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Title: Little Sunshine's holiday
A picture from life
Author: Etheldred B. Barry
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
Release date: September 6, 2023 [eBook #71576]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: L. C. Page & Company, 1900
Credits: Donald Cummings, David E. Brown, Ed Leckert, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LITTLE SUNSHINE'S HOLIDAY ***
LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY
Works of
Miss Mulock
[Illustration]
Little Sunshine’s Holiday
The Little Lame Prince
Adventures of a Brownie
His Little Mother
John Halifax, Gentleman
[Illustration]
L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
(Incorporated)
212 Summer St., Boston, Mass.
[Illustration: The German pictures.
(See page 139.)]
LITTLE SUNSHINE’S
HOLIDAY
A PICTURE FROM LIFE
BY
MISS MULOCK
Illustrated by
ETHELDRED B. BARRY
[Illustration]
BOSTON
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
1900
_Copyright, 1900_
BY L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
_All rights reserved_
Colonial Press
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, Mass., U. S. A.
DEDICATED TO
Little Sunshine’s Little Friends
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
THE GERMAN PICTURES _Frontispiece_
SUNSHINE SAYS GOOD-BYE TO THE GARDENER AND HIS WIFE 15
SUNSHINE AND FRANKY 40
NELLY AND SUNNY ON THE STEPS 59
“HER LITTLE BARE FEET PATTERING ALONG THE FLOOR” 75
FOUR LITTLE HIGHLAND GIRLS 87
LITTLE SUNSHINE GOES FISHING 101
“ENGAGED IN SINGLE COMBAT” 118
TWO LITTLE CHURCHGOERS 163
CLIMBING THE “MOUNTAIN” 187
TAILPIECE 207
LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY.
CHAPTER I.
While writing this title, I paused, considering whether the little
girl to whom it refers would not say of it, as she sometimes does of
other things, “You make a mistake.” For she is such a very accurate
little person. She cannot bear the slightest alteration of a fact. In
herself and in other people she must have the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth. For instance, one day, overhearing her mamma
say, “I had my shawl with me,” she whispered, “No, mamma, not your
shawl; it was your waterproof.”
Therefore, I am sure she would wish me to explain at once that “Little
Sunshine” is not her real name, but a pet name, given because she
is such a sunshiny child; and that her “holiday” was not so much
hers--seeing she was then not three years old, and every day was a
holiday--as her papa’s and mamma’s, who are very busy people, and who
took her with them on one of their rare absences from home. They felt
they could not do without her merry laugh, her little pattering feet,
and her pretty curls,--even for a month. And so she got a “holiday”
too, though it was quite unearned: as she has never been to school, and
her education has gone no farther than a crooked _S_, a round _O_, an
_M_ for mamma, and a _D_ for--but this is telling.
Of course Little Sunshine has a Christian name and surname, like other
little girls, but I do not choose to give them. She has neither brother
nor sister, and says “she doesn’t want any,--she had rather play with
papa and mamma.” She is not exactly a pretty child, but she has very
pretty yellow curls, and is rather proud of “my curls.” She has only
lately begun to say “I” and “my,” generally speaking of herself,
baby-fashion, in the third person,--as “Sunny likes that,” “Sunny
did so-and-so,” etc. She always tells everything she has done, and
everything she is going to do. If she has come to any trouble--broken a
teacup, for instance--and her mamma says, “Oh, I am so sorry! Who did
that?” Little Sunshine will creep up, hanging her head and blushing,
“Sunny did it; she won’t ever do it again.” But the idea of denying it
would never come into her little head. Everybody has always told the
exact truth to her, and so she tells the truth to everybody, and has no
notion of there being such a thing as falsehood in the world.
Still, this little girl is not a perfect character. She sometimes flies
into a passion, and says, “I won’t,” in a very silly way,--it is always
so silly to be naughty. And sometimes she feels thoroughly naughty,--as
we all do occasionally,--and then she says, of her own accord, “Mamma,
Sunny had better go into the cupboard” (her mamma’s dressing-closet).
There she stays, with the door close shut, for a little while; and
then comes out again smiling, “Sunny is quite good now.” She kisses
mamma, and is all right. This is the only punishment she has ever
had--or needed, for she never sulks, or does anything underhand or
mean or mischievous; and her wildest storm of passion only lasts a few
minutes. To see mamma looking sad and grave, or hear her say, “I am so
sorry that my little girl is naughty,” will make the child good again
immediately.
So you have a faint idea of the little person who was to be taken on
this long holiday; first in a “puff-puff,” then in a boat,--which was
to her a most remarkable thing, as she lives in a riverless county,
and, except once crossing the Thames, had scarcely ever beheld water.
Her mamma had told her, however, of all the wonderful things she was
to see on her holiday, and for a week or two past she had been saying
to every visitor that came to the house, “Sunny is going to Scotland.
Sunny is going in a puff-puff to Scotland. And papa will take her in
a boat, and she will catch a big salmon. Would you like to see Sunny
catch a big salmon?” For it is the little girl’s firm conviction that
to see Sunny doing anything must be the greatest possible pleasure to
those about her,--as perhaps it is.
Well, the important day arrived. Her mamma was very busy, Little
Sunshine helping her,--to “help mamma” being always her grand idea.
The amount of work she did, in carrying her mamma’s clothes from the
drawers to the portmanteau, and carrying them back again; watching her
dresses being folded and laid in the trunk, then jumping in after them,
smoothing and patting them down, and, lastly, sitting upon them, cannot
be told. Every now and then she looked up, “Mamma, isn’t Sunny a busy
girl?”--which could not be denied.
[Illustration: Sunshine says good-bye to the gardener & his wife.]
The packing-up was such a great amusement--to herself, at least--that
it was with difficulty she could be torn from it, even to get her
dinner, and be dressed for her journey, part of which was to take
place that day. At last she was got ready, a good while before anybody
else, and then she stood and looked at herself from head to foot
in a large mirror, and was very much interested in the sight. Her
travelling-dress was a gray waterproof cloak, with a hood and pockets,
where she could carry all sorts of things,--her gloves, a biscuit,
the head of her dolly (its body had come off), and two or three
pebbles, which she daily picked up in the garden, and kept to wash
in her bath night and morning, “to make them clean,” for she has an
extraordinary delight in things being “quite clean.” She had on a pair
of new boots,--buttoned boots, the first she ever had,--and she was
exceedingly proud of them, as well as of her gray felt hat, underneath
which was the usual mass of curly yellow hair. She shook it from side
to side like a little lion’s mane, calling out, “Mamma, look at Sunny’s
curls! Such a lot of curls!”
When the carriage came to the door, she watched the luggage being put
in very gravely. Then all the servants came to say good-bye to her.
They were very kind servants, and very fond of Little Sunshine. Even
the gardener and his wife looked quite sorry to part with her, but in
her excitement and delight the little lady of course did not mind it at
all.
“Good-bye! good-bye! I’m going to Scotland,” she kept saying, and
kissing her hand. “Sunny’s going to Scotland in a puff-puff. But
she’ll come back again, she will.”
After which kind promise, meant to cheer them up a little, she insisted
on jumping into the carriage “all by her own self,”--she dearly likes
doing anything “all my own self,”--and, kissing her hand once more, was
driven away with her mamma and her nurse (whose name is Lizzie) to meet
her papa in London.
Having been several times in a “puff-puff,” and once in London, she was
not a bit frightened at the streets or the crowd. Only in the confusion
at Euston Square she held very tight to her mamma’s hand, and at last
whispered, “Mamma, take her! up in you arms, up in you own arms!”--her
phrase when she was almost a baby. And though she is now a big girl,
who can walk, and even run, she clung tightly to her mamma’s neck, and
would not be set down again until transferred to her papa, and taken by
him to look at the engine.
