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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Christmas Child, by Mrs. Molesworth,
+Illustrated by Walter Crane
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: A Christmas Child
+       A Sketch of a Boy-Life
+
+
+Author: Mrs. Molesworth
+
+
+
+Release Date: October 8, 2010  [eBook #34045]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS CHILD***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Delphine Lettau, Paul Dring, and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Canada Team (http://www.pgdpcanada.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
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+      See 34045-h.htm or 34045-h.zip:
+      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34045/34045-h/34045-h.htm)
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+
+
+
+
+
+A CHRISTMAS CHILD
+
+A Sketch of a Boy-Life
+
+by
+
+MRS. MOLESWORTH
+
+Author of
+'Carrots,' 'Cuckoo Clock,' Etc.
+
+
+Illustration:
+"The Story of Sunny."--_Frontispiece_.
+
+
+Illustration:
+Skating Scene
+
+
+Illustrated by Walter Crane
+
+
+ 'O Christmas, merry Christmas!
+    Is it really come again?
+  With its memories and greetings,
+    With its joy and with its pain.'
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+London
+Macmillan And Co.
+1880
+
+
+
+
+  TO
+ _The Two Friends_
+  WHO WILL BEST UNDERSTAND THIS
+  SIMPLE LITTLE STORY
+  I DEDICATE IT
+  WITH MUCH AFFECTION
+
+Paris, _May_ 1880.
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS.
+
+
+  CHAPTER I.
+  BABY TED                                  1
+
+  CHAPTER II.
+  IN THE GARDEN                            18
+
+  CHAPTER III.
+  WISHES AND FEARS                         37
+
+  CHAPTER IV.
+  THE STORY OF SUNNY                       58
+
+  CHAPTER V.
+  THE STORY OF SUNNY (_Concluded_)         76
+
+  CHAPTER VI.
+  LITTLE NARCISSA                          94
+
+  CHAPTER VII.
+  GETTING BIG                             116
+
+  CHAPTER VIII.
+  "STATISTICS"                            137
+
+  CHAPTER IX.
+  A PEACOCK'S FEATHER AND A KISS          161
+
+  CHAPTER X.
+  SOME RAINY ADVENTURES                   179
+
+  CHAPTER XI.
+  "IT'S ONLY I, MOTHER"                   200
+
+  CHAPTER XII.
+  THE WHITE CROSS                         216
+
+
+
+
+  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+
+  "THE STORY OF SUNNY"                          _Frontispiece_
+
+  "I WISH THOO'D LET ME HELP THOO TO CUT THE
+  GRASS"                                    _To face page_ 32
+
+  "SHE HUNTED ABOUT AMONG THE LEAVES AND
+  BRANCHES TILL SHE FOUND A LITTLE SILVER KNOB"       "    83
+
+  "BABY SHOWED, OR TED _THOUGHT_ SHE DID, A QUITE
+  EXTRAORDINARY LOVE FOR THE BOUQUETS HER LITTLE
+  BROTHER ARRANGED FOR HER"                           "    98
+
+  "OH DEAR, OH DEAR!" CRIES BEAUTY, JUMPING
+  UP IN A FRIGHT, "HE'S COMING TO EAT ME"             "   133
+
+  "THEY WERE NEATLY TACKED ON TO THE FEATHER
+  CARD, WHICH HAD A VERY FINE EFFECT ON THE
+  WALL OF THE MUSEUM"                                 "   170
+
+  "MASTER TED, VERY WET INDEED, MADE HIS APPEARANCE
+  WITH ROSY CHEEKS AND A GENERAL LOOK OF
+  SELF-SATISFACTION"                                  "   194
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+BABY TED.
+
+   "Where did you get those eyes so blue?"
+   "Out of the sky as I came through."
+
+
+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 _black_ 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, _these_
+seem--farther away still, and yet surely nearer? in the happier land,
+whose flowers our fancy tries in vain to picture.
+
+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 _all_ 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.
+
+Yet it was not a very big present, nor a very uncommon present. But it
+was very precious, and, to _my_ 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. "_Almost_ 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.
+
+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 _was_ 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.
+
+"I will not be afraid for my darling," said she. "God knows what is
+best for him, but I think, I do _think_, he will live to grow a healthy,
+happy boy. How could a Christmas child be anything else?"
+
+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.
+
+"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 _is_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _so_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+"What is thoo doing?" he said gravely, as if not quite sure that his
+mother was behaving correctly, for _nurse_ 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.
+
+"I am looking for pretty stones to take home and keep," replied his
+mother.
+
+"Pitty 'tones," repeated Ted, and then he said no more, but some new
+ideas had wakened in his baby mind.
+
+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.
+
+"Thoo is doing to the sea?" he inquired.
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+And with a very red face, he lugged it manfully along.
+
+"Let me help you with it, dear," said nurse.
+
+But "No, zank thoo," he replied firmly each time that the offer was
+repeated. "Ted must cally it his own self."
+
+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 _self_-sacrifice, had been lighted in
+his baby heart, never again to be extinguished.
+
+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!
+
+"Ted broughtened it for thoo," he exclaimed triumphantly. And mother was
+_so_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Ses," said Ted, looking up in the lady's face.
+
+"The wild flowers about here are very pretty," said another of the
+ladies.
+
+"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."
+
+She turned, for Ted was tugging gently at her sleeve. "What is
+towslips?" he asked.
+
+"Pretty little yellow flowers, something like primroses," said his
+mother.
+
+"Oh!" said Ted. Then nurse knocked at the door, and told him his tea was
+ready, and so he trotted off.
+
+"Mother loves towslips," he said to himself two or three times over,
+till his nurse asked him what he was talking about.
+
+"But there's no cowslips here," said nurse, when he had repeated it.
+
+"No," said Ted; "but p'raps Ted could find some. Ted will go and look
+to-morrow with nursey."
+
+"To-morrow's Sunday, Master Ted," said nurse; "I'll be going to church."
+
+"What's church?" he asked.
+
+"Church is everybody praying to God, all together in a big house. Don't
+you remember, Master Ted?"
+
+"Oh ses, Ted 'members," he replied. "What's praying to 'Dod, nurse?"
+
+"Why, I am sure you know that, Master Ted. You must have forgotten. Ask
+your mamma again."
+
+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.
+
+"Come, Ted, dear," she said; "what are you about?"
+
+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."
+
+"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 _always_ keep them."
