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diff --git a/34045.txt b/34045.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f4e7437 --- /dev/null +++ b/34045.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5546 @@ +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 + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 34045-h.htm or 34045-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34045/34045-h/34045-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34045/34045-h.zip) + + + + + +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*** + + +******* This file should be named 34045.txt or 34045.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/4/0/4/34045 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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