Papa and his little girl are both very fond of engines. This was such
a large one, newly painted, with its metal-work so clean and shiny,
that it was quite a picture. Though sometimes it gave a snort and a
puff like a live creature, Sunny was not afraid of it, but sat in her
papa’s arms watching it, and then walked gravely up and down with
him, holding his hand and making all sorts of remarks on the things
she saw, which amused him exceedingly. She also informed him of what
she was going to do,--how she should jump into the puff-puff, and then
jump out again, and sleep in a cottage, in a quite new bed, where Sunny
had never slept before. She chattered so fast, and was so delighted at
everything about her, that the time went rapidly by; and her papa, who
could not come to Scotland for a week yet, was obliged to leave her.
When he kissed her, poor Little Sunshine set up a great cry.
“I don’t want you to go away. Papa! papa!” Then, bursting into one of
her pathetic little furies, “I won’t let papa go away! I won’t!”
She clung to him so desperately that her little arms had fairly to be
untied from round his neck, and it was at least two minutes and a half
before she could be comforted.
But when the train began to move, and the carriageful of people
to settle down for the journey, Sunny recovered herself, and grew
interested in watching them. They were all gentlemen, and as each came
in, mamma had suggested that if he objected to a child, he had better
choose another carriage; but nobody did. One--who looked like the
father of a family--said: “Ma’am, he must be a very selfish kind of
man who does object to children,--that is, good children.” So mamma
earnestly hoped that hers would be a good child.
So she was,--for a long time. There were such interesting things to see
out of the window: puff-puffs without end, some moving on the rails,
some standing still,--some with a long train behind them, some without.
What perplexed and troubled Little Sunshine most was to see the men who
kept running across the rails and ducking under the engines. She got
quite excited about them.
“That poor man must not go on the rails, else the puff-puff will run
over him and hurt him. Then Sunny must pick him up, and take him to her
nursery, and cuddle him.” (She always wants to cuddle everybody who is
ill or hurt.) “Mamma, tell that poor man he _mustn’t_ go on the rails.”
And even when mamma explained that the man knew what he was about, and
was not likely to let himself be run over by any puff-puff, the little
girl still looked anxious and unhappy, until the train swept right away
into the open country, with fields and trees, and cows and baa-lambs.
These last delighted her much. She kept nodding her head and counting
them. “There’s papa baa-lambs, and mamma baa-lambs, and little baby
baa-lambs, just like little Sunny; and they all run about together; and
they are so happy.”
Everything, indeed, looked as happy as the lambs and the child. It was
a bright September day, the trees just beginning to change colour, and
the rich midland counties of England--full of farms and pasture-lands,
with low hills sloping up to the horizon--looked specially beautiful.
But the people in the carriage did not seem to notice anything. They
were all gentlemen, as I said, and they had all got their afternoon
papers, and were reading hard. Not much wonder, as the newspapers were
terribly interesting that day,--the day after the capitulation of
Sedan, when the Emperor Louis Napoleon surrendered himself and his army
to King William of Prussia. When Little Sunshine has grown a woman,
she will understand all about it. But now she only sat looking at the
baa-lambs out of the window, and now and then pulling, rather crossly,
at the newspaper in her mamma’s hand. “I don’t want you to read!” In
her day, may there never be read such dreadful things as her mamma read
in those newspapers!
The gentlemen at last put down theirs, and began to talk together,
loudly and fast. Sunshine’s mamma listened, now to them, now to her
little girl, who asked all sorts of questions, as usual. “What’s
that? you tell me about that,” she is always saying, as she twists her
fingers tight in those of her mamma, who answers at once, and exactly,
so far as she knows. When she does not know,--and even mammas cannot
be expected to understand everything,--she says, plainly, “My little
girl, I don’t know.” And her little girl always believes her, and is
satisfied.
Sunshine was growing rather tired now; and the gentlemen kept on
talking, and did not take any notice of her, or attempt to amuse her,
as strangers generally do, she being such a lively and easily amused
child. Her mamma, fearful of her restlessness, struck out a brilliant
idea.
Little Sunshine has a cousin Georgy, whom she is very fond of, and who
a few days before had presented her with some pears. These pears had
but one fault,--they could not be eaten, being as hard as bullets, and
as sour as crabs. They tried the little girl’s patience exceedingly,
but she was very good. She went every morning to look at them as they
stood ranged in a row along mamma’s window-sill, and kissed them one
by one to make them ripe. At last they did ripen, and were gradually
eaten,--except one, the biggest and most beautiful of all. “Suppose,”
mamma suggested, “that we keep it two days more, then it will be quite
ripe; mamma will put it in her pocket, and we will eat it in the train
half-way to Scotland.” Little Sunshine looked disappointed, but she did
not cry, nor worry mamma,--who, she knows, never changes her mind when
once she says No,--and presently forgot all about it. Until, lo! just
as the poor little girl was getting dull and tired, with nothing to do,
and nobody to play with, mamma pulled out of her pocket--the identical
pear! Such a pear! so large and so pretty,--almost too pretty to eat.
The child screamed with delight, and immediately began to make public
her felicity.
“That’s mamma’s pear!” said she, touching the coat-sleeve of the old
gentleman next her,--a very grim old gentlemen,--an American, thin
and gaunt, with a face not unlike the wolf in Little Red Ridinghood.
“That’s mamma’s pear. Mamma ’membered (remembered) to bring Sunny that
pear!”
“Eh?” said the old gentleman, shaking the little fingers off, not
exactly in unkindness, but as if it were a fly that had settled on
him and fidgeted him. But Sunny, quite unaccustomed to be shaken off,
immediately drew back, shyly and half offended, and did not look at him
again.
He went on talking, in a cross and “cantankerous” way, to another
gentlemen, with a gray beard,--an Indian officer, just come from
Cashmere, which he declared to be the finest country in the world;
while the American said angrily “that it was nothing like Virginia.”
But as neither had been in the other country, they were about as able
to judge the matter as most people are when they dispute about a thing.
Nevertheless, they discussed the question so violently, that Little
Sunshine, who is not used to quarrelling, or seeing people quarrel,
opened her blue eyes wide with astonishment.
Fortunately, she was engrossed by her pear, which took a long time to
eat. First, it had to be pared,--in long parings, which twisted and
dangled like Sunshine’s curls. Then these parings had to be thrown out
of the window to the little birds, which were seen sitting here and
there on the telegraph wires. Lastly, the pear had to be eaten slowly
and deliberately. She fed mamma, herself, and Lizzie, too, turn and
turn about, in the most conscientious way; uttering at each mouthful
that ringing laugh which I wish I could put into paper and print; but I
can’t. By the time all was done, Sunshine had grown sleepy. She cuddled
down in her mamma’s arms, with a whispered request for “Maymie’s apron.”
Now here a confession must be made. The one consolation of life to this
little person is the flannel apron upon which her first nurse used to
wash her when she was a baby. She takes the two corners of it to stroke
her face with one hand, while she sucks the thumb of the other,--and
so she lies, meditating with open eyes, till at last she goes to
sleep. She is never allowed to have the apron in public, so to-day her
mamma was obliged to invent a little “Maymie’s apron”--a small square
of flannel--to comfort her on the long railway journey. This being
produced, though she was a little ashamed, and blushed in her pretty
childish way, she turned her back on the gentlemen in the carriage and
settled down in deep content, her eyes fixed on mamma’s face. Gradually
they closed--and the lively little woman lay fast asleep, warm and
heavy, in her mamma’s arms.