+
+Ted was quickly consoled.
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+So now she kissed him and bade him good-night.
+
+"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.
+
+He let nurse put him to bed very "goodly," though bed-time never came
+very welcomely to the active little man.
+
+"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.
+
+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!
+
+For a minute or two no sound reached Ted's mother.
+
+"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 _praying_. 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.
+
+"Please, dear 'Dod," he said, "tell me why thoo won't make towslips grow
+in this countly. Muzzer loves zem so."
+
+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.
+
+"Please, dear 'Dod, _please_ 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.
+
+Then his mother could stay away no longer.
+
+"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.
+
+"What is my Ted crying about?"
+
+The tears, which had stopped for an instant, came back again.
+
+"Muzzer," he said, "'Dod _won't_ '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?"
+
+"No, my boy, but what was it that Ted wanted so much?"
+
+"Ted wanted towslips for muzzer, but 'Dod _won't_ amswer," he repeated
+piteously.
+
+A shower of kisses was mother's answer, and gently and patiently she
+tried to make him understand the _seeming_ 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 _did_ grow?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+IN THE GARDEN.
+
+  "Heigh ho! daisies and buttercups,
+   Sweet wagging cowslips, they bend and they bow."
+                                    SONGS OF SEVEN.
+
+
+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.
+
+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 _two_-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.
+
+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 _would_ 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 _his_ 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 _real_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _Ted_ 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.
+
+"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 _always_ 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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Ted doesn't _zink_ 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 _so_ high. Percy throwed one up in the sky up to heaven, so
+high that it _never_ comed down again."
+
+"Indeed," said nurse; "are you quite sure of that, Master Ted? Perhaps
+it did come down again, but you didn't see it."
+
+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
+_untruth_-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 _more_ ready to believe even such
+passed-by fancies, than to be so quick as we sometimes are to accuse
+others of wishing to deceive.
+
+Ted looked at nurse thoughtfully.
+
+"P'raps it did," he said. "P'raps it might have comed down again after
+Ted was a'leep."
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+Was there ever so clever and kind and wonderful a big boy as Percy
+before? Was there ever one who knew so much about _everything_--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.
+
+"Ted will go to school some day, Percy," he said half questioningly.
+
+"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."
+
+"What's 'bully'?" asked Ted.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"Thoo doesn't knock Ted about, and thoo is big, Percy," he said,
+remonstratingly.
+
+"No, of course I don't, but that's different. You're like my brother,
+you know."
+
+"And bruvvers _couldn't_ knock theirselves about," said Ted with an air
+of satisfaction.
+
+"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.
+
+"Ted likes f'owers best," said the child, after a few moments' silence.
+"When Ted----"
+
+"Why don't you say 'I' and 'I like,' Teddy?" said Percy. "You're getting
+such a big boy--four years old."
+
+"Ted _means_ I," persisted the small man. "_I_ sall have all f'owers in
+Ted's garden, when me is big."
+
+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.
+
+"I'm afraid you wouldn't get the prize for grammar at our school, Ted,"
+he said. But Ted only laughed too.
+
+"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."
+
+"_Crocodiles_," said Percy. "What can crocodiles be?"
+
+"Little f'owers with pointy leaves," said Ted. "P'raps it isn't
+c'ocodiles but somesing like coc--coco----"
+
+"Crocuses perhaps," said Percy, as they made their way up to the house.
+"Yes, they're very pretty, but they're soon done."
+
+"When I'm big I'll have a garden where they'll _never_ be done," said
+Ted. "I'll have c'ocodiles and towslips for muzzer and--and----"
+
+"Come in to breakfast, my man," called out his father from the
+dining-room. "What have you been about this morning?"
+
+"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."
+
+"My dear little boy," said Ted's father, though he couldn't help
+laughing, "you mustn't learn to exaggerate."
+
+"What's 'saggerate?" began Ted, but looking round another idea caught
+him. "Where's muzzer?" he said suddenly.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+"Aren't you hungry, Ted?" he said.
+
+Ted looked up with his two blue eyes full of tears.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+Ted danced off his seat with pleasure.
+
+"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."
+
+Ted looked round for approval, and then took another spoonful.
+
+"What a nice place you'll make of the world, my boy, when you're big,"
+said his father.
+
+"Ses," said Ted with satisfaction.
+
+"But as that time hasn't come yet, I'm afraid I _must_ 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.
+
+Percy's face looked very pleased, but Ted's grew rather sad.
+
+"Never mind, Teddy," whispered Percy. "We'll have lots of days. You must
+have a good game with Chevie to keep up your spirits."
+
+"And David is going to cut the grass to-day," said his father, "so you
+will have plenty of fun."
+
+"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."
+
+"Zem was sticked fast," said Ted. "Zem opens kite easy sometimes."
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"David, old David," he cried, "is thoo going to cut the grass? Do let me
+come and help thoo, David."
+
+And he ran back across the bridge again and made his way to David as
+fast as he could.
+
+"Good morning, Master Ted," said the gardener. "Is it beautiful day,
+Master Ted, to be sure. Yes indeed."
+
+"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?"
+
+"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."
+
+"And when will the hay be cuttened?" inquired Ted.
+
+"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."
+
+"'_Dod_ sends rain and sun," said Ted, reverently, but yet looking at
+David with a sort of curiosity.
+
+"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."
+
+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 _sometimes_ 'tawberry jam and apple pie
+and--and--lots of things. And Ted likes zem very much, but him doesn't
+work."
+
+"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."
+
+  Illustration:
+  "I wish thoo'd let me help thoo to cut the grass."--P. 32.
+
+"I _like_ 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.
+
+"No, indeed, Master Ted _bach_!" 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."
+
+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.
+
+"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 _quite_ after Ted's own heart.
+
+"Isn't thoo going to cut with thoo's big scissors?" said Ted after a
+while.
+
+"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.
+
+"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----."
+
+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.
+
+"Are you going in, Master Ted?" he asked.
+
+"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!
+
+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.
+
+"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 _couldn't_ be much bigger."
+
+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.
+
+"But him wouldn't cut _Ted's_ fumbs," thought the little man to himself,
+"'cos Ted _never_ 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."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+And off he set, though a third growl from Cheviott followed him as he
+ran.
+
+"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 _like_ Ted to help poor David," and, his
+conscience quite at rest, he trotted on contentedly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+WISHES AND FEARS.
