in which the unfortunate +pie had been enveloped. The dish was all in pieces, +the gravy fast disappearing. Jamie gathered together, +using the largest bit of the broken stoneware +as a plate, some of the pieces of meat which +might still be eaten, and Ted, stooping down too, +helped him to the best of his ability. But it was +very little that could be saved from the shipwreck. +And then the two boys turned in the direction of +Jamie's home, Jamie sobbing all the way, and Ted +himself too appalled to know what to say to comfort +him.</p> + +<p>Jamie's mother was a busy, hard-working woman. +She was kind to her children, but that is not to say +that they never had a sharp word from her. And +there were so many of them—more than enough to +try the patience of a mother less worried by other +cares. So poor Jamie had some reason to cry, and +he did not attempt to prevent Ted's going home +with him—alone he would hardly have dared to +face the expected scolding.</p> + +<p>She was at the door, or just inside it, as the boys +made their appearance, with a big tub before her in +which she was washing up some odds and ends, +without which her numerous family could not have +made their usual tidy appearance at church and +Sunday school the next day. For it was Saturday, +often a rather trying day to heads of households in +every class. But Jim's mother was in pretty good +spirits. She had got on with her work, Sunday's +pie had been made early and sent on to granny's, +and Jamie, who was a very careful messenger, would +be back with it immediately, all ready to be eaten +cold with hot potatoes the next day. So Sunday's +dinner was off the good woman's mind, when suddenly +a startling vision met her gaze. There was Jamie, +red-eyed and tearful, coming down the road, and +beside him the little Master from the Lawn House. +What could be the matter? Jamie had not hurt +<i>himself</i>, thus much was evident, but what was the +small and shapeless bundle he was carrying in the +handkerchief she had given him to cover the pie, +and what had come over the nice clean handkerchief +itself? The poor woman's heart gave a great throb +of vexation.</p> + +<p>"What ever have ye done with the pie, Jamie?" +she exclaimed first in her anxiety, though she then +turned in haste to bid the little master "good +morning."</p> + +<p>"O mother," Jamie began, his sobs bursting out +afresh, but Ted put him gently aside.</p> + +<p>"Let me tell," he said. "I came on purpose. +If—if you please," he went on eagerly, though his fair +face flushed a little, "it was all my fault. I gave +Jim a little poke with my stick, quite in fun, and +somehow it made him drop the pie. But it isn't +his fault. You won't scold <i>him</i>, please, will you?"</p> + +<p>Vexed as she was, Jamie's mother could not but +feel softened. Ted's friendly ways were well known +to his poorer neighbours, who with one voice pronounced +him "a perfect little gentleman wherever +he goes."</p> + +<p>"It's not much use scolding," she said gently +enough, but still with real distress in her tone which +went to Ted's heart. "No use crying over spilt +milk, as my master says. But still I do think +Jamie might have been more careful. However, it +can't be helped, but they'll have to do without a pie +for dinner to-morrow. And thank you, Master Ted, +for coming along of Jim for to tell me."</p> + +<p>"But it wasn't Jim's fault. It was <i>all</i> mine," +repeated Ted sadly. And then he bade the poor +woman good-bye, and nodding to Jim, who was still +wiping his eyes, though looking a good deal less +frightened, the boy set off towards home again.</p> + +<p>But how different everything looked—the sun +was as bright, the air as pleasant as ten minutes +before, but Ted's heart was heavy, and when at the +garden gate he met his mother, who greeted him +with her kind smile and asked him if he had settled +with Newton about the seat, it was all poor Ted +could do not to burst into tears. He was running +past his mother into the house, with a hasty "Yes, +thank you, mother, I'll tell you about it afterwards," +for he had not yet made up his mind what he should +say or do; it was his own fault, and he must suffer +for it, that was his first idea, but his mother stopped +him. The momentary glance at his face had been +sufficient to show her that something was the +matter.</p> + +<p>"What is it, Ted, dear?" she said kindly and +anxiously.</p> + +<p>Ted's answer was a question, and a very queer +question.</p> + +<p>"Mother," he said, "how much do pies cost?"</p> + +<p>"Pies," repeated his mother, "what kind of pies +do you mean? Big ones, little ones, meat ones, or +what?"</p> + +<p>"Big ones, mother, at least <i>a</i> big one, and all +made of meat, with crust at the top. And oh!" he +exclaimed, "there was the dish! I daresay that cost +a good deal," and his face grew sadder and sadder.</p> + +<p>But his mother told him he really must explain, +and so he did. "I didn't mean to tell you about +it, mother," he said, "for it was my own fault, and +telling you seems almost like asking for the money," +and here poor Ted's face grew red again. "I +thought the only thing to do was to take the <i>act</i> +money, the two shillings and sevenpence, you know, +mother, and give it to Jamie's mother, and just give +up having the seat," and here Ted's repressed feelings +were too much for him. He turned away his +face and fairly burst into tears. Give up the seat! +Think of all that meant to him, poor boy. The +pleasure for Cissy as well as his own, the delightful +surprise to Percy, the rows of stick-sticks for his +uncle. I don't think it was wonderful that Ted +burst into tears.</p> + +<p>"My poor boy," said his mother, and then she +thought it over to herself for a little. She did not +begin talking to Ted about how careless he had been, +and that it must be a lesson to him, and so on, as +many even very kind mothers are sometimes tempted +to do, when, as <i>does</i> happen now and then in this +rather contrary world, very small wrongdoings have +very big results,—she could not feel that Ted had +been much to blame, and she was quite sure it <i>would</i> +be "a lesson to him," without her saying any more +about it. So she just thought it over quietly, and +then said,</p> + +<p>"No, Ted. I don't quite think that would be +right. Your giving up the seat would be punishing +others as well as yourself—Cissy particularly—and +that would not be right. I will see that Jamie and +his brothers and sisters have something for their +dinner to-morrow that will please them as much as +the pie, and you must tell Newton to go on with +the seat, and<span class="nowrap">——</span>"</p> + +<p>"But, mother," interrupted Ted, "I won't be +happy unless I pay it myself, the dinner I mean. +It wouldn't be <i>fair</i>, if I didn't—would it, mother?" +and he looked up with his honest, anxious blue eyes +in his mother's face, so that she felt the same wish +to stoop down and kiss him that had made her do +so long ago in the street of the little country town +near their old home.</p> + +<p>"I was going on to speak about that," said his +mother. "It will take all your money and a little +more to pay Newton, you see, and you haven't any +more."</p> + +<p>"No, mother, but if I was to give up my library +pennies?"—for Ted subscribed a penny a week to a +children's library in the town, as he had long ago +exhausted the home stores.</p> + +<p>"That would take a <i>very</i> long time, and it would +be a pity for you to lose your reading," said his +mother. "But I'll tell you what—I will count the +dinner as owing from you to me, and you will pay +it as best you can, little by little. For every summer +you get presents from your uncles or cousins +when they are with us. I will count it two shillings +and sixpence—the sixpence for the dish, and I +know you will not forget to pay me."</p> + +<p>"No indeed, mother, and thank you <i>so</i> much," +said Ted, with a now really lightened heart. "Shall +I tell Jamie about the dinner? I could go that way +when I go back to Newton's. He will be so pleased. +His mother didn't scold him, but yet I couldn't help +being <i>very</i> sorry for him. His face did look so unhappy."</p> + +<p>And when, after dinner, Ted ran off again, I +think the pleasure of the good news in store for +poor Jamie was quite as much in his mind as his +own errand to Newton's.</p> + +<p>The seat was a great success. Newton came +that very evening to measure it exactly, and Ted +had the satisfaction of making some suggestions +which the carpenter thought very good ones, as to +the best way of fastening it firmly. And on Monday +evening the work was accomplished. Never, +surely, were two birds in a nest more happy than +Ted and Cissy, when, for the first time, they mounted +up on to their airy throne. Their mother, busy +among her flowers, was surprised by a sound of soft +singing over her head, coming from at first she +could not tell where. She stood still to listen—she +had, for the moment, forgotten about the perch in +the tree. But the words and the tune soon told her +who it was. It was Ted at his old favourite, "Home, +sweet home." Sweetly and softly his boyish voice +rang out. The tears came into his mother's eyes, +but she moved away silently. She did not want +the children to know she was there. It seemed to +take away the simplicity of his pretty singing for +him to know that <i>any one</i>, even his mother, had been +listening.</p> + +<p>"He is very fond of music," she said to herself, +"no doubt he has great taste for it," and the thought +gave her pleasure. She pictured to herself happy +future days when Ted and Cissy would be able to +play and sing together—when as "big people," the +brother and sister would continue the tender friendship +that she liked so much to see.</p> + +<p>Monday evening was too late to begin the important +paper for Uncle Ted. But on Tuesday the +children were up with the lark, armed with a long +ruled sheet, divided by lines across the other way, +into what Ted called several "compartments," a +pencil or two, for though Cissy could not make +figures, she could make little strokes, each of which +stood for a one <i>something</i>. The words at the head +of the "compartments" comprised everything which, +with the slightest probability, <i>could</i> be expected +to journey along the highroad. Men, women, boys, +girls, babies in perambulators, babies in nurses' arms; +old women with baskets were considered a separate +genus, and had a row to themselves; carts with one +horse, waggons with two, donkeys, dogs, pigs, cats, +wheelbarrows. And at one side Ted carefully +marked the hour at which began and ended the +"observations." For, alas! the children could not +be <i>all</i> day at their post, though they did gravely +purpose that they should take it in turn to go in to +dinner, so that no passers-by should be unrecorded. +But that mother could not agree to. Dinner must +be eaten, and with as much deliberation and propriety +as usual, or else what was an interest and a +pleasure would have to be discouraged. And after all +it was rather nice to have the paper exhibited and +commented upon as they all sat round the luncheon-table, +though Cissy looked as if she were not <i>quite</i> +sure that she should not take offence for Ted, when +one of the big people inquired why there wasn't a +row for elephants and another for dancing-bears.</p> + +<p>The long summer afternoon was spent in the +same way. Never surely had such a delightful +occupation for two small people brimming over +with life and energy, been discovered. Two birds +busied with arranging their nest could not have been +more completely content.</p> + +<p>"If this goes on," said the children's mother, +laughing, when they did condescend to come in to +tea, "I think we had better send a mattress and a +pillow up to your seat, and let you stay there all +night."</p> + +<p>Ted and Cissy smiled, and in their hearts I +rather think they were of opinion that what their +mother proposed would be very nice. But, eager as +they were, they were both very hungry, and it was +evident that living in a tree did not destroy their +appetite, for the quantity of slices of bread and +butter which disappeared would have alarmed any +one unaccustomed to the feats of little people in +that way.