There she might have slept till the journey’s end, but for those horrid
gentlemen, who began to quarrel so fiercely about French and Prussians,
and which had the right of it in this terrible war,--a question which
you little folks even when you are great big folks fifty years hence
may hardly be able to decide,--that they disturbed the poor child in
her happy sleep, and at last she started up, looking round her with
frightened eyes, and began to scream violently. She had been so good
all the way, so little trouble to anybody, that mamma could not help
thinking it served the gentlemen right, and told them, severely, that
“if gentlemen did differ, they need not do it so angrily as to waken a
child.” At which they all looked rather ashamed, and were quiet for the
rest of the journey.
It did not last much longer; and again the little girl had the fun
of jumping out of a puff-puff and into a carriage. The bright day
closed; it was already dusk, and pouring rain, and they had to drive
a long way, stop at several places, and see several new people whom
Little Sunshine had never seen before. She was getting tired and
hungry, but still kept good and did not cry; and when at last she
came to the cottage which her mamma had told her about, where lived
an old gentleman and lady who had been very kind to mamma, and dear
grandmamma, too, for many years, and would be very kind to the little
girl, Sunny ran in at once, as merry as possible.
After awhile mamma followed, and lo! there was Little Sunshine,
quite at home already, sitting in the middle of the white sheep-skin
hearth-rug, having taken half her “things” off, chattering in the most
friendly manner, and asking to be lifted up to see “a dear little baby
and a mamma,” which was a portrait of the old lady’s eldest sister as
an infant in her mother’s arms, about seventy years ago.
And what do you think happened next? Sunny actually sat up to
supper, which she had never done in all her life before,--supper
by candle-light: a mouthful of fowl, and a good many mouthfuls of
delicious cream, poured, with a tiny bit of jam in the middle of it,
into her saucer. And she made a large piece of dry toast into “fishes,”
and swam them in her mamma’s tea, and then fished them out with a
teaspoon, and ate them up. Altogether it was a wonderful meal and left
her almost too wide awake to go to bed, if she had not had the delight
of sleeping in her mamma’s room instead of a nursery, and being bathed,
instead of in her own proper bath, in a washing-tub!
This washing-tub was charming. She eyed it doubtfully, she walked
around it, she peered over it; at last she slowly got into it.
“Come and see me in my bath; come and see Sunny in her bath,” cried
she, inviting all the family, half of whom accepted the invitation.
Mamma heard such shouts of laughing, with her little girl’s laugh
clearer than all, that she was obliged to go up-stairs to see what was
the matter. There was Sunshine frolicking about and splashing like
a large fish in the tub, the maids and mistresses standing round,
exceedingly amused at their new plaything, the little “water baby.”
But at last the day’s excitement was over, and Sunny lay in her white
nightgown, cuddled up like a round ball in her mamma’s lap, sucking
her Maymie’s apron, and listening to the adventures of Tommy Tinker.
Tommy Tinker is a young gentleman about whom a story, “a quite new
story, which Sunny never heard before,” has to be told every night.
Mamma had done this for two months, till Tommy, his donkey, his father,
John Tinker, who went about the country crying “Pots and kettles to
mend,” his schoolfellow, Jack, and his playfellow, Mary, were familiar
characters, and had gone through so much that mamma was often puzzled
as to what should happen to them next; this night especially, when she
herself was rather tired, but fortunately the little girl grew sleepy
very soon.
So she said her short prayers, ending with “God make Sunny a good
little girl” (to which she sometimes deprecatingly adds, “but Sunny is
a good girl”), curled down in the beautiful large strange bed,--such a
change from her little crib at home,--and was fast asleep in no time.
Thus ended the first day of Little Sunshine’s Holiday.
CHAPTER II.
Next morning Little Sunshine was awake very early, sitting upright in
bed, and trying to poke open her mamma’s eyes; then she looked about
her in the new room with the greatest curiosity.
“There’s my tub! There’s Sunny’s tub! I want to go into my tub again!”
she suddenly cried, with a shout of delight, and insisted on pattering
over to it on her bare feet, and swimming all sorts of things in it,--a
comb, a brush, biscuits, the soap-dish and soap, and a large penny,
which she had found. These kept her amused till she was ready to be
dressed, after which she went independently down-stairs, where her
mamma found her, as before, sitting on the white rug, and conversing
cheerfully with the old gentleman and lady, and the rest of the family.
After breakfast she was taken into the garden. It was a very nice
garden, with lots of apple-trees in it, and many apples had fallen to
the ground. Sunshine picked them up and brought them in her pinafore,
to ask mamma if she might eat them,--for she never eats anything
without saying, “May I?” and when it is given to her she always says,
“Thank you.”
Then she went back into the garden again, and saw no end of curious
things. Everybody was so kind to her, and petted her as if there had
never been a child in the house before, which certainly there had not
for a great many years. She and her mamma would willingly have stayed
ever so much longer in the dear little cottage, but there was another
house in Scotland, where were waiting Sunshine’s two aunties; not real
aunties, for she has none, nor uncles neither; but she is a child
so well loved, that she has heaps of adopted aunts and uncles, too.
These,--Auntie Weirie and Auntie Maggie,--with other kind friends,
expected her without fail that very night.
So Sunny was obliged to say good-bye, and start again, which she did on
her own two little feet, for the fly forgot to come; and her mamma, and
her Lizzie, and two more kind people, had to make a rush of more than
a mile, or they would have missed the train. If papa, or anybody at
home, had seen them,--half walking, and half running, and carrying the
little girl by turns, or making her run between them, till she said,
mournfully, “Sunny can’t run, Sunny is so tired!”--how sorry they would
have been!
And when at the station she lost her mamma, who was busy about luggage,
poor Sunny’s troubles seemed great indeed. She screamed until mamma
heard her ever so far off, and when she caught sight of her again, she
clung around her neck in the most frantic way. “I thought you was lost;
I thought you was lost.”
(Sunny’s grammar is not perfect yet. She cannot understand tenses; she
says “brang” instead of “brought,” and once being told that this was
not right, she altered it to “I brung,” which, indeed, had some sense,
for do we not say “I rang,” and “I rung?” Perhaps Little Sunshine will
yet write a book on grammar--who knows?)
Well, she parted from her friends, quite cheerfully of course,--she
never cries after anybody but her mamma and papa,--and soon made
acquaintance with her fellow travellers, who this time were chiefly
ladies. It being nearly one o’clock, two of them took a beautiful
basket of lunch: sandwiches, and cakes, and grapes. Little Sunshine
watched it with grave composure until she saw the grapes, which were
very fine. Then she could not help whispering to her mamma, very
softly, “Sunny likes grapes.”
“Hush!” said mamma, also in a whisper. “They are not ours, so we can’t
have them,”--an answer which always satisfies this little girl. She
said no more. But perhaps the young lady who was eating the grapes saw
the silent, wistful eyes, for she picked off the most beautiful half of
the bunch and handed it over. “Thank you,” said Sunny, in the politest
way. “Look, mamma! grapes!--shall I give you one?” And the delight
of eating them, and feeding mamma with them, “like a little bird,”
altogether comforted her for the troubles with which she began her
journey.