+
+  _Children._ "Here are the nails, and may we help?
+    _Jessie._ You shall if I should want help.
+  _Children._ Will you want it then?
+              Please want it--we like helping."
+
+
+There was no one in the nursery, fortunately for Ted's plans.
+_Un_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.
+
+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 _much_
+care he was to take of Ted. After all, a little two-legged boy that
+could talk was not _quite_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+"Zem _is_ 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.
+
+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 _the_ place where the oil was
+needed was the hinge, he directed the best of his attention to the
+general shininess.
+
+Then he sat and looked at them admiringly.
+
+"_Won't_ David be p'eased?" he said. "Zem's oilened all over now. Ted
+must see if they don't sticken fast now."
+
+With nearly as much difficulty as he had had to open them, Ted now
+managed to shut them.
+
+"Zem's better," thought the busy little man, "but Ted must see how they
+cut."
+
+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 _on_ the shears, and their cruel jaws had snipped,
+with the grass, the tender fleshy part of his poor little leg!
+
+It was not the pain that frightened him so much as the feeling held fast
+by the now dreadful scissors.
+
+"David, David," he cried, "oh, please come. Nurse, please come. Ted has
+cuttened hisself."
+
+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.
+
+"Ted is _so_ sorry to t'ouble thoo," he said.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Oh ses," he replied. "Ted wouldn't touch zem for hisself, but it was to
+_help David_," and the innocent confidence with which he looked up in
+her face went to his mother's heart.
+
+"But _still_, 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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+"You never touch my tools again, Master Ted, for a bit; no, to be sure;
+do you now?" said David.
+
+"No," said Ted. "Muzzer says I mustn't. But wasn't the big scissors
+nicely oilened, David?"
+
+"Oh, fust rate--ay," said David. "Though I not say it is a cliver
+smell--no. I not like the smell, Master Ted."
+
+"Never mind," replied Ted reassuringly. "Ted will ask muzzer for some
+cock-alone for thoo. Thoo can put some on the scissors."
+
+"What's that, Master Ted?" inquired David, who was not at all above
+getting information out of his little master.
+
+"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.
+
+"Yes indeed, Master Ted. You not walk a great deal to-day, to be
+sure--no, indeed--for a bit; ay."
+
+Ted lay still for a minute or two. He was gazing up at the sky, which
+that afternoon was very pure and beautiful.
+
+"Who paints the sky, David?" he said suddenly.
+
+"Well indeed, Master Ted, I not think you ask me such a foolis'
+question, Master Ted _bach_!" said David. "Who's make a sky and a sea
+and everything so?"
+
+"'Dod," said Ted. "Oh, I know that. But I thoughtened p'raps 'Dod
+put somebody up there to paint it. It was _so_ pitty last night,
+David--_all_ tolours--Ted tan't say zem all. Why isn't there many
+tolours now, David?"
+
+"I not know for sure," said David, stopping a moment in his work and
+looking up at the sky.
+
+"Ted _thought_," continued the little fellow slowly, "Ted _thought_
+p'raps 'Dod's paints was getting done. Could that be why?"
+
+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,
+
+"No indeed, Master Ted, I not think that untall."
+
+"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.
+_Couldn't_ Ted learn to fly, David?"
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+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!
+
+"Ted can fly, Ted can fly!" he cried with delight, or _thought_ 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.
+
+"Come and play, Ted, come and play. Ted, _Ted_, TED!" 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!
+
+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, _Ted_, TED."
+
+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!
+
+Ted jumped up--even his wounded leg couldn't keep him still now.
+
+"Was it thoo calling me, Percy?" he said. "I was d'eaming, do thoo
+know--_such_ a funny d'eam? But I'm so glad thoo's come back, Percy.
+Oh, Ted _is_ so glad."
+
+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.
+
+"Does thoo think there's any shop where we could get _wings_, 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?
+
+"Wings!" exclaimed Percy. "What sort of wings do you mean, Teddy?"
+
+"Wings for little boys," Ted explained. "Like what I was d'eaming about.
+It would be so nice to fly, Percy."
+
+"Beautiful, wouldn't it?" agreed Percy. "But nobody can fly, Ted. Nobody
+_could_ make wings that would be any use for people. People can't fly."
+
+"But little boys, Percy," persisted Ted. "Little boys isn't so very
+much bigger than birds. Oh, you don't know how _lovely_ it feels to fly.
+Percy, _do_ let us try to make some wings."
+
+But Percy's greater experience was less hopeful.
+
+"I'm afraid it would be no use," he said. "People have often tried. I've
+heard stories of it. They only tumbled down."
+
+"Did they hurt themselves?" asked Ted.
+
+"I expect so," Percy replied.
+
+Just then David, who was passing by, stopped to tell the boys that some
+one was calling them in from the house.
+
+"Is it your papa, Master Ted; yes, I think," he said.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+Ted raised his blue eyes to his father's face with a rather puzzled
+expression.
+
+"Whom's Mr. Brand?" he asked.
+
+"Why, don't you remember him, Teddy?" said Percy. "That great big
+gentleman--so awfully tall."
+
+Ted did not reply, but he seemed much impressed.
+
+"Is him a diant?" he asked, gravely.
+
+"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.
+
+Mr. Brand was sitting talking to Ted's mother, but just as the door
+opened, he rose from his seat and came forward.
+
+"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.
+
+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 _he_ 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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"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?"
+
+"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.
+
+"Then what were you thinking--that I'm the very _biggest_ man you ever
+did see?"
+
+"Ses," said Ted, gravely still, but with a certain light in his eyes
+which encouraged Mr. Brand to continue his questions.
+
+"And what more? Were you wishing you were as big as I am?"
+
+Ted hesitated.
+
+"I'd _rather_ fly," he said. "But Percy says nobody can fly. I'd like
+to be big if I could get up very high."
+
+"How high?" said Mr. Brand. "Up to the top of the mountain out there?"
+
+"Is the mountain as high as the clouds?" asked Ted.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Brand; "when you're up at the very top, you can look
+down on the clouds."
+
+Ted looked rather puzzled.
+
+"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?"
+
+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 _him_) 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.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"No," said Ted bluntly. But he was afraid to say more. Ogres didn't
+like to be contradicted, and perhaps--_perhaps_ this strange man really
+thought he _would_ 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.
+
+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 _any one_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Your leg's better, Master Ted?" said cook.