</p> + +<p>And tea over, off they set again. It was almost +as if they were away on a visit somewhere, the +house seemed so quiet, and the garden, so often at +that time of day the scene of tremendous romps in +which even nurse herself was coaxed to join, quite +deserted. <i>Unless</i>—that is to say—you had passed +under a certain tree and stood still to listen to the +clatter going on overhead, though, thanks to the +leafy branches, there was nothing to be <i>seen</i>.</p> + +<p>"Can there be magpies up in that tree?" would, +I think, have been your first idea. And then, listening +a little more attentively, you would have come +to think that whether human or feathered they were +very funny magpies indeed.</p> + +<p>"Fifteen, <i>sixteen</i>, that makes. Hurrah, sixteen +dogs since ten o'clock this morning. And, let's see, +seven old women with baskets, and<span class="nowrap">——</span>"</p> + +<p>"Them wasn't all <i>old</i>," corrects the small voice of +magpie number two; "Jessie wif the eggs isn't old."</p> + +<p>"Never mind; if they've got baskets they <i>should</i> +be old," replies Ted. "An old woman with a +basket <i>sounds</i> right. Then there's five p'rambulators, +oh, it <i>is</i> a long word to spell—it goes right out of +its place into the other rows. I wish I'd just put +'babies in p'rams.' And then there's three pigs +and horses, oh dear I can't count how many. It's +getting too dark to see the strokes on the paper. I +say, Cissy, just you get down and run in and ask for +two or three dips. We can stick them up on the +wall and have a beautiful lighting up, and then we +can see everybody that passes."</p> + +<p>Down clambered obedient Cissy—she was growing +very alert by this time at making her way up and +down—off she set to the house with her message.</p> + +<p>"Dips, dips," she repeated to herself. "Ted +says I'm to ask for two or three dips. I wonder +what dips is."</p> + +<p>She had not the slightest idea, but it never occurred +to her to do otherwise than exactly what her +brother had said. It was a funny little figure that +presented itself to the children's mother, in the +twilight, just as she was putting away her work and +thinking it was really time for Ted and Cissy to +come in, a shawl wrapped round and tied behind +over her white pinafore, of which the part that could +be seen was by no means as clean as it might have +been, any more than the eager flushed little face, +with its bright dark eyes and wavy hair tumbling +over the forehead.</p> + +<p>"My dear Cissy, what a <i>very</i> dirty little girl you +are," said her mother, laughing. "You really look +more like a gipsy than anything else."</p> + +<p>"Does dipsies live up trees?" inquired Cissy +gravely. "Trees <i>is</i> rather dirty. But oh, mother, +Ted wants me to ask you for two or three dips. +<i>P'ease</i> give me zem."</p> + +<p>"<i>Dips</i>," repeated her mother, "what in the world +does he want dips for?"</p> + +<p>"Cissy doesn't know," replied the little girl. +"Cissy doesn't know what dips is. Cissy finks Ted +said he would 'tick zem up on ze wall, to make it +look pitty."</p> + +<p>Her mother was very much amused.</p> + +<p>"Dips are candles," she said. "I suppose Ted +wants to light up the tree."</p> + +<p>Her words made a light break over Cissy's face +in the first place.</p> + +<p>"Oh ses," said the little maiden, "it is getting +so dark. Oh <i>do</i> give Ted some dips, <i>dear</i> mother—do, +<i>do</i>."</p> + +<p>But not any number of "do's" would have made +mother agree to so dangerous a proceeding.</p> + +<p>"My dear little girl, you would certainly set +yourselves on fire, and the tree too," she replied. +"But never mind," she went on, seeing the corners +of Cissy's mouth going down with the thought of +Ted's disappointment, "I will go out with you and +explain to Ted."</p> + +<p>Mother put a shawl over her shoulders and went +out with her little girl. Some way off, Ted heard +them coming.</p> + +<p>"O Cis, have you got the dips?" he cried. "I +forgot to tell you to bring some matches too. I've +had such hard work to see, and a lot of people +passed. I <i>think</i> there was a woman and two boys. +I'll have to mark them down, when<span class="nowrap">——</span>"</p> + +<p>"I've come with Cissy, Ted," replied his mother's +voice, to his surprise, "to tell you that it would +really be too much of a good thing to go on with +your observations all night. And, in the first place, +you would certainly set yourself and Cissy and the +tree on fire, if I let you have candles up there. +Come down now, that's a good boy, and show me +your paper, and we'll pack it up to send to your +uncle by post."</p> + +<p>"Very well, mother," said Ted, with his usual +cheery good-nature. "I'm coming. Here goes," and +in another minute he was beside her. "You don't +know what a beautiful long paperful I've got. I +don't want you to pack it up <i>yet</i>, mother. Cissy +and I are going to keep it on ever so much longer, +aren't we, Cis?"</p> + +<p>And chattering merrily the children went in +with their mother. But as she said to their father, +it really is to be doubted if they would not have +stayed in the tree all night, if Ted had got his wish +and arranged a "dip" illumination on the top of +the wall.</p> + +<p>After all, that day in the tree was the last of +their "stick-sticks." The weather changed, and there +was nearly a week of rain, and by the time it was +over, children-like, Ted and Cissy had grown tired +of the rows of strokes representing old women and +donkeys and horses, and all the rest of them; the +"observations" had lost their attraction for them. +Still the pleasure was not quite over, for there was +the packing of the big paper to send to Uncle Ted +by post, and his letter of thanks in return. And +Percy came home for the holidays, and greatly +approved of the nest in the tree. And what the +children did <i>not</i> do up there—what games they +played, how they were by turns Robinson Crusoe +hiding from the savages, King Charles in the oak +at Boscobel, or, quainter still, how they all sometimes +suddenly turned into squirrels and manufactured +for themselves the most wonderful tails of old brush +handles, and goodness only knows what, which stuck +straight up behind and made the climbing to the +nest by no means an easy matter—yes indeed, what +they did <i>not</i> do up in the tree would be difficult to +tell.</p> + +<p>But it comes into my mind just now that I have +never told you anything of Ted's indoor life. +Hitherto it has seemed all summer days and +gardens, has it not? And no doubt the boy's +<i>greatest</i> happiness was in outdoor interests and +employments. But of course it was not always +summer and sunshine for Ted, any more than for +any one else—and, Christmas child though he was, +there were wintry days when even <i>he</i> had to stay in +the house and find work and pleasures indoors. +For winter does not mean nothing but bright frosty +skies overhead, and crisp clean snow underfoot. +There are dreary days of rain and mist and mud, +when children are much better at home, and when +mothers and nurses are more thankful than any one +<i>not</i> a mother or nurse can imagine, to have to do +with cheerful contented little people, who are "good +at amusing themselves," and unselfish enough not +to worry every one about them because it is a rainy +day.</p> + +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h3> +<h4><span class="smallcaps">A peacock's feather and a kiss.</span></h4> +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">"We tried to quarrel yesterday.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Ah! … kiss the memory away."</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>In Ted's pleasant home there was a queer little +room used for nothing in particular. It was a very +little room, hardly worthy indeed of the name, but +it had, like some small men who have very big +minds, a large window with a most charming view. +I think it was partly this which made Ted take +such a fancy to this queer little room in the first +place—he used to stand at the window when they +first came to the house and gaze out at the stretch +of sloping fields, with peeps here and there of the +blue river fringed with splendid trees, and farther off +still the distant hills fading away into the mysterious +cloudiness, the sight of which always gave him a +strange feeling as if he would like to cry—Ted +used to gaze out of this window for ever so long at +a time, till somehow the little room came to be +associated with him, and the rest of the family got +into the way of speaking of it as his. And gradually +an idea took shape in his mind which he consulted +his mother about, and which she was quite pleased +to agree to. Might he have this little room for his +museum? That was Ted's idea, and oh how eagerly +his blue eyes looked up into his mother's face for her +reply, and how the light danced in them with pleasure +when she said "yes."</p> + +<p>There were shelves in the little room—shelves +not too high up, some of them at least, for Ted to +arrange his curiosities on, without having to climb +on to a chair, and even Cissy, when she was trusted +as a great treat to dust some of the treasures, could +manage nicely with just a footstool. It would be +impossible to tell you half the pleasure Ted got out +of his museum. It was to him a sort of visible +history of his simple happy life, for nowhere did he +go without bringing back with him some curious stone +or shell, or bird's feather, or uncommon leaf even, +to be placed in his collection, both as a remembrance +of his visit and as a thing of interest in itself.</p> + +<p>There were specimens of cotton in its different +stages, of wool too, from a soft bit of fluff which +Ted had picked off a Welsh bramble, to a square +inch of an exquisitely knitted Shetland shawl, fine +as a cobweb, which Ted had begged from Mabel +when she was giving the remains of the shawl to +Cissy for her doll. There were bits of different +kinds of coal; there was "Blue John" from a Derbyshire +cavern, and a tiny china doll which, much +charred and disfigured, had yet survived the great +fire of Chicago, where one of the children's uncles +had passed by not long after; there was a bit of +black bread from the siege of Paris; there were all +manner of things, all ticketed and numbered, and +their description neatly entered in a catalogue which +lay on a little table by the door, on which was also +to be seen another book, in which Ted requested +all visitors to the museum to write their names, and +all the big people of the family so well understood +the boy's pride and pleasure in his museum, that no +one ever thought of making his way into his little +room without his invitation.</p> + +<p>Ted had begun his museum some months before +the great excitement of the nest in the tree, but the +delights of the long summer days out of doors had +a little put it out of his head. But the latter part, +as well as the beginning of these holidays, happened +to be very rainy, and the last fortnight was spent +mostly by Percy and Ted in the tiny museum room, +where Percy helped Ted to finish the ticketing and +numbering that he had not long before begun. And +Cissy, of course, was as busy as anybody, flopping +about with an old pocket-handkerchief which she +called her duster, and reproving the boys with great +dignity for unsettling any of the trays she had made +so "bootily clean."</p> + +<p>"You must try to get some more feathers, Ted," +said Percy. "They make such a pretty collection. +There's a fellow at our school that has an awful lot. +He fastens them on to cards—he's got a bird-of-Paradise +plume, an awful beauty. Indeed he's got +two, for he offered to sell me one for half-a-crown. +Wouldn't you like it?"</p> + +<p>"I should think I would," said Ted, "but I can't +buy anything this half. You know my money's +owing to mother for that that I told you about."</p> + +<p>He gave a little sigh; the bird of Paradise was +a tempting idea.</p> + +<p>"<i>Poor</i> Ted," said Cissy, clambering down from +her stool to give him a hug.</p> + +<p>Ted accepted the hug, but not the pity.</p> + +<p>"No, Cissy. I'm not poor Ted for that," he said +merrily. "It was ever so kind of mother to put it +all right, and ever so much kinder of her to do it +that way. I shouldn't have liked not to pay it +myself."</p> + +<p>"I'll see if I can't get that fellow to swop his +bird of Paradise for some of my stamps, when I go +back to school," said Percy.</p> + +<p>"Oh, thank you, Percy," said Ted, his eyes +shining.