Then she grew conversational, and informed everybody that Sunny was
going to Scotland, to a place where she had never been before, and
that she was to row in a boat and catch big salmon,--which no doubt
interested them much. She herself was so interested in everything
she saw, that it was impossible not to share her enjoyment. She sat
or stood at the carriage window and watched the view. It was quite
different from anything she had been used to. Sunny lives in a very
pretty but rather level country, full of woods and lanes, and hedges
and fields; but she had never seen a hill or a river, or indeed (except
the Thames) any sort of water bigger than a horse-pond. Mamma had
sometimes shown her pictures of mountains and lakes, but doubted if
the child had taken it in, and was therefore quite surprised when she
called out, all of a sudden, “There’s a mountain!”
And a mountain it really was,--one of those Westmoreland hills, bleak
and bare, which gradually rise up before travellers’ eyes on the North
journey, a foretaste of all the beautiful things that are coming.
Mamma, delighted, held up her little girl to look at it,--the first
mountain Sunny ever saw,--with its long, smooth slopes, and the sheep
feeding on them, dotted here and there like white stones, or moving
about like walking daisies.
Little Sunshine was greatly charmed with the “baa-lambs.” She had seen
plenty this spring,--white baa-lambs and black baa-lambs, and white
baa-lambs with black faces,--but never so many at a time. And they
skipped about in such a lively way, and stood so funnily in steep
places, with their four little legs all screwed up together, looking at
the train as it passed, that she grew quite excited, and wanted to jump
out and play with them.
To quiet her, mamma told her a story about the mountains, how curious
they looked in winter, all covered with snow; and how the lambs were
sometimes lost in the snow, and the shepherds went out to find them,
and carried them home in their arms, and warmed them by the fireside
and fed them, until they opened their eyes, and stretched their little
frozen legs, and began to run about the floor.
Little Sunshine listened, with her wide blue eyes fixed on the
mountain, and then upon her mamma’s face, never saying a word, till at
length she burst out quite breathless, for she does not yet know words
enough to get out her thoughts, with:
“I want a little baa-lamb. No,”--she stopped and corrected herself,--“I
want two little baa-lambs. I would go and fetch them in out of the
snow, and carry them in my little arms, and lay them on Maymie’s apron
by my nursery fire, and warm them, and make them quite well again. And
the two dear little baa-lambs would play about together--so pretty.”
It was a long speech,--the longest she had ever made all at once,--and
the little girl’s eyes sparkled and her cheeks grew hot, with the
difficulty she had in getting it out, so that mamma might understand.
But mamma understands a good deal. Only it was less easy to explain to
Sunny that she could neither have a lamb to play with, nor go out on
the mountain to fetch it. However, mamma promised that if ever a little
lamb were lost in the snow near her own house, and her gardener were to
find it, he should be allowed to bring it in, and Sunny should make it
warm by the fire and be kind to it, until it was quite well again.
But still the child went back now and then to the matter in a
melancholy voice. “I don’t like a dear little baa-lamb to be lost in
the snow. I want a little baa-lamb in my nursery. I would cuddle it and
take such care of it” (for the strongest instinct of this little woman
is to “take care” of people). “Mamma, some day may Sunny have a little
baa-lamb to take care of?”
Mamma promised; for she knew well that if Sunny grows up to be a woman,
with the same instinct of protection that she has now, God may send her
many of His forlorn “lambs” to take care of.
Presently the baa-lambs were forgotten in a new sight,--a stream; a
real, flowing, tumbling stream,--which ran alongside of the railway for
ever so far. It jumped over rocks, and made itself into white foamy
whirlpools; it looked so very much alive, and so unlike any water that
Sunny had ever seen before, that she was quite astonished.
“What’s that? What’s that?” she kept saying; and at last, struck with a
sudden idea, “Is it Scotland?”
What her notion of Scotland was,--whether a place, or a person, or a
thing,--her mamma could not make out, but the name was firmly fixed
in her mind, and she recurred to it constantly. All the long, weary
journey, lasting till long after her proper bedtime, she never cried
or fretted, or worried anybody, but amused herself without ceasing at
what she saw. She ate her dinner merrily--“such a funny dinner,--no
plates, no forks, no table-cloth”--and her tea,--milk drank out of a
horn cup, instead of “great-grandpapa’s mug, which he had when he was a
little boy,”--which she used when at home.
As the day closed in, she grew tired of looking out of the window,
snuggled up in her mamma’s arms, and, turning her back upon the people
in the carriage, whispered, blushing very much: “Maymie’s apron--Sunny
wants the little Maymie’s apron;” and lay sucking it meditatively, till
she dropped asleep.
She was asleep when the train reached Scotland. She did not see the
stars coming out over the Grampian Hills, nor the beautiful fires near
Gartsherrie--that ring of iron furnaces, blazing fiercely into the
night--which are such a wonderful sight to behold. And she only woke
up in time to have her hat and cloak put on, and be told that she was
really in Scotland, and would see her aunties in a minute more. And,
sure enough, in the midst of the bustle and confusion, there was Auntie
Weirie’s bright face at the carriage-door, with her arms stretched out
to receive the sleepy little traveller.
Four or five miles were yet to be accomplished, but it was in a
comfortable carriage, dark and quiet.
The little girl’s tongue was altogether silent,--but she was not
asleep, for all of a sudden she burst out, as if she had been thinking
over the matter for a long time, “Mamma, you forgot the tickets.”
Everybody laughed; and mamma explained to her most accurate little
daughter that she had given up the tickets while Sunny was asleep.
Auntie Weirie forboded merrily how Sunny would “keep mamma in order” by
and by.
Very sleepy and tired the poor child was; but, except one entreaty
for “a little drop of milk,”--which somehow was got at,--she made no
complaint, and never once cried until the carriage stopped at the
house-door.
Oh, such a door and such a house! Quite a fairy palace! And there,
standing waiting, was a pretty lady,--not unlike a fairy lady,--who
took Little Sunshine in her arms and carried her off, unresisting, to a
beautiful drawing-room, where, in the great tall mirrors, she could see
herself everywhere at full length.
What a funny figure she was, trotting about and examining everything,
as she always does on entering a strange room! Her little waterproof
cloak made her look as broad as she was long; and when she tossed off
her hat, her curls tumbled about in disorder, and her face and hands
were so dirty that mamma was quite ashamed. But nobody minded it, and
everybody welcomed her, and the pretty lady carried her off again
up-stairs into the most charming extempore nursery, next to her mamma’s
room, where she could run in and out, and be as happy as a queen.
She was as happy as a queen, when she woke up next morning to all the
wonders of the house. First there was a poll-parrot, who could say not
only, “Pretty Poll!” but a great many other words: could bark like a
dog, grunt like a pig, and do all sorts of wonderful things. He lived
chiefly in the butler’s pantry, but was brought out on occasion for
the amusement of visitors. Sunny was taken to see him directly; and
there she stood, watching him intently, laughing sometimes in her
sudden, ecstatic way, with her head thrown back, and her little nose
all crumpled up, till, being only a button of a nose at best, it nearly
disappeared altogether.
And then, in the breakfast-room there were two dogs,--Jack, a young
rough Scotch terrier, and Bob, a smooth terrier, very ugly and old. Now
Sunny’s dog at home, Rose, who was a puppy when she was a baby, so that
the two were brought up together, is the gentlest creature imaginable.
She will let Sunny roll over her, and pull her paws and tail, and even
put her little fat hand into her mouth, without growling or biting.
But these strange dogs were not used to children. Sunny tried to
make friends with them, as she tries to do with every live creature
she sees; even crying one day because she could not manage to kiss a
spider, it ran away so fast. But Bob and Jack did not understand her
affection at all. When she stroked and patted them, and vainly tried to
carry them in her arms, by the legs, head, tail, or anywhere she could
catch hold of, they escaped away, scampering off as fast as they could.
The little girl looked after them with mournful eyes; it was hard to
see them frolicking about, and not taking the least notice of her.