+
+"Oh ses, zank thoo," said Ted. "Him's much better."
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+"What's that, cook?" said Ted, starting.
+
+"Only the gentleman's dog-cart--the gentleman that's been to see your
+papa. He's going away," said cook composedly.
+
+Ted hurried into the kitchen. From the window the drive could be seen by
+big people, though not by him.
+
+"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.
+
+"Zank thoo, cook," he said gravely, but with the pretty courtesy he
+never forgot. "Zank thoo, and please lift me down again."
+
+"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."
+
+Ted reappeared in the drawing-room.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Ted were in the kitchen, 'peaking to cook," he replied.
+
+"But why did you go away, dear, while Mr. Brand was here?" asked his
+mother. "Were you frightened of his dog?"
+
+"No," said Ted, "Ted's never frightened of dogs."
+
+"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.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE STORY OF SUNNY.
+
+  "Of course he was the giant,
+   With beard as white as snow."
+
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Something has frightened Ted," said his mother to his father one day.
+"I wonder what it can be. I know _you_ wouldn't frighten him, dear," she
+added, turning to Percy who was in the room, though of course _Ted_ 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?"
+
+"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----" 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.
+
+"Not even as much as telling _me_, you were going to say," said Ted's
+mother, smiling. "Never mind, dear. I daresay it _would_ 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."
+
+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 _quite_ 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
+_was_ so fond of singing. This big girl's name was Mabel.
+
+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 _was_--of the
+gipsy tea-party, so that will come to the same thing, will it not?
+
+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 _really_ 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?
+
+"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_ could scarcely carry it."
+
+"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 _looked_ nearly as important but
+was in reality much lighter, as it only held the tablecloth and the
+teapot and teaspoons.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+The tea of course was a great success--when was a gipsy tea, unless
+people are _very_ 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 _of course_, 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.
+
+And after this there was the fun of washing up and packing away, in
+which Ted greatly distinguished himself. He 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.
+
+"Now," said Ted at last, sitting down on the grass at Mabel's feet, "now
+I _sink_ the fairies will be p'eased. It's all kite tidy. Fairies is
+always angry if peoples is untidy."
+
+"I thought fairies were always in a good humour," said Percy. "I didn't
+know they were ever angry."
+
+"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'ease tell me that story, Mabel," said Ted.
+
+"I'm afraid I don't remember it very well," she replied.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Yes, _very_" said Mabel; "I remember the story."
+
+"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."
+
+"But it wasn't the mountain's fault, Ted," said Percy. "And it wasn't
+giants, it was fairies."
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"But it wouldn't be nice to be alone, kite alone, on the top of one of
+zem, would it?" said Ted.
+
+"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."
+
+"But if zem was _made_ 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.
+
+"Poor Ted," said Percy, laughing. "No one would ever make _you_ 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."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Can't you make them up yourself?" said Percy.
+
+"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."
+
+Ted drew nearer to Mabel, and nestled in to her side.
+
+"A diant on the top of a mountain," he repeated. "Is it very
+f'ightening, Mabel?"
+
+"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 _that_--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.'"
+
+"What was there at the other side of the forest?" said Percy; "couldn't
+they have got into the sunshine at that side?"
+
+"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.
+
+"But do you know, it had _not_ 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 _live_ 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."
+
+"Why did the naughty diant shut up the way?" asked Ted.
+
+"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."
+
+"Nasty diant," said Ted.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Yes," said Percy; and
+
+"Ses," said Ted, "'Sunny' is nicest."
+
+"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 _her_ sad--it seemed as if the sunshine was _in_
+her somehow, and that nothing could send it away."
+
+Mabel stopped. Voices and steps were heard coming near.
+
+"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."
+
+"Oh _do_ go on now, dear, dear Mabel, oh _do_!" cried Ted beseechingly.
+
+But Mabel's fair face grew red.
+
+"I couldn't, Ted, dear," she said, "not before big people," and Percy
+sympathised with her.
+
+"We'll hear the rest in the garden at home," he said.
+
+"Thoo won't tell it without me, not without Ted, p'ease," asked the
+little fellow.
+
+"No, no, of course not, darling," said Mabel as she kissed his eager
+face.
+
+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.
+
+"There's Sunny kissing Ted too," he said merrily.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE STORY OF SUNNY (_Concluded_).
+
+  "A child of light, a radiant lass,
+     And cheerful as the morning air."
+
+
+They were all three laughing at Ted's wit when his mother and the other
+ladies came upon them.
+
+"You seem very happy, children," said she.
+
+"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 _am_ so happy. It's been such a sprendid day."
+
+He began half humming to himself in the excess of his delight.
+
+"Ted wishes somebody would sing a song," he said.
+
+His mother glanced at Mabel. Poor Mabel's face grew very red again. It
+would be worse than telling a story.
+
+"If we all sang together," she said timidly, "I wouldn't mind trying to
+begin."
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+"Muzzer," he said, "I can't bear it. It's _too_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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?
+
+"The old people looked at her half with pleasure and half sadly.
+
+"'It can't last,' the old man said one day, when the little girl was
+running and jumping about in her usual happy way.
+
+"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 _never_ 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?'
+
+"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--
+
+"'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.'
+
+"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 _our_
+bit of sunshine to ourselves.' And so they let her go, for they were
+good old people."
+
+"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?"
+
+"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 _had_ 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.
+
+"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."
+
+  Illustration:
+  "She hunted about among the leaves and branches till she found a
+  little silver knob."--P. 83.
+
+"Oh!" said Ted, "wasn't her afraid of bears?"
+
+"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."
+
+"Wif plate-powder," said Ted, who was very learned about such matters,
+as he was very fond of watching the servants at their work.
+
+"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?
+
+"'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.
+
+"'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?'
+
+"'Sunshine for the forest people.'
+
+"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,
+
+"'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,
+
+"'Will you unfasten the door, good Mr. Giant, and let the poor people
+through to the other side?'
+
+"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?'
+
+"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.'
+
+"But Sunny wouldn't stir till she had got something out of him. And she
+said for the third time,
+
+"'Will you unfasten the door, good Mr. Giant, if I go upstairs to please
+you?'
+
+"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.'
+
+"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 _so_ 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 _always_ 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 _so_ 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 _couldn't_
+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 _was_ 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."
+
+"And did they never hear anything more of the giant?" asked Percy.
+
+"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.'
+
+"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."
+
+Mabel stopped.