</p> + +<p>"Anyway you might have some peacocks'," Percy +went on. "They're not so hard to get, and they +look so pretty."</p> + +<p>"Mother's got some screens made of them on the +drawing-room mantelpiece," said Ted, "and one of +them's got a lot of loose feathers sticking out at the +back that are no use. Perhaps she'd give me one +or two. Then I could make a nice cardful, with +the peacocks' at the corners and the little ones in a +sort of a wreath in the middle."</p> + +<p>He looked at the sheet of white paper on to +which, at present, his feathers were fastened. "Yes, +it would be very pretty," he repeated. But just +then the tea-bell rang, and the children left the +museum for that day.</p> + +<p>The boys were in it the next morning, when Ted's +mother appeared with a rather graver face than +usual. She did not come in, she knew that Ted +was putting all in perfect order, and that he did not +want her to see it till complete, so she only slightly +opened the door and called him out.</p> + +<p>"Ted," she said quietly, but Ted saw that she +was sorry, "Ted, do you know anything of this?"</p> + +<p>She held up as she spoke a pretty and valuable +little china ornament which always stood on the +drawing-room mantelpiece. It was broken—quite +spoilt—it could never be the same again.</p> + +<p>"Oh dear," exclaimed Ted, "what a pity! Your +dear little flower-basket. I am so sorry. How could +it have got broken?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know," said his mother. "I found it +lying on the floor. It seemed as if some one had +knocked it over without knowing. You are sure +you were not trying to reach anything off the mantelpiece +yesterday evening?"</p> + +<p>"Sure," said Ted, looking sorry and puzzled.</p> + +<p>"It stood just in front of my screen of peacock +feathers," his mother went on. She did not in the +very very least doubt his assurance, but his manner +gave her the feeling that if she helped his memory +a little, he might be able to throw some light on the +mystery.</p> + +<p>"In front of the peacock-feather fan," he repeated +absently.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said his mother, "but do not say anything +about it, Ted. We may find out how it happened, +but I do not like questioning every one about it. It +gives the servants a feeling that I don't trust them, +for they always tell me if they break anything. So +don't say anything more about it to <i>any one</i>."</p> + +<p>"No," said Ted. His tone and manner were +still a little puzzled, as if something was in his +mind which he could not make clear to himself, and +his mother, knowing that he sometimes was inclined +to take things of the kind too much to heart, made +up her mind to think no more about her poor little +vase, and to treat its breakage as one of the accidents +we have all to learn to bear philosophically in daily +life. But though no more was said, Ted did not +forget about it: it worried and puzzled him behind +other thoughts, as it were, all day, and little did he or +his mother think who was really the innocent culprit.</p> + +<p>Late that night, just before going to bed herself, +Ted's mother glanced into his room, as she often +did, to see that the boy was sleeping peacefully. +The light that she carried she shaded carefully, but +a very wide-awake voice greeted her at once.</p> + +<p>"Mother," it said, "I'm not asleep. Mother, I +do so want to speak to you. I've not been able to +go to sleep for thinking about the little broken vase."</p> + +<p>"O Ted, dear," said his mother, "don't mind +about it. It is no use vexing oneself so much about +things when they are done and can't be put right."</p> + +<p>"But, mother," he persisted, "it isn't quite that. +Of course I'm <i>very</i> sorry for it to be broken, however +it happened. But what makes me so uncomfortable +is that I've begun to wonder so if perhaps I <i>did</i> do +it. I know we were all talking about your peacock-feather +screens yesterday. I said to Percy and Cissy +there were some loose ones in one of them, and +perhaps you'd give me some for my card of feathers, +and I've got a sort of wondering feeling whether +perhaps I <i>did</i> touch the screen and knocked down +the china flower-basket without knowing, and it's +making me so unhappy, but I <i>didn't</i> mean to hide +it from you if I did do it."</p> + +<p>He looked up so wistfully that his mother's heart +felt quite sore. She considered a minute before she +replied, for she was afraid of seeming to make light +of his trouble or of checking his perfect honesty, +and yet, on the other hand, she was wise, and knew +that even conscientiousness may be exaggerated and +grow into a weakness, trying to others as well as +hurtful to oneself.</p> + +<p>"I am sure you did not mean to hide anything +from me, dear Ted," she replied, "and I don't think +it is the least likely that you did break the vase. +But even if you did, it is better to think no more +about it. You answered me sincerely at the time, +and that was all you could do. We are only human +beings, you know, dear Ted, always likely to make +mistakes, even to say what is not true at the very +moment we are most anxious to be truthful. We +can only do our best, and ask God to help us. So +don't trouble any more, even if we never find out +how it happened."</p> + +<p>Then she stooped and gave Ted an extra good-night +kiss, and in five minutes his loving anxious +little spirit was asleep.</p> + +<p>But the very next day the mystery was explained.</p> + +<p>"Ted's <i>new</i>seum is bootly neat," Cissy announced +at breakfast-time, "but he wants some more fevvers. +I tried to get down muzzer's screen off the mantelpiece +to see if there was some loose ones, but I +couldn't reach it. Muzzer, <i>won't</i> you give Ted some +loose ones?"</p> + +<p>Mother looked at Ted, and Ted looked at mother.</p> + +<p>"So <i>you</i> were the mouse that knocked over my +little vase, Miss Cissy!" said mother. "Do you +know, dear, that it was broken? You should not +try to reach things down yourself. You will be +having an accident, like 'Darling' in the picture-book, +some day, if you don't take care."</p> + +<p>The corners of Cissy's mouth went down, and her +eyes filled with tears.</p> + +<p>"I didn't know," she said in a very melancholy +voice. "I only wanted to find some loose fevvers +for Ted."</p> + +<p>"I know that, dear," said her mother. "Only +if you had asked me you would have got the feathers +without breaking my vase. Come with me now, +and you'll show me what you want."</p> + +<p>There proved to be two or three loose feathers as +Ted had said—beautiful rainbow eyes, which would +not be missed from the screen with the careful way +in which Ted's mother cut them out, and the children +carried them off in delight. They were neatly +tacked on to the feather card, which had a very +fine effect on the wall of the museum. And for +both Ted and Cissy there was a little lesson, though +the two were of different kinds, fastened up with +the feathers on the card.</p> +<p><a name="img170" id="img170"></a></p> +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="Illustration"> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <a href="images/img170.jpg"> + <img src="images/img170.jpg" height="400" + alt="They were tacked on to the card" /></a> + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="center"><span class="small">"They were neatly tacked on to the feather card, which had a very<br /> +fine effect on the wall of the museum"</span><br /> + <span class="caption">Click to <a href="images/img170.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Before long the holidays were over. Percy went +back to school, and poor Ted hid himself for a few +hours, as he always did on these sad occasions, that +his red eyes might not be seen. Then he came out +again, looking paler than usual, but quite cheerful +and bright. Still he missed Percy so much that he +was not at all sorry that his own holidays were over. +For Ted now went early every morning to a regular +big school—a school at which there were so many +boys that some little fellows of his age might have +felt frightened and depressed. But not so Ted. +He went on his own cheery way without misgiving. +The world to his thinking was a nice and happy +place—not <i>all</i> sunshine of course, but very good +of its kind. And school-life, though it too had its +shadows, was full of interest and satisfaction. Ted +loved his fellows, and never doubted, in his simple +taking-for-granted of things being as they should be, +but that he was loved by them; and how this way +of looking out on the world helped him through +its difficulties, how it saved him from unreasonable +fears and exaggerated anxieties such as take the +bloom off many a child-life, it would be difficult for +me to describe. I can only try to put you in the way +of imagining this bright young life for yourselves.</p> + +<p>The boy whom, of course only <i>next</i> to his dear +Percy, Ted loved best in the world was, to use his +own words, "a fellow" of about his own age, whose +name was Rex. That is to say, his short name; +for his real one was Reginald, just as Ted's was +Edmond. They had been together at the big school +from the first of Ted's going, being about equal in +their standing as to classes, though Rex was rather +the elder, and had been longer at school. At Ted's +school, as at all others, there were quarrels and fights +sometimes; and many a day he came home with +traces of war, in the shapes of bumps and bruises +and scratches. Not that the battles were all <i>quarrels</i>,—there +were plenty of good-tempered scrimmages, +as well as, occasionally, more serious affrays, +for boys will be boys all the world over. And, +worse than that, in all schools there are to be found +boys of mean and tyrannical spirit, who love to +bully and tease, and who need to be put down now +and then. And in all schools, too, there are boys +of good and kindly feelings, but of hasty and uncontrolled +temper, and they too have to be taught +to give and take, to bear and forbear. And then, +too, as the best of boys are <i>but</i> boys after all, we +are still a long way off having any reason to +expect that the best of schools even can be like dovecots.</p> + +<p>I don't know that Ted's school was worse than +others in these respects, and Ted himself was not +of a quarrelsome nature, but still in some ways he +was not very patient. And then, slight and rather +delicate though he was, he assuredly had a spirit +of his own. He couldn't stand bullying, either of +himself or others, and without any calculation as +to the odds for or against him, he would plunge +himself into the thick of the fray; and but for Rex, +who was always ready to back up Ted, I daresay he +would often have come off worse than he did. As +it was, many were the wounds that fell to his share, +and yet he managed, by his quickness and nimbleness, +to escape more serious damage.</p> + +<p>"What have you been doing with yourself, my +boy?" his mother said one day not long after the +grand doing-up of the museum, when Ted appeared +in her room on his return from school, to beg for +some sticking-plaister and arnica lotion. He really +looked rather an object, and he could not help +laughing as he caught sight of his face in the glass; +for one eye was very much swollen, and a long +scratch down his nose did not add to his beauty.</p> + +<p>"I <i>am</i> a fright," he said. "But there's not +much the matter, mother. It was only a scrimmage—we +were all quite good friends."</p> + +<p>"But really, Ted," said his mother, "I think you +must curb your warlike tastes a little. Some day +you may really get hurt badly."</p> + +<p>"No fear, mother," he said. "Besides, after all, +a boy wouldn't be worth much who couldn't fight +sometimes, would he?"</p> + +<p>"<i>Sometimes</i>," said his mother. "Where was Rex +to-day—wasn't he beside you?"</p> + +<p>Ted's face clouded a little.</p> + +<p>"Rex was in a bad humour to-day. He wouldn't +play," Ted replied.</p> + +<p>"Rex in a bad humour!" repeated his mother. +"Surely that's very uncommon."</p> + +<p>Ted did not reply, and his mother did not ask +him any more, but she noticed that the cloud had +not entirely disappeared, and the next morning it +was not quite with his usual springing steps that +the boy set off to school. Rex's house was on the +same road; most days the boys met each other at +the gate and went on together, but this time no +Rex was to be seen. Either he had taken it into +his head to go very early, or he was not yet ready. +Ted cast a glance towards the path, down which he +was used to see his friend running, satchel over his +shoulders, to join him—then he walked on slowly.