But very soon somebody much better than a little dog began to notice
her,--a kind boy named Franky, who, though he was a schoolboy, home for
the holidays, did not think it in the least beneath his dignity to be
good to a little girl. She sat beside him at prayers, during which time
she watched him carefully, and evidently made up her mind that he was a
nice person, and one to be played with. So when he began playing with
her, she responded eagerly, and they were soon the best of friends.
[Illustration]
Presently Franky had to leave her and go with his big brother down
to the bottom of a coal mine, about which he had told such wonderful
stories, that Little Sunshine, had she been bigger, would certainly
have liked to go too. “You jump into a basket, and are let down, down,
several hundred feet, till you touch the bottom, and then you find a
new world underground: long passages, so narrow that you cannot stand
upright, and loftier rooms between, and men working--as black as the
coal themselves--with lights in their caps. Also horses, dragging
trucks full of coal,--horses that have never seen the daylight since
they were taken down the pit, perhaps seven or ten years ago, and will
never see daylight again as long as they live. Yet they live happily,
are kindly treated, and have comfortable stables, all in the dark of
the coal mine,--and no doubt are quite as content as the horses that
work in the outside world, high above their heads.”
Sunshine heard all this. I cannot say that she understood it, being
such a very little girl, you know; but whenever Franky opened his lips
she watched him with intense admiration, and when he was gone she
looked quite sad. However, she soon found another friend in the pretty
lady, Franky’s mamma. Her own mamma was obliged to go out directly
after breakfast, so this other mamma took Sunny under her especial
protection, and showed her all about the house. First, they visited the
parrot, who went through all his performances over again. Then they
proceeded up-stairs to what used to be the nursery, only the little
girls had grown into big girls, and were now far away at school. But
their mamma showed Sunny their old toy-cupboard, where were arranged,
in beautiful order, playthings so lovely that it was utterly impossible
such very tiny fingers could safely be trusted with them.
So Little Sunshine was obliged to practise the lesson she has learnt
with her mamma’s china cabinet at home,--“Look and not touch.” Ever
since she was a baby, Wedgwood ware, Sèvres and Dresden china, all
sorts of delicate and precious things, have been left within her reach
on open shelves; but she was taught from the first that she must not
touch them, and she never does. “The things that Sunny _may_ play
with,” such as a small plaster hand, a bronze angel, and a large agate
seal, she takes carefully out from among the rest, and is content with
them,--just as content as she was with one particular doll which the
pretty lady chose out from among these countless treasures and gave to
her to play with.
Now Sunny has had a good many dolls,--wooden dolls, gutta-percha dolls,
dolls made of linen with faces of wax,--but none of them had ever
lasted, entire, for more than twenty-four hours. They always met with
some misfortune or other,--lost a leg or an arm; their heads dropped
off, and the sawdust ran out of their bodies, leaving them mere empty
bits of calico, not dolls at all. The wrecks she had left behind her at
home--bodies without heads, heads without bodies, arms and legs sewed
upon bodies that did not belong to them, or strewed about separately
in all directions--would have been melancholy to think of, only that
she loved them quite as well in that dismembered condition as when they
were new.
But this was a dolly,--such a dolly as Sunny had never had before.
Perfectly whole, with a pretty waxen face, a nose, and two eyes; also
hair, real hair that could be combed. This she at once proceeded to
do with her mamma’s comb, just as her Lizzie did her own hair every
morning, until the comb became full of long flaxen hairs--certainly not
mamma’s--and there grew a large bald place on the top of dolly’s head,
which Sunny did not understand at all. Thereupon her Lizzie came to the
rescue, and proposed tying up the poor remnant of curls with a blue
ribbon, and dressing dolly, whose clothes took off and on beautifully,
in her out-of-doors dress, so that Sunshine might take her a walk, in
the garden.
Lizzie is a very ingenious person in mending and dressing dollies, and
has also the gift of unlimited patience with her charge; so the toilet
went off very well, and soon both Sunshine and her doll were ready to
go out with Franky’s mamma and see the cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and
all the wonders of the outside establishment, which was a very large
one.
Indeed, the pretty lady showed her so many curious things, and played
with her so much, that when, just before dark, her own mamma came back,
and saw a little roly-poly figure, hugging a large doll, running as
fast as ever it could along the gravel walk to meet her, she felt
convinced that the first day in Scotland had been a most delightful
one, altogether perfect in its way. So much so that, when put to bed,
Sunny again forgot Tommy Tinker. She was chattering so much of all she
had seen, that it was not until the last minute that she remembered to
ask for a “story.”
There was no story in mamma’s head to-night. Instead, she told
something really true, which had happened in the street near the house
where she had spent the day:
A poor little boy, just come out of school, was standing on the top of
the school-door steps, with his books in his hand. Suddenly a horse
that was passing took fright, rushed up the steps, and knocked the boy
down. He fell several feet, and a huge stone fell after, just on the
top of him--and--and--
Mamma stopped. She could not tell any more of the pitiful story.
Her child’s eyes were fixed upon her face, which Little Sunny reads
sometimes as plain as any book.
“Mamma, was the poor little boy hurt?”
“Yes, my darling.”
“Very much hurt?”
“Very much, indeed.”
Sunny sat upright, and began speaking loud and fast, in her impetuous,
broken way.
“I want to go and see that poor little boy. I will bring him to my
nursery and put him in my little bed, and take care of him. Then he
will get quite well.”
And she looked much disappointed when her mamma explained that this was
not necessary; somebody having already carried the little boy home to
his mamma.
“Then his mamma will cuddle him, and kiss the sore place, and he will
be quite well soon. Is he quite well?”
“Yes,” answered Sunny’s mamma, after a minute’s thought,--“yes, he is
quite well now; nothing will ever hurt him any more.”
Sunny was perfectly satisfied.
But her mamma, when she kissed the little curly head, and laid it down
on its safe pillow, thought of that other mother,--mourning over a dead
child,--thoughts which Little Sunshine could not understand, nor was
there any need she should. She may, some day, when she has a little
girl of her own.
CHAPTER III.
Little Sunshine had never yet beheld the sea. That wonderful delight, a
sea-beach, with little waves running in and running back again, playing
at bo-peep among shingle and rocks, or a long smooth sandy shore,
where you may pick up shells and seaweed and pebbles, and all sorts
of curious things, and build castles and dig moats, filled with real
water,--all this was unknown to the little girl. So her mamma, going
to spend a day with a dear old friend, who lived at a lovely seaside
house, thought she would take the child with her. Also “the big child,”
as her Sunny sometimes called Lizzie, who enjoyed going about and
seeing new places as much as the little child.
They started directly after breakfast one morning, leaving behind them
the parrot, the dogs, and everything except Franky, who escorted them
in the carriage through four or five miles of ugly town streets, where
all the little children who ran about (and there seemed no end of them)
had very rough bare heads, and very dirty bare feet.
Sunny was greatly struck by them.
“Look, mamma, that little boy has got no shoes and stockings on! Shall
Sunny take off hers and give them to that poor little boy?”
And she was proceeding to unbutton her shoes, when her mamma explained
that--the boy being quite a big boy--Sunny’s shoes would certainly not
fit him, and if they did, he would probably not put them on; since in
Scotland little boys and girls often go barefooted, and like it. Had
not papa once taken off Sunny’s shoes and stockings, and let her run
about upon the soft warm grass of the lawn, calling her “his little
Scotch girl?”