+
+"It is a very pretty story," said Percy. "Are there more like it in the
+book where you read it?"
+
+Mabel was just going to answer, when her attention was caught by Ted.
+
+"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
+_had_ been asleep or not, he certainly was so no longer.
+
+"What are you laughing at, Teddy?" said Percy.
+
+"I were just sinking," said Ted, "what a silly boy Ted were to be afraid
+of mountains----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."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+LITTLE NARCISSA.
+
+  "But, I think, of all new-comers
+    Little children are the best."
+
+
+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 _never_ 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.
+
+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 _delicious_ 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?
+
+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 _he_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+But I suppose there never was in this world any one so happy but that it
+was _possible_ 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 _quite_ without clouds of course. And
+the first summer of little Cissy's life was a sort of bright opening
+to them.
+
+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 _so_ 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 _thought_
+she did, a quite extraordinary love for the bouquets her little brother
+arranged for her.
+
+"Her knows _kite_ 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 _lots_, though she can't speak;" and baby, pleased at his
+evidently talking of _her_, burst into a funny crowing laugh, which
+seemed exactly as if she knew and approved of what he was saying.
+
+"Baby's a darling," said nurse.
+
+"How soon will her learn to speak?" Ted inquired gravely.
+
+  Illustration:
+  "Baby showed, or Ted _thought_ she did, a quite extraordinary love
+  for the bouquets her little brother arranged for her."--P. 98.
+
+"Not just yet. She hasn't got any teeth. Nobody can speak without
+teeth," said nurse.
+
+"I hope," said Ted, more gravely still, "I hope Dod hasn't forgotten
+them."
+
+Nurse turned away to hide a smile.
+
+"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."
+
+"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 _lot_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+"Ted, dear," she said, "your father is going to drive me to A----. 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?"
+
+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.
+
+"I would like dedfully to go," he said, "but poor Cissy. I _is_ so
+afraid Cissy will cry if I go."
+
+He lifted his wistful little face to his mother's with an expression
+that went to her heart.
+
+"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."
+
+Ted's face cleared, but suddenly a rosy colour spread over it.
+
+"Muzzer," he said, in a low voice, tugging gently at her dress to make
+her stoop down, "muzzer, I _sink_ I were going to cry not all for poor
+baby being sorry, but part 'cos I did so want to go."
+
+Mother understood his simple confession.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+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 _his_ 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.
+
+"Zem's very dirty," he said to himself; "zem must be washed."
+
+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.
+
+"Ses, zem's _very_ dirty," he repeated, contemplating the two sunburnt
+little paws in question. "Zem should have hot water. Hot water makes zem
+ze most clean."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"_Didn't_ she?" said his mother, rather surprised.
+
+"Oh, she thoughtened p'raps I'd find thoo, I amember," Ted continued,
+correcting himself.
+
+"But did nurse know you were going to boil water?" said his mother.
+
+"Oh no," said Ted, "it were only that my hands is _so_ dirty. Zem needs
+hot water to make zem clean."
+
+"Hot water, but not _boiling_," said his mother; "my dear little boy, do
+you know you might have scalded yourself dreadfully?"
+
+"I put my hankerwick not to burn my hands," said Ted, rather
+disconsolately.
+
+"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."
+
+"Ses," said Ted, "but I weren't _playing_. 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
+_some_ 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----.
+
+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----,
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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, _washing_ 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.
+
+"Soda's very useful," Ted reflected; "nurse says it makes things come
+cleaner."
+
+Just then his mother called him.
+
+"Ted, dear," she said, "I'm going."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"Ses, I sink so," said Ted.
+
+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
+_black_, he seemed rather disappointed.
+
+"Muzzer," he said in a low voice, tugging at his mother's skirts, "I saw
+such bootly boo boots in the man's winder."
+
+His mother smiled.
+
+"Yes, dear," she replied, "they're very pretty, but they wouldn't last
+so long, and I suspect they cost much more."
+
+Ted looked puzzled.
+
+"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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"Three and sixpence, ma'am," replied the man.
+
+"And the black ones, the little black shoes, I mean?"
+
+"Two and six," replied the man.
+
+"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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Would you like to carry the parcel of baby's shoes for her?" she said.
+
+"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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"Yes, dear, so he did," said his mother. "But I _pay_ 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."
+
+"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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"I thought," said Ted innocently, "I thought moneys was for giving to
+poor peoples."
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+Ted considered a moment. Then he looked up brightly.
+
+"In course!" he said. "I never thought of that."
+
+"And don't you see, dear Ted, that it would be wrong to take things
+out of a shop without paying for them? They _belong_ 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----"
+
+"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.
+
+"Yes," said his mother, "or Cissy's new boots, which are mine _now_
+because I paid money for them to the man."
+
+"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?"
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"And indeed it was his own wish to do so," she added.
+
+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.
+
+"He were a kind man," said Ted; "he wasn't vexed with Ted. He knew I
+didn't understand."
+
+"Yes, dear," said his mother, pleased to see the simple straightforward
+way in which Ted had taken the lesson; "but _now_, Ted, you do understand,
+and you would never again touch anything in a shop, would you?"
+
+"Oh no, muzzer, in course not," said Ted, his face flushing a little.
+"Ted would _never_ take nothing that wasn't his--_never_; thoo knows
+that, muzzer?" he added anxiously.
+
+"Yes, my dear little boy," and this time his mother _did_ stoop down and
+kiss him in the street.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+GETTING BIG.
+
+  "The children think they'll climb a tree."
+
+
+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.
+
+"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 _me_," 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.
+
+"_Isn't_ she pleased?" said Ted, delightedly. Baby must be very pleased
+with her new possessions, to try to _eat_ 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.
+
+That night when Ted was going to bed he said his prayers as usual at his
+mother's knee.
+
+"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.
+
+"I sink God _has_ made me good, muzzer?" he said.
+
+"Do you, dear? I hope He is _making_ you so," she answered. "But what
+makes you say so?"
+
+"'Cos I _feel_ so happy and so good," said Ted, "and thoo said I was
+good to-day when thoo kissed me. And oh, _may_ I take my sprendid
+hymn-book to bed wif me?"
+
+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 _should_ 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!
+
+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 _know_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+These at least were the feelings that the sight of the old church and
+the old castle gave _me_, 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 _did_ 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 _high_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+Ted and Cissy have been working at their gardens.