</p> + +<p>"I'm not going to wait for him if he doesn't +care to come," he said to himself; and when he got +to school he was glad he had not done so, for there +was Rex already in the schoolroom, and at his desk +busy writing, though it wanted some minutes to +school-time.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Rex," said Ted.</p> + +<p>"Good morning," replied Rex; but that was all. +Whether or not he had been in a bad humour the +day before, he was certainly not in a pleasant frame +of mind towards Ted <i>to-day</i>. The morning passed +much less cheerfully than usual, for when all was +happy between the boys, though they could not +speak to each other in school hours, there were +many pleasant little ways in which they could +make each other feel that his friend was next door. +Ted's lessons suffered from his preoccupation, and, +altogether, things seemed to go the wrong way. +But Ted did not seem able to care. "What was the +matter with Rex?" That was the one question +always in his mind.</p> + +<p>School over, the boys could not help meeting. +Their roads lay together, and both had too much +self-respect to wish to make an exhibition of the +want of good feeling between them to the other +boys. So they set off as if nothing were the matter, +and walked some little way in silence. At last Ted +could stand it no longer.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter with you, old fellow?" he +said. "Why wouldn't you play with me yesterday?"</p> + +<p>Rex looked up.</p> + +<p>"I couldn't," he said. "I had got my French +exercise all blotted, and I wanted to copy it over +without telling any one; that was why I wouldn't +come out. So <i>now</i> you see if it was true what you +said of me to Hatchard."</p> + +<p>"What did I say of you to Hatchard?" cried +Ted.</p> + +<p>"<i>What?</i> Why, what he told me you said—that +I was a mean sneak, and that I wouldn't play +because I wasn't as good at it as you."</p> + +<p>"I never said so, and you know I never did," +retorted Ted, his cheeks flaming.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to say that I'm telling a lie?" +cried Rex in his turn.</p> + +<p>"Yes I do, if you said I said that," exclaimed +Ted. And then—how it happened I don't think +either of the boys could have told—their anger grew +from words into deeds. Rex hit Ted, and Ted hit +at him again! But one blow—one on each side—and +they came to their senses. Ted first, when he +saw the ugly mark his clenched fist had left on his +friend's face, when he felt the hot glow on his +own.</p> + +<p>"O Rex," he cried, "O Rex! How can we be +like that to each other? It's like Cain and Abel. +O Rex, I'm so sorry!"</p> + +<p>And Rex was quick to follow.</p> + +<p>"O Ted, I didn't mean it. Let's forget we ever +did it. I <i>do</i> believe you never said that. Hatchard's +a mean sneak himself. I only didn't want to tell +you that it was you who blotted my exercise by +mistake when you passed my desk. I thought you'd +be so sorry. But it would have been better to tell +you than to go on like this."</p> + +<p>Rex's explanation was too much for Ted. Ten +years old though he was, the tears rushed to his eyes, +and he felt as if he could never forgive himself.</p> + +<p>He told his mother all about it that evening. +He could not feel happy till he did so, and even +before he had said anything she knew that the little +tug to her sleeve and the whispered "Mother, I want +to speak to you," was coming. And even when he +had told her all about the quarrel and reconciliation, +he hung on, looking as if there were something more +to tell.</p> + +<p>"What is it, my boy?" said his mother; "have +you anything more to say?"</p> + +<p>Ted's face flushed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, mother," he said. "I wanted to ask you +this. When Rex and I had settled it all right again, +we still felt rather unhappy. It did seem so horrid +to have hit each other like that, it seemed to leave +a mark. So, mother, we wanted to take it quite +away, and we <i>kissed</i> each other. And we felt quite +happy, only—was it a very babyish thing to do? +Was it <i>unmanly</i>, mother?" /</p> + +<p>His mother drew him towards her and looked +lovingly into his anxious face.</p> + +<p>"Unmanly, my boy? No indeed," she said, "it +was kind and good, and kindness and goodness can +never be unmanly."</p> + +<p>And Ted, quite at rest now, went off to bed.</p> + +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h3> +<h4>SOME RAINY ADVENTURES.</h4> +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">"Wildly the winds of heaven began to blow,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center"><b>.</b><span class="ind2"><b>.</b></span><span class="ind2"><b>.</b></span><span class="ind2"><b>.</b></span><span class="ind2"><b>.</b></span><span class="ind2"><b>.</b></span><span class="ind2"><b>.</b></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Whilst from the jealous, unrelenting skies</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> The inevitable July down-pour came."</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>Another winter came and went. Ted had another +birthday, which made him eleven years old. Another +happy Christmas time—this year of the old-fashioned +snowy kind, for even in November there +was skating, and Ted skated like a Dutchman; and +the child-life in the pleasant home went on its +peaceful way, with much of sunshine and but few +clouds. Narcissa, too, was growing a big girl. She +could say all her words clearly now, without lisping +or funny mistakes, though, as she was the youngest +bird in the nest, I am not sure but that some of the +big people thought this rather a pity! And then +when the frost and the snow were done with, the ever +new spring time came round again, gradually growing +into the brilliant summer; and this year the +children's hearts rejoiced even more than usual, for +a great pleasure was before them. This year they +were to spend the holidays with their parents in a +quite, <i>quite</i> country place, and many were the delightful +fancies and dreams that they made about it, +even while it was some distance off.</p> + +<p>"I do love summer," said Cissy one day. They +were standing at the window one May morning, +waiting for their father and mother to come to +breakfast. It was a Sunday morning, so there was +no hurrying off to school. "Don't you <i>love</i> summer, +Ted?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, summer's awfully jolly," he replied. "But +so's winter. Just think of the snowballing and the +skating. I do hope next winter will be a regular +good one, for I shall be ever so much bigger I +expect, and I'll try my best to beat them all at +skating."</p> + +<p>His face and eyes beamed with pleasure. Just +then his mother came in; she had heard his last +words.</p> + +<p>"Next winter!" she said. "That's a long time +off. Who knows what may happen before then?"</p> + +<p>She gave a little sigh; Ted and Cissy looked at +each other. They knew what mother was thinking +of. Since <i>last</i> winter a great grief had come to her. +She had lost one who had been to her what Ted was +to Cissy, and the sorrow was still fresh. Ted and +Cissy drew near to their mother. Ted stroked her +hand, and Cissy held up her rosy mouth for a kiss.</p> + +<p>"Dear mother," they said both together, and then +a little silence fell over them all. Cissy's thoughts +were sad as she looked at Ted and pictured to herself +how terrible it would be to lose a brother as +dear as he, and Ted was gazing up at the blue sky +and <i>wondering</i>—wondering about the great mystery +which had lately, for the first time in his life, +seemed to come near him. What <i>was</i> dying? Why, +if it meant, as his father and mother told him, a +better, and fuller, and nobler life than this, which he +found so good and happy a thing, why, if it meant +living nearer to God, understanding Him better, why +should people dread it so, why speak of it as so sad?</p> + +<p>"I don't think," thought little Ted to himself, "I +don't <i>think</i> I should be afraid of dying. God is so +kind, I couldn't fancy being afraid of Him; and +heaven must be so beautiful," for the sunny brightness +of the May morning seemed to surround everything. +But his glance fell on his mother and sister, +and other thoughts rose in his mind; the leaving +them—ah yes, <i>that</i> was what made death so sad a +thing; and he had to turn his head away to hide the +tears which rose to his eyes.</p> + +<p>There was, as his mother had said, a long time +to next winter—there seemed even, to the children, +a long time to next summer, which they were hoping +for so eagerly. And an interruption came to Ted's +school-work, for quite unexpectedly he and Cissy +went away to London for a few weeks with their +parents, and when they came back there was only a +short time to wait for the holidays. If I had space +I would like to tell you about this visit to London, +and some of the interesting things that happened +there—how the children had rather a distressing +adventure the first evening of their arrival, for their +father and mother had to go off with their aunt in +a hurry to see a sick friend, and, quite by mistake, +their nurse, not knowing the children would be alone, +went out with a message about a missing parcel, +and poor Cissy, tired with the journey and frightened +by the dark, rather gloomy house and the strange +servants, had a terrible fit of crying, and clung to +Ted as her only protector in a manner piteous to +see. And Ted soothed and comforted her as no one +else could have done. It was a pretty sight (though +it grieved their mother too, to find that poor Cissy +had been frightened) to see the little girl in Ted's +arms, where she had fallen asleep, the tears still +undried on her cheeks; and the next morning, when +she woke up fresh and bright as usual, she told her +mother that Ted had been, oh so kind, she never +could be frightened again if Ted was there.</p> + +<p>There were many things to surprise and interest +the children, Ted especially, in the great world of +London, of which now he had this little peep. But +as I have promised to tell you about the summer I +must not linger.</p> + +<p>When they went back from town there were +still eight or nine weeks to pass before the holidays, +and Ted worked hard, really very hard, at +school to gain the prize he had been almost sure of +before the interruption of going away. He did not +say much about it, but his heart <i>did</i> beat a good +deal faster than usual when at last the examinations +were over and the prize-giving day came round; +and when all the successful names were read out +and his was not among them, I could not take upon +myself to say that there was not a tear to wink +away, even though there was the consolation of +hearing that he stood second-best in his class. And +Ted's good feeling and common sense made him look +quite bright and cheerful when his mother met him +with rather an anxious face.</p> + +<p>"You're not disappointed I hope, Ted, dear, are +you?" she said. "You have not taken quite as +good a place as usual, and I did think you might +have had a prize. But you know I am quite pleased, +and so is your father, for we are satisfied you have +done your best, so you must not be disappointed."</p> + +<p>"I'm not, mother," said Ted cheerily,—"I'm not +really, for you know I am <i>second</i>, and that's not bad, +is it? Considering I was away and all that."</p> + +<p>And his mother felt pleased at the boy's good +sense and fair judgment of himself—for there had +sometimes seemed a danger of Ted's entire want of +vanity making him too timid about himself.</p> + +<p>What a happy day it was for Ted and Cissy +when the real packing began for the summer expedition! +It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, +and I suppose it is by this old saying explained +how it is that packing, the horror of mothers and +aunts and big sisters, not to speak of nurses and +maids, should be to all small people the source of +such delight.