Sunny accepted the reasoning, but still looked perplexed at the bare
feet. They were “so dirty,” and she cannot bear to have the least
speck of dirt on feet or hands or clothes, or anywhere about her. Her
Auntie Weirie, on whose lap she sat, and of whom she had taken entire
possession,--children always do,--was very much amused.
She put them safely into the train, which soon started,--on a journey
which mamma knew well, but which seemed altogether fresh when seen
through her child’s eyes. Such wonderful things for Sunshine to look
at! Mountains,--she thoroughly understood mountains now; and a broad
river, gradually growing broader still, until it was almost sea. Ships,
too--some with sails, and some with chimneys smoking; “a puff-puff on
the water,” Sunny called them. Every now and then there was a little
“puff-puff” dragging a big ship after it, and going so fast, fast,--the
big ship looking as proud as if it were sailing along all by its own
self, and the little one puffing and blowing as busily as possible.
Sunny watched them with much curiosity, and then started a brilliant
idea.
“That’s a papa-boat and that’s a baby-boat, and the baby-boat pulls the
papa-boat along! So funny!”
And she crumpled up her little face, and, tossing up her head, laughed
her quite indescribable laugh, which makes everybody else laugh too.
There were various other curious things to be seen on the river,
especially some things which mamma told her were called “buoys.” These
of course she took to mean little “boys,” and looked puzzled, until
mamma described them as “big red thimbles,” which she understood, and
noticed each one with great interest ever afterward.
But it would be vain to tell all the things she saw, and all the
delight she took in them. Occasionally her little face grew quite
grave, such difficulty had she in understanding the wonders that
increased more and more. And when at last the journey was ended and
the train stopped, the little girl was rather troubled, and would not
let go of her mamma for a single minute.
For the lovely autumn weather of yesterday had changed into an
equinoctial gale. Inland, one did not so much perceive it, but at the
seaside it was terrible. People living on that coast will long remember
this particular day as one of the wildest of the season, or for several
seasons. The wind blew, and the sea roared, as even mamma, who knew the
place well, had seldom heard. Instead of tiny wavelets running after
Sunny’s little feet, as had been promised her, there were huge “white
horses” rising and falling in the middle of the river; while along the
shore the waves kept pouring in, and dashing themselves in and out of
the rocks, with force enough to knock any poor little girl down. Sunny
could not go near them, and the wind was so high that her hat had to be
tied on; and her cloak, a cape of violet wool, which Auntie Weirie had
rushed to fetch at the last minute, in case of rain, was the greatest
possible blessing. Still, fasten it as Lizzie would, the wind blew
it loose again, and tossed her curls all over her face in a furious
fashion, which the little girl could not understand at all.
“Sunny don’t like it,” said she, pitifully; and, forgetful of all the
promised delights,--shells, and pebbles, and castles of sand,--took
refuge gladly indoors.
However, this little girl is of such a happy nature in herself that
she quickly grows happy anywhere. And the house she came to was such a
beautiful house, with a conservatory full of flowers,--she is so fond
of flowers,--and a large hall to play in besides. Her merry voice was
soon heard in all directions, rather to her mamma’s distress, as the
dear mistress of the house was not well. But Sunny comprehends that
she must always speak in a whisper when people are not well; so she
was presently quieted down, and came into the dining-room and ate her
dinner by mamma’s side, as good as gold. She has always dined with
mamma ever since she could sit up in a chair, so she behaves quite
properly,--almost like a grown-up person. When she and mamma are alone,
they converse all dinner-time; but when there are other people present,
she is told that “little girls must be seen and not heard,”--a rule
which she observes as far as she can. Not altogether, I am afraid, for
she is very fond of talking.
Still, she was good, upon the whole, and enjoyed herself much, until
she had her things put on again, ready to start once more, in a kind
lady’s carriage, which was ordered to drive slowly along the shore,
that Sunny might see as much as possible, without being exposed to the
wind and spray. She was much interested, and a little awed. She ceased
to chatter, and sat looking out of the carriage window on the curve of
shore, over which the tide came pouring in long rollers, and sweeping
back again in wide sheets of water mixed with white foam.
“Does Sunny like the waves?” asked the kind lady, who has a sweet way
with children, and is very good to them, though she has none of her own.
“Yes, Sunny likes them,” said the little girl, after a pause, as if she
were trying to make up her mind. “’Posing (supposing) Sunny were to go
and swim upon them? If--if mamma would come too?”
“But wouldn’t Sunny be afraid?”
“No,” very decidedly this time. “Sunny would be quite safe if mamma
came too.”
The lady smiled at mamma; who listened, scarcely smiling, and did not
say a word.
It was a terrible day. The boats, and even big ships, were tossing
about like cockle-shells on the gray, stormy sea; and the mountains,
hiding themselves in mist, at last altogether disappeared.
Then the rain began to fall in sheets, as it often does fall
hereabouts,--soaking, blinding rain. At the station it was hardly
possible to keep one’s footing: the little girl, if she had not been
in her Lizzie’s arms, would certainly have been blown down before she
got into the railway-carriage.
Once there,--safely sheltered from the storm,--she did not mind it in
the least. She jumped about, and played endless tricks, to the great
amusement of two ladies,--evidently a mamma and a grandmamma,--who
compared her with their own little people, and were very kind to
her,--as indeed everybody is when she travels. Still, even they might
have got tired out, if Sunny had not fortunately grown tired herself,
and began to yawn in the midst of her fun in a droll way.
Then mamma slyly produced out of her pocket the child’s best travelling
companion,--the little Maymie’s apron. Sunny seized it with a scream
of delight, cuddled down, sucking it, in her mamma’s arms, and in
three minutes was sound asleep. Nor did she once wake up till the
train stopped, and Lizzie carried her, so muffled up that nobody could
have told whether it was a little girl or a brown paper parcel, to the
carriage where faithful Franky waited for her, and had waited ever so
long.
Fun and Franky always came together. Sunny shook herself wide awake
at once,--fresh as a rose, and lively as a kitten. Oh, the games that
began, and lasted all the four miles that the carriage drove through
the pelting rain! Never was a big boy kinder to a little girl; so
patient, so considerate; letting her do anything she liked with him;
never cross, and never rough,--in short, a thorough gentleman, as all
boys should be to all girls, and all men to all women, whether old or
young. And when home was reached, the fire, like the welcome, was so
warm and bright that Sunny seemed to have lost all memory of her day
at the seaside,--the stormy waves, the dreary shore, the wild wind,
and pouring rain. She was such a contented little girl that she never
heeded the weather outside. But her mamma did a little, and thought of
sailors at sea, and soldiers fighting abroad, and many other things.
The happy visit was now drawing to a close. Perhaps as well, lest, as
some people foretold, Sunny might get “quite spoiled,”--if love spoils
anybody, which I do not believe. Certainly this child’s felicities were
endless. Everybody played with her; everybody was kind to her. Franky
and Franky’s mamma, her two aunties, the parrot, the dogs Bob and Jack,
were her companions by turns. There was another dog, Wallace by name,
but she did not play with him, as he was an older and graver and bigger
animal,--much bigger than herself indeed. She once faintly suggested
riding him, “as if he was a pony,” but the idea was not caught at, and
fell to the ground, as, doubtless, Sunny would have done immediately,
had she carried out her wish.
Wallace, though big, was the gentlest dog imaginable. He was a black
retriever, belonging to Franky’s elder brother, a grown-up young
gentleman; and his devotion to his master was entire. The rest of
the family he just condescended to notice, but Mr. John he followed
everywhere with a quiet persistency, the more touching because poor
Wallace was nearly blind. He had lost the sight of one eye by an
accident, and could see out of the other very little. They knew
how little, by the near chance he had often had of being run over
by other carriages in following theirs; so that now Franky’s mamma
never ventured to take him out with her at all. He was kept away from
streets, but allowed to run up and down in the country, where his
wonderful sense of smell preserved him from any great danger.