+
+"Oh dear," said the little girl, throwing down her tiny rake and hoe,
+"Cissy _is_ so tired. And the f'owers won't grow if they isn't planted
+kick. Cissy is so fond of f'owers."
+
+"So am I," said Ted, "but girls are so quickly tired. It's no good their
+trying to garden."
+
+Cissy looked rather disconsolate.
+
+"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."
+
+She looked at her brother rather mischievously as she said this.
+
+"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."
+
+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."
+
+"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."
+
+"Zank zoo, _dear_ 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.
+
+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. _He_ 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 _her_ up on to the wall, and for some time an
+ambitious project had been taking shape in Ted's brain.
+
+"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."
+
+"O Ted," said Cissy, "I _wiss_ I could climb up the wall too."
+
+"I know you do," said Ted. "I've been thinking about that. Wait till I
+get up, and I'll tell you about it."
+
+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. _It_ 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.
+
+"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.
+
+"Cissy," he cried suddenly, and Cissy started to her feet. "Oh what,
+Ted?" she cried.
+
+"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 _some_ 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----"
+
+"O Ted," said Cissy, clasping her hands, "how _lovely_ it must be! O
+Ted, do come down and be kick about making the place for me, for Cissy."
+
+Just then the dinner-bell rang. Ted began his descent, Cissy eagerly
+awaiting him. She took his hand and trotted along beside him.
+
+"_Do_ zoo think zoo can do it, Ted?" she said.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"What have you been doing with yourselves, you little people, this
+morning?" said one of the aunties kindly.
+
+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.
+
+"We've been in the garden, in _our_ gardens," Ted replied.
+
+"Digging up the plants to see if they were growing--eh?" said an uncle
+who liked to tease a little sometimes.
+
+Ted didn't mind teasing. He only laughed. Cissy looked a little, a very
+little offended. She did _not_ like teasing, and she specially disliked
+any one teasing her dear Ted. Her face grew a little red.
+
+"Ted knows about f'owers bootilly," she said; "Ted knows lots of
+things."
+
+"_Cissy!_" said Ted, whose turn it was now to grow a little red, but
+Cissy maintained her ground.
+
+"Ses," she said. "Ted does."
+
+"Ted's to grow up a very clever man, isn't he, Cissy?" said her father
+encouragingly--"as clever as _Uncle_ Ted here."
+
+"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----"
+
+"Lots of _what_?" asked his uncle.
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+"Yes, I suppose so," said Ted. "Are stick-sticks any good?" he inquired,
+consideringly.
+
+"It's to be hoped so," said Uncle Ted.
+
+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
+_they_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _some_ 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.
+
+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 _Ted_ 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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+Cissy was _greatly_ 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 _really_ so good and kind, she grew satisfied.
+
+"And how awfully pleased Percy will be when he comes to see the seat,
+_won't_ 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.
+
+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 _very_ 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. "_Wasn't_ I clever not to let zoo find out?" she said
+afterwards, with immense satisfaction.
+
+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.
+
+  Illustration:
+  "Oh dear, oh dear!" cries Beauty, jumping up in a fright, "he's
+  coming to eat me."--P. 133.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear!" cries Beauty, jumping up in a fright, "he's coming
+to eat me."
+
+"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.
+
+The audience all clap their hands in applause.
+
+"Capital!" and "Bravo!" they call out, so that Ted and Cissy feel their
+cheeks quite red, even behind the screen.
+
+"Let's get it done quick, Cissy," said Ted; "it makes me feel so silly
+when they call out like that."
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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 _pay at the door_." 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.
+
+"Why, how did you get here already?" asks his father.
+
+"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!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+"STATISTICS."
+
+  "Are they not busy?--the creatures!
+    Wanting to go to their beds?--not they!"
+
+
+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 _Him_, 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 _vexed_ 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 _not_ 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. _He_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+It turned out a little dearer than he had expected. Two and sevenpence
+were the funds in hand.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+"How much will it cost, Mr. Newton?" he inquired anxiously.
+
+The carpenter reflected a moment.
+
+"Wood, so much; bolts, so much; nails; time;" Ted heard him half
+whispering to himself. Then he looked up.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+He was in great spirits. Fivepence short he felt sure could easily be
+made up.
+
+"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."
+
+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!
+
+"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.
+
+Jamie looked up laughingly.
+
+"O Master Ted," he was just beginning, but somehow--_how_ 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.
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear, what ever _shall_ I do?" cried the poor little boy.
+"What will mother say? Oh dear, oh dear!--O Master Ted, what shall I
+do?"
+
+Jamie's tears and sobs were pitiful. Ted, with a pale concerned face
+stood beside him, speechless.
+
+"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."
+
+"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?"
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _himself_, 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.
+
+"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."
+
+"O mother," Jamie began, his sobs bursting out afresh, but Ted put him
+gently aside.
+
+"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 _him_,
+please, will you?"
+
+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."
+
+"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."
+
+"But it wasn't Jim's fault. It was _all_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+"What is it, Ted, dear?" she said kindly and anxiously.
+
+Ted's answer was a question, and a very queer question.
+
+"Mother," he said, "how much do pies cost?"
+
+"Pies," repeated his mother, "what kind of pies do you mean? Big ones,
+little ones, meat ones, or what?"
+
+"Big ones, mother, at least _a_ 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.
+
+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 _act_ 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.
+
+"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 _does_ 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 _would_ be "a lesson to him," without her saying any
+more about it. So she just thought it over quietly, and then said,
+
+"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----"
+
+"But, mother," interrupted Ted, "I won't be happy unless I pay it
+myself, the dinner I mean. It wouldn't be _fair_, 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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+"That would take a _very_ 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."
+
+"No indeed, mother, and thank you _so_ 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 _very_ sorry for him.
+His face did look so unhappy."
+
+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.
+
+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 _any one_, even his mother, had been listening.
+
+"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.
+
+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
+_something_. The words at the head of the "compartments" comprised
+everything which, with the slightest probability, _could_ 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 _all_ 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 _quite_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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. _Unless_--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 _seen_.
+
+"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.
+
+"Fifteen, _sixteen_, that makes. Hurrah, sixteen dogs since ten o'clock
+this morning. And, let's see, seven old women with baskets, and----"
+
+"Them wasn't all _old_," corrects the small voice of magpie number two;
+"Jessie wif the eggs isn't old."