</p> + +<p>"See, Ted," said Cissy, "do let's carry down +some of these boxes. There's the one with the sheets +and towels in, <i>quite</i> ready," and the children's mother +coming along the passage and finding them both +tugging with all their might at really a very heavy +trunk, was reminded of the day—long ago now—in +the mountain home, when, setting off for the +picnic, wee Ted wanted so much to load himself with +the heaviest basket of all!</p> + +<p>And at last, thanks no doubt to these energetic +efforts in great part, the packing was all done; the +last evening, then the last night came, and the +excited children went to sleep to wake ever so much +earlier than usual to the delights of thinking <i>the</i> +day had come!</p> + +<p>It was a long and rather tiring railway journey, +and when it came to an end there was a very long +drive in an open carriage, and by degrees all houses +and what Ted's father called "traces of civilisation,"—which +puzzled Cissy a good deal—were left behind.</p> + +<p>"We must be getting close to the moors," said +he, at which the children were delighted, for it was +on the edge of these great moors that stood the +lonely farm-house that was to be their home for +some months. But just as their father said this, +the carriage stopped, and they were told they must +all get down—they were at the entrance to a wood +through which there was no cart or carriage road, +only a footpath, and the farm-house stood in a glen +some little way on the other side of this wood. It +was nearly dark outside the wood, inside it was of +course still more so, so dark indeed that it took some +care and management to find one's way at all. The +children walked on quietly, Ted really enjoying the +queerness and the mystery of this adventure, but +little Narcissa, though she said nothing, pressed +closer to her mother, feeling rather "eerie," and +some weeks after she said one day, "I don't want +ever to go home again because of passing through +that dark wood."</p> + +<p>But once arrived, the pleasant look of everything +at the farm-house, and the hearty welcome they +received from their host and hostess, the farmer and +his wife, made every one feel it had all been worth +the journey and the trouble. And the next morning, +when the children woke to a sunny summer day in +the quaint old house, and looked out on all sides on +the lovely meadows and leafy trees, with here and +there a peep of the gleaming river a little farther +down the glen, and when, near at hand, they heard +the clucking of the hens and the mooing of the +calves and the barking of the dogs, and all the delightful +sounds of real farm-life, I think, children, +you will not need me to try to tell you how happy +<i>our</i> children felt. The next few days were a sort +of bewilderment of interests and pleasures and surprises—everything +was so nice and new—even the +funny old-fashioned stoneware plates and dishes +seemed to Ted and Cissy to make the dinners and +teas taste better than anything they had ever eaten +before. And very soon they were as much at home +in and about the farm-house as if they had lived +there all their lives,—feeding the calves and pigs, +hunting for eggs, carrying in wood for Mrs. Crosby +to help her little niece Polly, a small person not +much older than Cissy, but already very useful in +house and farm work. One day, when they were busy +at this wood-carrying, a brilliant idea struck them.</p> + +<p>"Wouldn't it be fun," said Ted, "to go to the +wood—just the beginning of it, you know—and +gather a lot of these nice little dry branches; they +are so beautiful for lighting fires with?"</p> + +<p>Cissy agreed that it would be great fun, and +Polly, who was with them at the time, thought, too, +that it would be very nice indeed; and then a still +better idea struck Ted. "Suppose," he said, "that +we were to go to-morrow morning, and take our +luncheon with us. Wouldn't <i>that</i> be nice? We +could pack it in a basket and take it on the little +truck that we get the wood in, and then we could +bring back the little truck full of the dry branches."</p> + +<p>The proposal was thought charming, and mother +was consulted; and the next morning Mrs. Crosby +was busy betimes, hunting up what she could give +to her "honeys" for their picnic, and soon the three +set off, pulling the truck behind them, and on the +truck a basket carefully packed with a large bottle +of fresh milk, a good provision of bread and butter, +a fine cut of home-made cake, and three splendid +apple turnovers. Could anything be nicer? The +sun was shining, as it was right he should shine on +so happy a little party, as they made their way up +the sloping field, through a little white gate opening +on to a narrow path skirting the foot of the hill, +where the bracken grew in wild luxuriance, and +the tall trees overhead made a pleasant shade down +to the little beck, whose chatter could be faintly +heard. And so peaceful and sheltered was the +place, that, as the children passed along, bright-eyed +rabbits stopped to peep at them ere they scudded +away, and the birds hopped fearlessly across the path, +nay, the squirrels even, sitting comfortably among +the branches, glanced down at the three little figures +without disturbing themselves, and an old owl blinked +at them patronisingly from his hole in an ancient +tree-trunk. And by and by as the path grew more +rugged, Polly was deputed to carry the basket, for +fear of accidents, for Cissy pulling in front and Ted +pushing and guiding behind, found it as much as +they could do to get the truck along. How they +meant to bring it back when loaded with branches I +don't know, and as things turned out, the question did +not arise. The truck and the basket and the children +reached their destination safely; they chose a nice +little grassy corner under a tree very near the entrance +to the big wood, and after a <i>very</i> short interval of rest +from the fatigues of their journey, it was suggested +by one and agreed to by all that even if it were +rather too early for real luncheon or dinner time, +there was no reason why, if they felt hungry, they +should not unpack the basket and eat! No sooner +said than done.</p> + +<p>"We shall work at gathering wood all the better +after we've had some refreshment," observed Ted +sagely, and the little girls were quite of his opinion. +And the rabbits and the owls and the squirrels must, +I think, have been much amused at the quaint little +party, the spice cake and apple-turnover collation +that took place under the old tree, and at the merry +words and ringing laughter that echoed through the +forest.</p> + +<p>An hour or so later, the children's mother, with +an after-thought of possible risk to them from the +damp ground, made her way along the path and soon +discovered the little group. She had brought with +her a large waterproof cloak big enough for them all +to sit on together, but it was too late, for the refection +was over; the basket, containing only the three plates +and the three tin mugs, propped up between Ted +and Cissy, toppled over with the start the children +gave at the sound of their mother's voice, and a +regular "Jack and Jill" clatter down the slope was +the result. The children screamed with delight and +excitement as they raced after the truant mugs and +plates, and their mother, thinking that her staying +longer might cause a little constraint in the merriment, +turned to go, just saying cheerfully, "Children, +I have brought my big waterproof cloak for you to +sit on, but as your feast is over I suppose you won't +need it. What are you going to do next?"</p> + +<p>"O mother, we're just going to set to work," +Ted's voice replied; "we're having such fun."</p> + +<p>"Well, good-bye then. I am going a walk with +your father, but in case of a change of weather, +though it certainly doesn't look like it, I'll leave the +cloak."</p> + +<p>She turned and left them. An hour or two later, +when she came home to the farm-house and stood +for a moment looking up at the sky, it seemed to +her as if her remark about the weather had been a +shadow of coming events. For the bright blue sky +had clouded over, a slight chilly breeze ruffled the +leaves as if in friendly warning to the birds and the +butterflies to get under shelter, and before many +moments had passed large heavy drops began to fall, +which soon grew into a regular downpour. What +a changed world!</p> + +<p>"What will the children do?" was the mother's +first thought as she watched it. "It is too heavy +to last, and fortunately there is no sign of thunder +about. I don't see that there is anything to be +done but to wait a little; they are certain to be +under shelter in the wood, and any one going for +them would be drenched in two minutes."</p> + +<p>So she did her best to wait patiently and not to +feel uneasy, though several times in the course of +the next half-hour she went to the window to see +if there were no sign of the rain abating. Alas, no! +As heavily as ever, and even more steadily, it fell. +Something must be done she decided, and she was +just thinking of going to the kitchen to consult +Mrs. Crosby, when as she turned from the window +a curious object rolling or slowly hobbling down +the hill-side caught her view. That was the way +the children would come—what could that queer +thing be? It was not too high, but far too broad +to be a child, and its way of moving was a sort of +jerky waddle through the bracken, very remarkable +to see. Whatever it was, dwarf or goblin, it found +its way difficult to steer, poor thing, for there, with +a sudden fly, over it went altogether and lay for a +moment or two struggling and twisting, till at last +it managed to get up again and painfully strove to +pursue its way.</p> + +<p>The children's mother called their nurse.</p> + +<p>"Esther," she said, "I cannot imagine what that +creature is coming down the road. But it is in +trouble evidently. Run off and see if you can +help." Off ran kind-hearted Esther, and soon she was +rewarded for her trouble. For as she got near to +the queer-shaped bundle, she saw two pairs of eyes +peering out at her, from the two arm-holes of +the waterproof cloak, and in a moment the mystery +was explained. Ted, in his anxiety for the two +girls, had wrapped them up <i>together</i> in the cloak +which his mother had left, and literally "bundled" +them off, with the advice to get home as quickly +as possible, while he followed with his loaded truck, +the wood covered as well as he could manage with +leafy branches which he tore down.</p> + +<p>But "possible" was not quickly at all in the +case of poor Cissy and her companion. Polly was +of a calm and placid nature, with something of the +resignation to evils that one sees in the peasant +class all over the world; but Narcissa, impulsive and +sensitive, with her dainty dislike to mud, and her +unaccustomedness to such adventures, could not long +restrain her tears, and under the waterproof cloak +she cried sadly, feeling frightened too at the angry +gusts of rain and wind which sounded to her like +the voices of ogres waiting to seize them and carry +them off to some dreadful cavern.</p> + +<p>The summit of their misfortunes seemed reached +when they toppled over and lay for a moment or +two helplessly struggling on the wet ground. But +oh, what delight to hear Esther's kind voice, and +how Cissy clung to her and sobbed out her woes! +She was more than half comforted again by the time +they reached the farm-house, and just as mother +was considering whether it would not be better to +undress them in the kitchen before the fire and +bring down their dry clothes, Master Ted, "very +wet, yes very wet, oh very wet indeed," made his +appearance, with rosy cheeks and a general look of +self-satisfaction.</p> + +<p>"Did they get home all right?" he said, cheerily. +"It <i>was</i> a good thing you brought the cloak, mother. +And the wood isn't so wet after all."</p> +<p><a name="img194" id="img194"></a></p> +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="Illustration"> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <a href="images/img194.jpg"> + <img src="images/img194.jpg" height="400" + alt="Ted appeared with rosy cheeks and a look of self-satisfaction" /></a> + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="center"><span class="small">"Master Ted, very wet indeed, made his appearance with rosy cheeks<br /> +and a general look of self-satisfaction."</span><br /> + <span class="caption">Click to <a href="images/img194.