This sense of smell, common to all retrievers, seemed to have been
doubled by Wallace’s blindness. He could track his master for miles and
miles, and find anything that his master had touched. Once, just to
try him, Mr. John showed him a halfpenny, and then hid it under a tuft
of grass, and walked on across the country for half a mile or more. Of
course the dog could not _see_ where he hid it, and had been galloping
about in all directions ever since; yet when his master said, “Wallace,
fetch that halfpenny,” showing him another one, Wallace instantly
turned back, smelling cautiously about for twenty yards or so; then,
having caught the right scent, bounding on faster and faster, till out
of sight. In half an hour more he came back, and ran direct to his
master with the halfpenny in his mouth.
Since, Mr. John had sent the dog for his stick, his cap, or his
handkerchief, often considerable distances; but Wallace always brought
the thing safe back, whatever it was, and laid it at his master’s feet.
Mr. John was very proud of Wallace, and very fond of him.
Sunny was not old enough to understand these clevernesses of the
creature, but she fully appreciated one trick of his. He would hold a
bit of biscuit or sugar on his nose, quite steady, for several minutes,
while his master said “Trust,” not attempting to eat it; but when
Mr. John said “Paid for!” Wallace gobbled it up at once. This he did
several times, to Sunshine’s great delight, but always with a sort of
hesitation, as if he considered it a little below the dignity of such a
very superior animal. And the minute they were gone he would march away
with his slow, blind step, following his beloved master.
But all pleasures come to an end, and so did these of Little
Sunshine’s. First, Franky went off to school, and she missed him out
of the house very much. Then one day, instead of the regular morning
amusements, she had to be dressed quickly, to eat her breakfast twice
as fast as usual, and have her “things” put on all in a hurry, “to go
by the puff-puff.” Her only consolation was that Dolly should have
her things put on too,--poor Dolly! who, from constant combing, was
growing balder and balder every day, and whose clothes were slowly
disappearing, so that it required all Lizzie’s ingenuity to dress her
decently for the journey.
This done, Sunny took her in her arms, and became so absorbed in her
as hardly to notice the affectionate adieux of her kind friends, some
of whom went with her to the station: so she scarcely understood that
it was good-bye. And besides, it is only elder folks who understand
good-byes, not little people. All the better, too.
Sunshine was delighted to be in a puff-puff again, and to see more
mountains. She watched them till she was tired, and then went
comfortably to sleep, having first made Dolly comfortable too, lying
as snug in her arms as she did in her mamma’s. But she and Dolly woke
up at the journey’s end; when, indeed, Sunny became so energetic and
lively, that, seeing her mamma and Lizzie carrying each a bag, she
insisted on carrying something too. Seizing upon a large luncheon
basket which the pretty lady had filled with no end of good things,
she actually lifted it, and bore it, tottering under its weight, for
several yards.
“See, mamma, Sunny _can_ carry it,” said she in triumph, and her mamma
never hinders the little girl from doing everything she _can_ do;
wishing to make her a useful and helpful woman, who will never ask
anybody else to do for her what she can do for herself.
The place they were going to was quite different from that they had
left. It was only lodgings,--in a house on the top of a hill,--but
they were nice lodgings, and it was a bright breezy hill, sloping down
to a beautiful glen, through which ran an equally beautiful stream.
Thence, the country sloped up again, through woods and pasture-lands,
to a dim range of mountains, far in the horizon. A very pretty place
outside, and not bad inside, only the little girl’s “nursery” was not
so large and cheerful as the one she was used to, and she missed the
full house and the merry companions. However, being told that papa was
coming to-morrow, she brightened up, and informed everybody, whether
interested or not in the fact, that “Sunny was going to see papa jump
out of a puff-puff, to-morrow.” “To-morrow” being still to her a very
indefinite thing; but “papa jumping out of a puff-puff” has long been
one of the great features of her existence.
Still, to-day she would have been rather dull, if, when she went out
into the garden, there had not come timidly forward, to look at her, a
little girl, whose name mamma inquired, and found that it was Nelly.
[Illustration: Nellie and Sunny on the steps.]
Here a word or two ought to be said about Nelly, for she turned out
the greatest comfort to solitary little Sunny, in this strange place.
Nelly was not exactly “a young lady;” indeed, at first she hung back
in a sweet, shy way, as doubtful whether Sunny’s mamma would allow
the child to play with her. But Nelly was such a good little girl,
so well brought-up, and sensible, though only ten years old, that a
princess might have had her for a playfellow without any disadvantage.
And as soon as mamma felt sure that Sunny would learn nothing bad from
her,--which is the only real objection to playfellows,--she allowed the
children to be together as much as ever they liked.
Nelly called Sunshine “a bonnie wee lassie,”--words which, not
understanding what they meant, had already offended her several
times since she came to Scotland.
“I’m not a bonnie wee lassie,--I’m Sunny; mamma’s little Sunny, I am!”
cried she, almost in tears. But this was the only annoyance that Nelly
ever gave her.
Very soon the two children were sitting together in a most charming
play-place,--some tumble-down, moss-grown stone steps leading down to
the garden. From thence you could see the country for miles, and watch
the railway trains winding along like big serpents, with long feathers
of steam and smoke streaming from their heads in the daylight, and
great red fiery eyes gleaming through the dark.
Nelly had several stories to tell about them: how once a train caught
fire, and blazed up,--they saw the blaze from these steps,--and very
dreadful it was to look at; also, she wanted to know if Sunny had seen
the river below; such a beautiful little river, only sometimes people
were drowned in it,--two young ladies who were bathing, and also a
schoolmaster, who had fallen into a deep hole, which was now called the
Dominie’s Hole.
Nelly spoke broad Scotch, but her words were well chosen, and her
manner very simple and gentle and sweet. She had evidently been
carefully educated, as almost all Scotch children are. She went to
school, she said, every morning, so that she could only play with Sunny
of afternoons; but to-morrow afternoon, if the lady allowed,--there
was still that pretty, polite hesitation at anything that looked like
intrusiveness,--she would take Sunny and her Lizzie a walk, and show
them all that was to be seen.
Sunny’s mamma not only allowed this, but was glad of it. Little Nelly
seemed a rather grave and lonely child. She had no brothers and
sisters, she said, but lived with her aunts, who were evidently careful
over her. She was a useful little body; went many a message to the
village, and did various things about the house, as a girl of ten can
often do; but she was always neatly dressed, her hands and face quite
clean, and her pretty brown hair, the chief prettiness she had, well
combed and brushed. And, above all, she never said a rude or ugly word.
It was curious to see how Little Sunshine, who, though not shy or
repellent, is never affectionate to strangers, and always declines
caresses, saying “she only kisses papa and mamma,” accepted Nelly’s
kiss almost immediately, and allowed her to make friends at once. Nay,
when bedtime arrived, she even invited her to “come and see Sunny
in her bath,” a compliment she only pays occasionally to her chief
favourites. Soon the two solitary children were frolicking together,
and the gloomy little nursery--made up extempore out of a back
bedroom--ringing with their laughter.
At last, fairly tired with her day’s doings, Sunny condescended to go
to sleep. Her mamma sat up for an hour or two longer, writing letters,
and listening to the child’s soft breathing through the open door, to
the equally soft soughing of the wind outside, and the faint murmur of
the stream, deep below in the glen. Then she also went to rest.
CHAPTER IV.