+
+"Never mind; if they've got baskets they _should_ be old," replies
+Ted. "An old woman with a basket _sounds_ right. Then there's five
+p'rambulators, oh, it _is_ 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."
+
+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.
+
+"Dips, dips," she repeated to herself. "Ted says I'm to ask for two or
+three dips. I wonder what dips is."
+
+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.
+
+"My dear Cissy, what a _very_ dirty little girl you are," said her
+mother, laughing. "You really look more like a gipsy than anything
+else."
+
+"Does dipsies live up trees?" inquired Cissy gravely. "Trees _is_ rather
+dirty. But oh, mother, Ted wants me to ask you for two or three dips.
+_P'ease_ give me zem."
+
+"_Dips_," repeated her mother, "what in the world does he want dips
+for?"
+
+"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."
+
+Her mother was very much amused.
+
+"Dips are candles," she said. "I suppose Ted wants to light up the
+tree."
+
+Her words made a light break over Cissy's face in the first place.
+
+"Oh ses," said the little maiden, "it is getting so dark. Oh _do_ give
+Ted some dips, _dear_ mother--do, _do_."
+
+But not any number of "do's" would have made mother agree to so
+dangerous a proceeding.
+
+"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."
+
+Mother put a shawl over her shoulders and went out with her little girl.
+Some way off, Ted heard them coming.
+
+"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 _think_ there was a woman and two boys. I'll have to mark them
+down, when----"
+
+"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."
+
+"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 _yet_, mother. Cissy and I are going to keep it on ever so much
+longer, aren't we, Cis?"
+
+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.
+
+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 _not_ 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 _not_ do up in the tree would be difficult to tell.
+
+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 _greatest_ 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 _he_ 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 _not_ 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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+A PEACOCK'S FEATHER AND A KISS.
+
+  "We tried to quarrel yesterday.
+   Ah!... kiss the memory away."
+
+
+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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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."
+
+"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?"
+
+"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."
+
+He gave a little sigh; the bird of Paradise was a tempting idea.
+
+"_Poor_ Ted," said Cissy, clambering down from her stool to give him a
+hug.
+
+Ted accepted the hug, but not the pity.
+
+"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."
+
+"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.
+
+"Oh, thank you, Percy," said Ted, his eyes shining.
+
+"Anyway you might have some peacocks'," Percy went on. "They're not so
+hard to get, and they look so pretty."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Ted," she said quietly, but Ted saw that she was sorry, "Ted, do you
+know anything of this?"
+
+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.
+
+"Oh dear," exclaimed Ted, "what a pity! Your dear little flower-basket.
+I am so sorry. How could it have got broken?"
+
+"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?"
+
+"Sure," said Ted, looking sorry and puzzled.
+
+"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.
+
+"In front of the peacock-feather fan," he repeated absently.
+
+"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 _any one_."
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+"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."
+
+"But, mother," he persisted, "it isn't quite that. Of course I'm _very_
+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 _did_ 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 _did_ touch the screen and
+knocked down the china flower-basket without knowing, and it's making me
+so unhappy, but I _didn't_ mean to hide it from you if I did do it."
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+Then she stooped and gave Ted an extra good-night kiss, and in five
+minutes his loving anxious little spirit was asleep.
+
+But the very next day the mystery was explained.
+
+"Ted's _new_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, _won't_ you give Ted some loose ones?"
+
+Mother looked at Ted, and Ted looked at mother.
+
+"So _you_ 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."
+
+The corners of Cissy's mouth went down, and her eyes filled with tears.
+
+"I didn't know," she said in a very melancholy voice. "I only wanted to
+find some loose fevvers for Ted."
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+  Illustration:
+  "They were neatly tacked on to the feather card, which had a very
+  fine effect on the wall of the museum".--P. 170.
+
+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 _all_ 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.
+
+The boy whom, of course only _next_ 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 _quarrels_,--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 _but_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"I _am_ a fright," he said. "But there's not much the matter, mother. It
+was only a scrimmage--we were all quite good friends."
+
+"But really, Ted," said his mother, "I think you must curb your warlike
+tastes a little. Some day you may really get hurt badly."
+
+"No fear, mother," he said. "Besides, after all, a boy wouldn't be worth
+much who couldn't fight sometimes, would he?"
+
+"_Sometimes_," said his mother. "Where was Rex to-day--wasn't he beside
+you?"
+
+Ted's face clouded a little.
+
+"Rex was in a bad humour to-day. He wouldn't play," Ted replied.
+
+"Rex in a bad humour!" repeated his mother. "Surely that's very
+uncommon."
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"Good morning, Rex," said Ted.
+
+"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 _to-day_. 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.
+
+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.
+
+"What's the matter with you, old fellow?" he said. "Why wouldn't you
+play with me yesterday?"
+
+Rex looked up.
+
+"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 _now_ you see if it was true what you said of me to
+Hatchard."
+
+"What did I say of you to Hatchard?" cried Ted.
+
+"_What?_ 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."
+
+"I never said so, and you know I never did," retorted Ted, his cheeks
+flaming.
+
+"Do you mean to say that I'm telling a lie?" cried Rex in his turn.
+
+"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.
+
+"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!"
+
+And Rex was quick to follow.
+
+"O Ted, I didn't mean it. Let's forget we ever did it. I _do_ 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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"What is it, my boy?" said his mother; "have you anything more to say?"
+
+Ted's face flushed.
+
+"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 _kissed_ each other. And
+we felt quite happy, only--was it a very babyish thing to do? Was it
+_unmanly_, mother?"
+
+His mother drew him towards her and looked lovingly into his anxious
+face.
+
+"Unmanly, my boy? No indeed," she said, "it was kind and good, and
+kindness and goodness can never be unmanly."
+
+And Ted, quite at rest now, went off to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+SOME RAINY ADVENTURES.
+
+  "Wildly the winds of heaven began to blow,
+     .      .      .      .     .     .
+   Whilst from the jealous, unrelenting skies
+   The inevitable July down-pour came."
+
+
+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, _quite_
+country place, and many were the delightful fancies and dreams that
+they made about it, even while it was some distance off.
+
+"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 _love_ summer, Ted?"
+
+"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."
+
+His face and eyes beamed with pleasure. Just then his mother came in;
+she had heard his last words.
+
+"Next winter!" she said. "That's a long time off. Who knows what may
+happen before then?"
+
+She gave a little sigh; Ted and Cissy looked at each other. They knew
+what mother was thinking of. Since _last_ 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.