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>And an hour or two later, dried and consoled +and sitting round the kitchen table for an extra good +tea to which Mrs. Crosby had invited them, all the +children agreed that after all the expedition had not +turned out badly.</p> + +<p>But the weather had changed there was no doubt; +for the time at least the sunny days were over. The +party in the farm-house had grown smaller too, for +the uncles had had to leave, and even the children's +father had been summoned away unexpectedly to +London. And a day or two after the children's +picnic their mother stood at the window rather +anxiously looking out at the ever-falling rain.</p> + +<p>"It really looks like as if it would <i>never</i> leave off," +she said, and there was some reason for her feeling +distressed. She had hoped for a letter from the +children's father that day, and very probably it was +lying at the two-miles-and-a-half-off post-office, +waiting for some one to fetch it. For it was not +one of the postman's days for coming round by the +farm-house; that only happened twice a week, but +hitherto this had been of little consequence to the +farm-house visitors. Their letters perhaps had not +been of such importance as to be watched for with +much anxiety, and in the fine weather it was quite +a pleasant little walk to the post-office by the fields +and the stepping-stones across the river. But all +this rain had so swollen the river that now the +stepping-stones were useless; there was nothing for +it but to take the long round by the road; and this +added to the difficulty in another way, for it was not +by any means every day that Mr. Crosby or his son +were going in that direction, or that they could, at +this busy season, spare a man so long off work. So +the children's mother could not see how she was to +get her letter if this rain continued—at least not for +several days, for the old postman had called yesterday—he +would not take the round of the Skensdale +farm for <ins title="original has other">another</ins> three or four days at least, and even +then, the post-office people were now so accustomed +to some of the "gentry" calling for their letters +themselves, that it was doubtful, not certain at least, +if they would think of giving them to the regular +carrier. And with some anxiety, for her husband +had gone to London on business of importance, Ted's +mother went to bed.</p> + +<p>Early next morning she was awakened by a tap +at the door, a gentle little tap. She almost fancied +she had heard it before in her sleep without being +really aroused.</p> + +<p>"Come in," she said, and a very business-like +figure, which at the first glance she hardly recognised, +made its appearance. It was Ted; dressed in waterproof +from head to foot, cloak, leggings, and all, he +really looked ready to defy the weather—a sort of +miniature diver, for he had an oilskin cap on his +head too, out of which gleamed his bright blue eyes, +full of eagerness and excitement.</p> + +<p>"Mother," he said, "I hope I haven't wakened +you too soon. I got up early on purpose to see +about your letters. It's still raining as hard as ever, +and even if it left off, there'd be no crossing the +stepping-stones for two or three days, Farmer Crosby +says. And he can't spare any one to-day to go to +the post. I'm the only one that <i>can</i>, so I've got +ready, and don't you think I'd better go at once?"</p> + +<p>Ted's mother looked out of the window. Oh, how +it was pouring! She thought of the long walk—the +two miles and a half through the dripping grass of +the meadows, along the muddy, dreary road, and all +the way back again; and then the possibility of the +swollen river having escaped its bounds where the +road lay low, came into her mind and frightened her. +For Ted was a little fellow still—only eleven and a +half, and slight and delicate for his age. And then +she looked at him and saw the eager readiness in his +eyes, and remembered that he was quick-witted and +careful, and she reflected also that he must learn, +sooner or later, to face risks and difficulties for himself.</p> + +<p>"Ted, my boy," she said, "it's very nice of you +to have thought of it, and I know it would be a +great disappointment if I didn't let you go. But +you'll promise me to be very careful—to do nothing +rash or unwise; if the river is over the road, for instance, +or there is the least danger, you'll turn back?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, mother, I'll be very careful, really," said +Ted. "I'll do nothing silly. Good-bye, mother; +thank you so much for letting me go. I've got my +stick, but there's no use taking an umbrella."</p> + +<p>And off he set; his mother watching him from +the window as far as she could see him, trudging +bravely along—a quaint little figure—through the +pouring rain. For more than a mile she could see +him making his way along the meadow path, gradually +lessening as the distance increased, till a little +black speck was all she could distinguish, and then +it too disappeared round the corner.</p> + +<p>And an hour or so later, there were warm, dry +boots and stockings before the fire, which even in +August the continued rain made necessary, and a +"beautiful" breakfast of hot coffee, and a regular +north-country rasher of bacon, and Mrs. Crosby's +home-made bread and butter, all waiting on the +table. And Ted's mother took up her post again to +watch for the reappearance of the tiny black speck, +which was gradually to grow into her boy. It did +not tarry. As soon as was possible it came in sight.</p> + +<p>"How quick he has been—my dear, clever, good +little Ted!" his mother said to herself. And you +may be sure that she, and Cissy too, were both at the +door to meet the little human water-rat, dripping, +dripping all over, like "Johnny Head-in-air" in old +"Struwelpeter," but with eyes as bright as any +water-rat's, and cheeks rosy with cold and exercise +and pleasure all mixed together, who, before he said +a word, held out the precious letter.</p> + +<p>"Here it is, mother—from father, just as you +expected. I do hope it's got good news."</p> + +<p>How could it bring other? Mother felt before +she opened it that it could not contain any but +good news, nor did it. Then she just gave her brave +little boy one good kiss and one hearty "Thank you, +Ted." For she did not want to spoil him by overpraise, +or to take the bloom off what he evidently +thought nothing out of the common, by exaggerating +it.</p> + +<p>And Ted enjoyed his breakfast uncommonly, I +can assure you. He was only eleven and a half. +I think our Ted showed that he had a sweet and +brave spirit of his own;—don't you, children?</p> + +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h3> +<h4>"IT'S ONLY I, MOTHER."</h4> +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">"How well my own heart knew</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> That voice so clear and true."</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>The summer in the wolds, so long looked forward +to, was over. It had been very happy, in spite of +the rain having given the visitors at the Skensdale +farm-house rather more of his company than they +had bargained for, and it left many happy memories +behind it.</p> + +<p>And the coming home again was happy too. +The days were beginning to "draw in" as people +say, and "home," with its coal-fires—which, though +not so picturesque, are ever so much <i>warmer</i> than +wood ones, I assure you—its well-closing doors and +shutters, its nice carpets and curtains, was after all +a better place for chilly days and evenings than +even the most interesting of farm-houses. And Ted +had his school-work to think of too; he was anxious +to take a very good place at the next examinations, +for he was getting on for twelve, and "some day" +he knew that he would have to go out into the +world as it were, on his own account—to go away, +that is to say, to a big boarding-school, as Percy had +done before him.</p> + +<p>He did work well, and he was rewarded, and this +Christmas was a <i>very</i> happy one. There was plenty +of skating, and Ted got on famously. Indeed, he +learnt to be so clever at it, that Cissy used to feel +quite proud, when people admired him for it, to think +that he was her brother, though Ted himself took it +quite simply. Skating was to him the greatest +pleasure he knew. To feel oneself skimming along +by one's own will, and yet with a power beyond +oneself, was delightful past words.</p> + +<p>"I do think," thought Ted to himself, one clear +bright frosty day, when the sky was as blue, <i>almost</i>, +as in summer, "I do think it's as nice as flying."</p> + +<p>And then looking up, as he skimmed along, at +the beautiful sky which winter or summer he loved +so much, there came over him that same strange +sweet <i>wonder</i>—the questioning he could not have +put into words, as to whether the Heaven he often +thought of in his dreamy childish way, was really +up there, and what it was like, and what they did +there. It must be happy and bright—happier and +brighter even than down here, because <i>there</i>, in some +way that Ted knew that neither he nor the wisest +of mankind could explain, one would be nearer God. +But yet it was difficult to understand how it could +be much brighter and happier than this happy life +down below. There was no good trying to understand, +Ted decided. <i>God</i> understood, and that was +enough. And as He had made us so happy here, +He might be trusted to know what was best for us +there. Only—yes, that <i>was</i> the greatest puzzle of +all, far more puzzling than anything else—<i>everybody</i> +was not happy here—alas! no, Ted knew enough to +know that—many, many were not happy; many, +many were not good, and had never even had a +chance of becoming so. Ah, that <i>was</i> a puzzle!</p> + +<p>"When I'm a man," thought Ted—and it was a +thought that came to him often—"I'll try to do +something for those poor boys in London."</p> + +<p>For nothing had made more impression on Ted, +during his stay in London, than the sight of the so-called +"City Arabs," and all he had heard about them. +He had even written a story on the subject, taking +for his hero a certain "Tom," whose adventures and +misadventures were most thrilling; ending, for Ted +liked stories that ended well, with his happy adoption +into a kind-hearted family, such as it is to be +wished there were more of to be found in real life! +I should have liked to tell you this story, and some +day perhaps I shall do so, but not, I fear, in this +little book, for there are even a great many things +about Ted himself which I shall not have room for.</p> + +<p>There were other pleasures besides skating this +Christmas time. Among these there was a very +delightful entertainment given by some of Ted's +father's and mother's friends to a very large party, +both old and young. It was a regular Christmas +gathering—so large that the great big old-fashioned +ball-room at the "Red Lion" was engaged for the +purpose.</p> + +<p>Dear me, what a great many scenes this old ball-room +had witnessed! Election contests without end, +during three-quarters of a century and more; balls +of the old-world type, when the gentlemen had +powdered wigs and ribbon-tied "queues;" which, no +doubt, you irreverent little people of the nineteenth +century would call "pig-tails;" and my Lady Grizzle +from the hall once actually stuck in the doorway, so +ponderous was her head-gear, though by dint of good +management her hoop and furbelows had been got +through. And farther back still, in the Roundhead +days, when—so ran the legend—a party of rollicking +cavaliers, and a company commanded by one +Captain Holdfast Armstrong, passed two succeeding +nights in the Red Lion's ball-room, neither—so +cleverly did the cautious landlord manage—having +the least idea of the other's near neighbourhood.