+
+"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 _wondering_--wondering
+about the great mystery which had lately, for the first time in his
+life, seemed to come near him. What _was_ 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?
+
+"I don't think," thought little Ted to himself, "I don't _think_ 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, _that_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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
+_did_ 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.
+
+"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."
+
+"I'm not, mother," said Ted cheerily,--"I'm not really, for you know I
+am _second_, and that's not bad, is it? Considering I was away and all
+that."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"See, Ted," said Cissy, "do let's carry down some of these boxes.
+There's the one with the sheets and towels in, _quite_ 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!
+
+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 _the_ day had come!
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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 _our_ 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.
+
+"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?"
+
+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 _that_ 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."
+
+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 _very_ 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.
+
+"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.
+
+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?"
+
+"O mother, we're just going to set to work," Ted's voice replied; "we're
+having such fun."
+
+"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."
+
+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!
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+The children's mother called their nurse.
+
+"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 _together_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"Did they get home all right?" he said, cheerily. "It _was_ a good thing
+you brought the cloak, mother. And the wood isn't so wet after all."
+
+  Illustration:
+  "Master Ted, very wet indeed, made his appearance with rosy cheeks
+  and a general look of self-satisfaction."--P. 194.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"It really looks like as if it would _never_ 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 another 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.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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 _can_, so
+I've got ready, and don't you think I'd better go at once?"
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"Here it is, mother--from father, just as you expected. I do hope it's
+got good news."
+
+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.
+
+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?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+"IT'S ONLY I, MOTHER."
+
+  "How well my own heart knew
+   That voice so clear and true."
+
+
+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.
+
+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 _warmer_ 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.
+
+He did work well, and he was rewarded, and this Christmas was a _very_
+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.
+
+"I do think," thought Ted to himself, one clear bright frosty day, when
+the sky was as blue, _almost_, as in summer, "I do think it's as nice as
+flying."
+
+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 _wonder_--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
+_there_, 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.
+_God_ 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 _was_ the greatest puzzle of all, far more puzzling than anything
+else--_everybody_ 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 _was_ a puzzle!
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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 _too_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+"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?"
+
+Ted's face clouded--a most unusual thing to happen.
+
+"Gertrude isn't going yet," he said, "and Rex and his brothers; they're
+staying later. O mother, _must_ I come now?"
+
+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 _spoil_ them. But the sight of Ted's eager face
+carried the day.
+
+"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 _very_ late."
+
+As she turned away, it struck her that Ted's face did not look
+_altogether_ delighted.
+
+"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
+_too_ 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.
+
+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--
+
+"It is only I, mother. I thought I'd rather come home after all."
+
+"You, Ted," she replied;--"you, and alone?"
+
+"Yes, mother. I thought somehow you'd like better to have me, so I just
+ran home."
+
+"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?"
+
+"Oh no, mother--not a bit," he replied, "only just when I had left all
+the houses I did walk a _little_ faster, I think. But I'm so glad I
+came, if you're pleased, mother."
+
+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.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+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.
+
+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 _not_ 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 _cannot_ 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 _sad_ 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 _not_ 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.
+
+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 _boys_ 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 _rather_ boyish.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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,
+_was_ very thankful for it.
+
+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.
+
+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
+_mother_ nature, is the same all the world over!
+
+But on their way home she and Mabel talked it over, and decided that it
+was better to say nothing about it to Ted.
+
+"It would only deepen the impression and _make_ him nervous," said Mabel
+wisely.
+
+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."
+
+It brought the tears to her eyes.
+
+"Ted," she said at last.
+
+"O mother," he said, "I didn't know you were there."
+
+"But you don't mind _me_," she said.
+
+Ted hesitated.
+
+"I don't know how it is, mother," he said, frankly. "It isn't as if I
+_could_ sing, you know. But I can't even try to do it when anybody's
+there. Is it silly, mother?"
+
+"It's very natural," she said, kindly. "But if it gives me pleasure to
+hear you?"
+
+"Yes," he said, gently.
+
+"And when you're a man I hope and think you may have a nice voice."
+
+"Yes," he said again, rather absently.
+
+Something in his tone struck his mother; it sounded _tired_.
+
+"You're quite well, Ted, aren't you?" she said.
+
+"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."
+
+"No, dear."
+
+"There was no snow the Christmas I was born, was there, mother?"
+
+"No, dear," said his mother again.
+
+Ted gave a little sigh.
+
+"You're going to Rex's to-night; it is his party, isn't it?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," he replied, "but I don't seem to care much to go."
+
+"But you're quite well, I think," said his mother cheerfully. "It would
+be unkind not to go when they are all expecting you."
+
+"Yes," said Ted. "It would be."
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE WHITE CROSS.
+
+   "It is not growing like a tree
+    In bulk, doth make man better be,
+    Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
+    To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere.
+           The lily of a day
+           Is fairer far in May,
+    Although it fade and die that night
+    It was the plant and flower of light;
+    In small proportions we just beauties see,
+    And in short measures life may perfect be."
+                          "Early Ripe."--BEN JONSON.
+
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+"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."
+
+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.
+
+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 _so_ unlike Ted.
+
+"Need I go, mother?" he asked gently.
+
+She looked at him doubtfully.
+
+"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."
+
+"Very well," said Ted, and he went off cheerfully enough.
+
+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.
+
+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!
+
+"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.
+
+Sunday and Monday found him weaker, and the doctor's kind face grew
+graver. Still he was not _very_ 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,
+
+"Mother, I don't _think_ I shall ever get better."
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+"They are very pretty," he said. "I like this one best, please, mother."
+
+"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.
+
+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.
+
+"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?"
+
+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 _shadow_ of death only, for who can doubt that to such as Ted
+what _seems_ death is but the entrance to fuller life?
+
+So, children, I will not say that this was the _end_ 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.
+
+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.
+
+So it was with Christmas roses that the grave of our Christmas child was
+decked.
+
+
+
+_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Missing punctuation has been added. The following additional changes
+were made to the text:
+
+In chapter 4, the misprint "Hs" was changed to read "He" in the sentence:
+
+    HE would not leave the least shred of paper or even crumbs about
+
+In chapter 10, the word "other" was changed to "another" in the sentence:
+
+    (...) he would not take the round of the Skensdale farm for
+    ANOTHER three or four days at least
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS CHILD***
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