</p> + +<p>But never had the old ball-room seen happier +faces or heard merrier laughter than at this Christmas +party; and among the happy faces none was brighter +than our Ted's. He really did enjoy himself, though +one of the youngest of the guests, for Cissy had been +pronounced <i>too</i> young, but had reconciled herself to +going to bed at her usual hour, by Ted's promise to +tell her all about it the next day. And besides his +boy friends—Percy, of course, who was home for the +holidays, and Rex, and several others—Ted had +another companion this evening whom he was very +fond of. This was a little girl about his own age, +named Gertrude, the daughter of a friend of his +father's. I have not told you about her before, +because, I suppose, I have had so many things to +tell, that I have felt rather puzzled how to put them +all in nicely, especially as they are all simple, everyday +things, with nothing the least wonderful or +remarkable about them. Gertrude was a very dear +little girl; she almost seemed to Ted like another +kind of sister. He had Mabel, and Christine her +sister, as big ones, and Cissy as his own particular +little one, and Gertrude seemed to come in as a sort +of companion sister, between the big ones and the +little one. Ted was very rich in friends, you see, +friends of all kinds. He used often to count them +up and say so to himself.</p> + +<p>Well, this evening of the big Christmas party +was, as I said, one of the happiest he had ever +known. All his friends were there—all looking as +happy as happy could be.</p> + +<p>"When I'm a man," thought Ted to himself, "I'd +like to give parties like this every Christmas," and +as he looked round the room his eyes gleamed with +pleasure. Gertrude was standing beside him—they +were going to be partners in a country-dance, which +was a favourite of Ted's. Just then his mother +came up to where they were standing.</p> + +<p>"Ted, my boy," she said, "I am going home now. +It is very late for you already—half-past twelve. +The others, however, are staying later, but I think +it is quite time for you and me to be going, don't +you?"</p> + +<p>Ted's face clouded—a most unusual thing to +happen.</p> + +<p>"Gertrude isn't going yet," he said, "and Rex +and his brothers; they're staying later. O mother, +<i>must</i> I come now?"</p> + +<p>His mother hesitated. She was always reluctant +to disappoint the children if it could be helped, yet, +on the other hand, she was even more anxious not +to <i>spoil</i> them. But the sight of Ted's eager face +carried the day.</p> + +<p>"Ah well," she said, smiling, "I suppose I must +be indulgent for once and go home without you. +So good-night, Ted—you will come with the others—I +hope it won't be <i>very</i> late."</p> + +<p>As she turned away, it struck her that Ted's face +did not look <i>altogether</i> delighted.</p> + +<p>"Poor Ted," she said to herself, "he doesn't +like to see me go away alone." But hoping he +would enjoy himself, and that he would not be <i>too</i> +tired "to-morrow morning," she went home without +any misgiving, and she was not sorry to go. She +found the Christmas holidays and all they entailed +more fatiguing than did the children, for whom all +these pleasant things "grew" without preparation.</p> + +<p>It was a rather dark night—so thought Ted's +mother to herself as she glanced out of her window +for a moment before drawing the curtains close and +going to bed—all the house was shut up, and all +those who had stayed at home fast asleep by this +time, and it had been arranged that the others should +let themselves in with a latch-key. Ted's mother +felt, therefore, rather surprised and a little startled +when she heard a bell ring; at first she could hardly +believe that she was not mistaken, and to be quite +sure she opened the window and called out "Is there +any one there?" There was half a moment's silence, +then some one came out a little from under the porch, +where he had been standing since ringing the bell, +and a well-known voice replied—how clearly and +brightly its young tones rose up through the frosty +air—</p> + +<p>"It is only I, mother. I thought I'd rather +come home after all."</p> + +<p>"You, Ted," she replied;—"you, and alone?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, mother. I thought somehow you'd like +better to have me, so I just ran home."</p> + +<p>"And weren't you frightened, Ted?" she said a +little anxiously, but with a glad feeling at her heart; +"weren't you afraid to come through the lonely +streets, and the road, more lonely still, outside the +town? For it is very dark, and everything shut +up—weren't you afraid?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no, mother—not a bit," he replied, "only +just when I had left all the houses I did walk a +<i>little</i> faster, I think. But I'm so glad I came, if +you're pleased, mother."</p> + +<p>And when his mother had opened the door and +let him in and given him a good-night kiss even +more loving than usual, Ted went to bed and to +sleep with a light happy heart, and his mother, as +she too fell asleep, thanked God for her boy.</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<p>I must now, I think, children, ask you to pass +over with me nearly a whole year of Ted's life. +These holidays ended, came, by slow degrees that +year, the always welcome spring; then sunny summer +again, a bright and happy summer this, though +spent at my little friends' own home instead of at +the Skensdale farm-house; then autumn with its +shortening days and lengthening evenings, gradually +shortening and lengthening into winter again; till at +last Christmas itself, like the familiar figure of an +old friend, whom, just turning the corner of the road +where we live, we descry coming to visit us, was to +be seen not so far off.</p> + +<p>Many things had happened during this year, +which, though all such simple things, I should like +to tell you of but for the old restrictions of time +and space. And indeed I have to thank you for +having listened to me so long, for I blame myself a +little for not having told you more plainly at the +beginning that it was <i>not</i> a regular "story" I had +to tell you in the "carrots" coloured book this year, +but just some parts, simple and real, of a child-life +that I love to think of. And I would have liked +to leave it here—for some reasons that is to say—or +I would have liked to tell how Ted grew up into +such a man as his boyhood promised—honest-hearted, +loving, and unselfish, and as happy as a +true Christmas child could not but be. But, dears, +I <i>cannot</i> tell you this, for it was not to be so. Yet +I am so anxious that the little book I have tried to +write in such a way that his happy life and nature +should be loved by other children—I am so anxious +that the ending of this little book should not seem +to you a <i>sad</i> one, at Christmas-time too of all times, +that I find it a little difficult to say what has to be +said. For in the truest sense the close of my book +is <i>not</i> sad. I will just tell it simply as it really +was, trusting that you will know I love you all too +well to wish to throw any cloud over your bright +faces and thoughts.</p> + +<p>Well, as I said, this year had brought many little +events, some troubles of course, and much good, to +our Ted. He had grown a good deal taller, and +thinner too, and he never, even as a tiny toddler, +could have been called fat! But he was well and +strong, and had made good progress at school and +good progress too in other ways. He was getting +on famously at cricket and football, and was a first-rate +croquet-player, for croquet was then in fashion. +And the museum had not been neglected; it had +really grown into a very respectable and interesting +museum, so that not only Ted's own people and near +friends were pleased to see it, but even his parents' +friends, and sometimes others, again, who happened +to be visiting them, would ask the little collector to +admit them. I really think it would be a good +thing if more boys took to having museums; it +would be a good thing for them, for nothing can be +more amusing and interesting too, and a very good +thing for their friends, especially in bad weather or +in holiday-time, when now and then the hours hang +heavily on these young people's hands, and one is +inclined to wish that some fancy work for <i>boys</i> could +be invented. Ted's museum had grown very much, +and was always a great resource for him and for +Cissy too, for, to tell the truth, her tastes were <i>rather</i> +boyish.</p> + +<p>His library had grown too. I cannot tell you +how many nice books he had, and still less could I +tell you how he treasured them. When, through +much service, some of them grew weak in the back, +he would, though reluctantly, consent to have them +re-bound; and he had a pretty, and to my mind a +touching, way of showing his affection for these old +friends, which I never heard of in any other child. +Before a book of his went to be bound he would +carefully—tenderly I might almost say—cut off the +old cover and lay it aside; and among the many +sweet traces left by our boy—but I did not mean +to say that, only as it came naturally of itself I will +leave it—few went more to his mother's heart than +to find in one of his drawers the packet carefully +tied up of his dear books' old coats.</p> + +<p>Nothing gave Ted so much pleasure as a present +of a book. This Christmas he had set his heart on +one, and Christmas was really coming so near that +he had begun to think of presents, and to write out, +as was his habit, a list of all the people in the house, +putting opposite the name of each the present he +had reason to think would be most acceptable. The +list ended in a modest-looking "self," and opposite +"self" was written "a book." But all the other +presents would have to be thought over and consulted +about with mother—all except hers of course, which +in its turn would have to be discussed with his +father or Mabel perhaps—ever so many times, before +it came to the actual buying.</p> + +<p>One Sunday—it was about three weeks to Christmas +by this time—the head master of Ted's school, +who was also a clergyman, mentioned after the usual +service that he wished to have a special thanksgiving +service this year for the good health that had been +enjoyed by the boys this "half." It had been +almost exceptionally good, he said; and he himself, +for one, and he was sure every one connected with +the school would feel the same, <i>was</i> very thankful +for it.</p> + +<p>Ted's mother and Mabel, who were both, as it +happened, at the school chapel service that afternoon, +glanced at their boy when this announcement was +made. They knew well that, despite his merry +heart, Ted was sensitive to things that do not affect +all children, and they were not surprised to see his +cheeks grow a little paler. There was something in +the thought of this solemn Thanksgiving, in which +he was to take part, that gave him a little of the +same feeling as he had had long ago in the grand +old church, when he looked up to the lofty roof, +shrouded in a mystery of dim light his childish eyes +could not pierce, and the sudden carillon broke out +as if sung by the angels in heaven.</p> + +<p>And a little chill struck to his mother's heart; +she knew the service was a good and fitting acknowledgment +of God's care, and yet a strange feeling +went through her, for which she blamed herself, +almost like that of the poor Irishwomen, who, when +any one remarks on the beauty and healthiness of +their children, hasten to cross themselves and to +murmur softly "In a good hour be it spoken." For +human nature, above all <i>mother</i> nature, is the same +all the world over!</p> + +<p>But on their way home she and Mabel talked it +over, and decided that it was better to say nothing +about it to Ted.</p> + +<p>"It would only deepen the impression and <i>make</i> +him nervous," said Mabel wisely.</p> + +<p>A day or two later—a damp, rainy day it had +been, there were a good many such about this +time—Ted's mother, entering the drawing-room in the +evening, heard some one softly singing to himself, +gently touching the piano at the same time. It was +already dusk, and she went in very quietly. The +little musician did not hear her, and she sat down +in silence for a moment to listen, for it was Ted, +and the song in his sweet, clear tones—tones with +a strange touch of sadness in them like the church +bells, was "Home, sweet home."</p> + +<p>It brought the tears to her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Ted," she said at last.</p> + +<p>"O mother," he said, "I didn't know you were +there."</p> + +<p>"But you don't mind <i>me</i>," she said.</p> + +<p>Ted hesitated.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how it is, mother," he said, frankly. +"It isn't as if I <i>could</i> sing, you know. But I can't +even try to do it when anybody's there. Is it silly, +mother?"</p> + +<p>"It's very natural," she said, kindly. "But if it +gives me pleasure to hear you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said, gently.</p> + +<p>"And when you're a man I hope and think you +may have a nice voice."</p> + +<p>"Yes," he said again, rather absently.</p> + +<p>Something in his tone struck his mother; it +sounded <i>tired</i>.</p> + +<p>"You're quite well, Ted, aren't you?" she said.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, mother—just a very little tired. It's +been such a rainy day; it isn't like Christmas +coming so soon, is it? There's no snow and no +skating."</p> + +<p>"No, dear."</p> + +<p>"There was no snow the Christmas I was born, +was there, mother?"</p> + +<p>"No, dear," said his mother again.</p> + +<p>Ted gave a little sigh.</p> + +<p>"You're going to Rex's to-night; it is his party, +isn't it?" she asked.</p> + +<p>"Yes," he replied, "but I don't seem to care +much to go."</p> + +<p>"But you're quite well, I think," said his mother +cheerfully. "It would be unkind not to go when +they are all expecting you."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Ted. "It would be."</p> + +<p>So he went off to get ready; and his mother felt +pleased, thinking the dull weather had, for a wonder, +affected his spirits, and that the merry evening with +his friends would do him good.</p> + +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h3> +<h4>THE WHITE CROSS.</h4> +<div class="center"> + <table class="sm" style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary="poem"> +<tr><td align="left">"It is not growing like a tree</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> In bulk, doth make man better be,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere.</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="ind3">The lily of a day</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span class="ind3">Is fairer far in May,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Although it fade and die that night</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> It was the plant and flower of light;</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> In small proportions we just beauties see,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> And in short measures life may perfect be."</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">"Early Ripe."—<span class="smallcaps">Ben Jonson</span>.</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>It seemed as if she had been right. Ted came +home with bright eyes and glowing cheeks, and said +they had had an "awfully" merry evening. And +his mother went to bed with an easy mind.</p> + +<p>But the next morning she felt less happy again, +for Ted was evidently not well. He was not very +ill, but just not very well, and he hung about in an +uninterested, unsettled way, quite unlike his usual +busy briskness.</p> + +<p>"He excites himself too much when he goes out, +I think," said his father; "we really shall have to +leave off ever letting him go out in the evening +unless we are there ourselves;" and he looked a +little anxiously at Ted as he spoke, though the boy +had not heard what he said.</p> + +<p>But again this slight anxiety passed by. Then +came a change in the weather, and a sudden frost +set in. Ted seemed to revive at once, and when he +heard that there was to be a whole holiday for +skating, no one was more eager about it than he. +And, a little against her own feelings, his mother let +him go.</p> + +<p>"You must be careful, Ted," she said; "you are +not yet looking as well as usual. And the ice cannot +be very firm. Indeed, I almost doubt its bearing +at all. A bath in icy water would not do you +any good just now."</p> + +<p>But Ted promised to be careful, and his mother +knew she could trust him. Besides, several big +boys were to be there, who would, she knew, look +after him. So Ted went, and came home saying +it had been as usual "awfully jolly;" but he did +look tired, and owned himself rather so, even though +well enough to go out again in the evening with the +others, and to be one of the merriest at what the +children called "a penny reading" together, at +which each in turn of the little party of friends +read or repeated or acted some story or piece of +poetry for the amusement of the others. And +once again, but this was the last time she could do +so, Ted's mother felt able to throw off the slight +vague anxiety which had kept coming and going for +the last few days about her little boy, and to go to +sleep with an easy mind.</p> + +<p>But the next morning, to his own and her disappointment, +he woke "tired" again. Only tired—he +complained of nothing else, but he said he wished he +need not go to school. And that was <i>so</i> unlike Ted.</p> + +<p>"Need I go, mother?" he asked gently.</p> + +<p>She looked at him doubtfully.</p> + +<p>"It seems such a pity, dear—so near the examinations +too. And sometimes, you know, when +you haven't felt quite well in the morning you have +come back quite right again."</p> + +<p>"Very well," said Ted, and he went off cheerfully +enough.</p> + +<p>But when he came back he was not all right as +his mother had hoped; the "tiredness" was greater, +and he seemed to have caught cold, and the next +morning, after a restless night, there was no longer +any doubt that Ted was ill. Our dear little Ted—how +quickly illness does its work—above all with +children! Almost before one has realised its presence +the rosy cheeks are pale and the bright eyes +dimmed; the sturdy legs grow weak and trembling, +and the merry chatter ceases. Ah dear! what a +sad, strange hush comes over a house where "one of +the children" is ill.</p> + +<p>The hush and the sadness came but gradually. +Still, for a day or two, they hoped it was nothing +very serious. On this first afternoon of Ted's really +owning himself ill, two girl friends of Mabel's came, +as had been arranged, to see the famous museum, +usually such a pleasure to its owner to exhibit. +But already how different all seemed!</p> + +<p>"Mother, dear," he said, as if half reproaching +himself for selfishness, "it sometimes almost seems +a bother to have to show my museum;" but as it +was considered better not to let him yield to the +depression coming over him, he bravely roused himself +and went through the little exhibition with his +usual gentle courtesy. But this was the last effort +of the kind possible for him.</p> + +<p>Sunday and Monday found him weaker, and the +doctor's kind face grew graver. Still he was not +<i>very</i> ill; only it began to seem as if he had not +strength to resist what had not, at first, threatened +seriously. And one day he made his mother's heart +seem, for an instant, to stop beating, when, looking +up wistfully, he said to her,</p> + +<p>"Mother, I don't <i>think</i> I shall ever get better."</p> + +<p>And the sad days and sadder nights went slowly +on. Now and then there seemed a little sparkle of +hope. Once Ted began to talk about meeting his +dear Percy at the station, when he came home for +the holidays, which made those about him hope he +was feeling stronger; then, at another time, he said +what a pity it would be not to be well by Christmas +and by his birthday, and he smiled when his father +told him, as was the case, that the doctor quite hoped +he would be well by then; and one day when the +post brought him his great wish—a beautiful book +of travels—his face lighted up with pleasure, and, +though not able to read it, the welcome present lay +on his bed where he could see it and smile to himself +to think it was there. There were happy times +through his illness, weak and wearied though he +grew, and now and then he seemed so bright that +it was difficult, for a little, not to think him much +better. But the illness which Ted had is a very +deceitful one—it invisibly saps away the strength +even when the worst sharp suffering is over—and +slowly, slowly it came to be seen that his own feeling +had been true; our Ted was not to get better.</p> + +<p>One day a travelling merchant brought to the +door a case of pretty Parian ornaments. White and +pure they shone in the winter sunshine, and some +one had the thought that "one of these might please +Ted." So they were brought up for him to choose +from. Poor Cissy! she would fain have carried +them in; but alas! for fear of infection, she could +not be allowed to see her brother, which made of +these last days a double sorrow to her, though she +did not know how ill he was. Ted touched the +pretty things with his little thin hand.</p> + +<p>"They are very pretty," he said. "I like this +one best, please, mother."</p> + +<p>"This one" was a snow-white cross, and his +mother's heart ached with a strange thrill as she saw +his choice; but she smiled as she placed it beside +him, where it stood, ever in his sight, till his blue +eyes could see it no more.</p> + +<p>There came a morning on which the winter sun +rose with a wonderful glory; gold and orange light +seemed to fill the sky, as if in prelude to some +splendid pageant. It was Sunday morning. Ted +lay asleep, as if carved in marble, his little white +face rested on the pillow, and as his mother turned +from the marvellous beauty outside to the small +figure that seemed to her, just then, the one thing +in earth or sky, she whispered to herself what she +felt to be the truth.</p> + +<p>"It is his last Sunday with us. Before another +my Ted will have entered that city where there is +no need of the sun, of which God Himself is the +light. My happy Ted! but oh, how shall we live +without him?"</p> + +<p>She was right. Ted did not live to see Christmas +or his birthday. Sweetly and peacefully, trusting +God in death as he had trusted Him in life, the +little fellow fearlessly entered the dark valley—the +valley of the <i>shadow</i> of death only, for who can +doubt that to such as Ted what <i>seems</i> death is but +the entrance to fuller life?</p> + +<p>So, children, I will not say that this was the <i>end</i> +of the simple life I have told you of—and in yet +another way Ted lives—in the hearts of all that +loved him his sweet memory can never die. And if +I have been able to make any among you feel that +you too love him, I cannot tell you how glad I +shall be.</p> + +<p>They laid him in a pretty corner of the little +cemetery from which can be seen the old church +Ted loved so well, and the beautiful chase, where he +so often walked. And even in those midwinter +days his little friend Gertrude found flowers for his +grave. It was all she could do to show her love for +him, she said, crying bitterly, for she might not see +him to bid him good-bye, and her heart was very +sore.</p> + +<p>So it was with Christmas roses that the grave of +our Christmas child was decked.</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> + +<h6><i>Printed by</i> <span class="smallcaps">R.</span> & <span class="smallcaps">R. Clark</span>, <i>Edinburgh</i>.</h6> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="minimal" /> +<p> </p> +<table class="sm" border="0" style="background-color: #E6F6FA; margin: 0 auto" cellspacing="2" cellpadding="4" summary="NOTES"> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"> + <div class="center">TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:</div> + +<p class="noindent" style="background-color: #E6F6FA"> + +Missing punctuation has been added. Two additional +changes have been made and can be identified +in the body of the text by a grey dotted underline:</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">Hs would not leave the least shred of paper or even crumbs about</td> +<td align="left" valign="top"><i>He</i> would not leave the least shred of paper or even crumbs about</td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td align="left" valign="top">(…) he would not take the round of the Skensdale farm for + other three or four days at least</td> + <td align="left" valign="top">(…) he would not take the round of the Skensdale farm for + <i>another</i> three or four days at least</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="pg" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS CHILD***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 34045-h.txt or 34045-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/4/0/4/34045">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/0/4/34045</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>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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