Nelly turned out more and more of an acquisition every day. Pretty
as this new place was, Little Sunshine was not quite so happy as the
week before. She had not so many things to amuse her out-of-doors,
and indoors she was kept more to her nursery than she approved of or
was accustomed to, being in her own home mamma’s little friend and
companion all day long. Now mamma was often too busy to attend to her,
and had to slip away and hide out of sight; for whenever Sunny caught
sight of her, the wail of “Mamma, mamma, I want you!” was really sad to
hear.
Besides, she had another tribulation. In the nearest house, a short
distance down the lane, lived six children whom she knew and was fond
of, and had come to Scotland on purpose to play with. But alas! one of
them caught the measles, and, Little Sunshine never having had measles,
or anything,--in fact never having had a day’s illness or taken a
dose of physic in her life,--the elders decided that it was best to
keep the little folks apart. Mamma tried hard not to let Sunny find
out that her dear playfellows of old lived so near; but one day these
sharp little ears caught their names, and from that time she was always
wanting to go and play with them, and especially with their “little
baby.”
“I want to see that little baby, mamma; may Sunny go and cuddle the
dear little baby?”
But it was the baby which had the measles, and some of the rest were
not safe. So there was nothing for it but to give orders to each
household that when they saw one another they were to run away at once;
which they most honourably did. Still, it was hard for Sunny to see
her little friends--whom she recognised at once, though they had not
met for eight months--galloping about, as merry as possible, playing
at “ponies,” and all sorts of things, while she was kept close to her
Lizzie’s side and not allowed to go near them.
Thus, but for kind little Nelly, the child would have been dull,--at
least, as dull as such a sunshiny child could well be,--which was not
saying much. If she grows up with her present capacity for enjoying
herself, little Sunny will be a blessing wherever she goes, since
happy-minded people always make others happy. Still, Nelly was welcome
company, especially of afternoons.
The days passed on very much alike. Before breakfast, Sunny always went
a walk with her mamma, holding hands, and talking like two grown-up
persons,--about the baa-lambs, and calves, and cows, which they met
on their way along the hillside. It was a beautiful hillside, and
everything looked so peaceful in the early morning. They seldom met
anybody, except once, when they were spoken to by a funny-looking man,
who greatly offended Sunny by asking if she were a boy or girl, but
added, “It’s a fine bairn, anyhow!” Then he went on to say how he had
just come “frae putting John M’Ewen in his coffin, ye ken; I’m gaun
to Glasgow, but I’ll be back here o’ Saturday. Ay, ay, I’ll be back
o’ Saturday,” as if the assurance must be the greatest satisfaction
to Sunny and her mamma. Mamma thought he must have been drunk, but
no, he was only foolish,--a poor half-witted fellow, whom all the
neighbourhood knew, and were good to. He had some queer points. Among
the rest, a most astonishing memory. He would go to church, and then
repeat the sermon, or long bits of it, off by heart, to the first
person he met. Though silly, he was quite capable of taking care of
himself, and never harmed anybody. Everybody, Nelly said, was kind to
“daft John.” Still, Sunny did not fancy him, and when she came home
she told her papa a long story about “that ugly man!”
She had great games with her papa now and then, and was very happy
whenever she could get hold of him. But her great companion was Nelly.
From the minute Nelly came out of school till seven o’clock,--Sunny’s
bedtime,--they were inseparable; and the way the big girl devoted
herself to the little one, the patience with which she submitted to
all her vagaries, and allowed herself to be tyrannised over,--never
once failing in good temper and pleasantness,--was quite pretty to see.
They played in the garden together, they went walks, they gathered
blackberries, made them into jam, in a little saucer by the fire, and
then ate them up. With a wooden spade, and a “luggie” to fill with
earth, they used to go up the hillside, or down to the glen, sometimes
disappearing for so long that mamma was rather unhappy in her mind,
only Nelly was such a cautious little person, that whenever she went
she was sure to bring her two charges home in safety.
One day, Nelly not being attainable, mamma went with the “big child”
and the little one to the Dominie’s Hole.
It was a real long walk, especially for such tiny feet, that eighteen
months ago could barely toddle alone; all across the field of the
baa-lambs, which always interested Sunny so much that it was difficult
to get her past them; she wanted to play with them and “cuddle” them,
and was much surprised when they invariably ran away. However, she
was to-day a little consoled by mamma’s holding her upon the top of
the stone dike at the end of the field, to watch “the water running”
between the trees of the glen.
In Scotland water runs as I think it never does in England,--so loudly
and merrily, so fast and bright. Even when it is brown water,--as when
coming over peat it often is,--there is a beauty about it beyond all
quiet Southern streams. Here, however, it was not coloured, but clear
as crystal in every channel of the little river, and it was divided
into tiny channels by big stones, and shallow, pebbly watercourses,
and overhanging rocks covered with ferns, and heather, and mosses.
Beneath these were generally round pools, where the river settled dark
and still, though so clear that you could easily see to the bottom,
which looked only two or three feet deep, when perhaps it was twelve or
fifteen.
The Dominie’s Hole was one of these. You descended to it by a winding
path through the glen, and then came suddenly out upon a sheltered
nook surrounded by rocks, over which the honeysuckles crept, and the
birk or mountain ash grew out of every possible cranny. Down one of
these rocks the pent-up stream poured in a noisy little waterfall,
forming below a deep bathing-pool, cut in the granite--I think it was
granite--like a basin, with smooth sides and edges. Into this pool,
many years ago, the poor young “Dominie,” or schoolmaster, had dived,
and striking his head against the bottom, had been stunned and drowned.
He was found floating, dead, in the lonely little pool, which ever
after bore his name.
A rather melancholy place, and the damp, sunless chill of it made it
still more gloomy, pretty as it was. Little Sunshine, who cannot bear
living in shadow, shivered involuntarily, and whispered, “Mamma, take
her!” as she always does in any doubtful or dangerous circumstances. So
mamma was obliged to carry her across several yards of slippery stones,
green with moss, that she might look up to the waterfall, and down to
the Dominie’s Hole. She did not quite like it, evidently, but was not
actually frightened,--she is such a very courageous person whenever she
is in her mamma’s arms.
When set down on her own two feet, the case was different. She held by
her mamma’s gown, looked at the noisy tumbling water with anxious eyes,
and seemed relieved to turn her back upon it, and watch the half-dozen
merry rivulets into which it soon divided, as they spread themselves
in and out over the shallow channel of the stream. What charming little
baby rivers they were! Sunny and her mamma could have played among them
for hours, damming them up with pebbles, jumping over them, floating
leaves down them, and listening to their ceaseless singing, and their
dancing too, with bubbles and foam gliding on their surface like little
fairy boats, till--pop!--all suddenly vanished, and were seen no more.
It was such a thirsty place, too,--until mamma made her hand into a
cup for the little girl, and then the little girl insisted on doing
the same for mamma, which did not answer quite the same purpose, being
so small. At last mamma took out of her pocket a letter (it was a
sad letter, with a black edge, but the child did not know that), and
made its envelope into a cup, from which Sunny drank in the greatest
delight. Afterward she administered it to her mamma and her Lizzie,
till the saturated paper began to yield,--its innocent little duty was
done. However, Sunny insisted on filling it again herself, and was
greatly startled when the bright, fierce-running water took it right
out of her hand, whirled it along for a yard or two, and then sunk it,
soaked through, in the first eddy which the stream reached.
Poor child! she looked after her frail treasure with eyes in which big
tears--and Sunny’s tears, when they do come, are so very big!--were
just beginning to rise; and her rosy mouth fell at the corners, with
that pitiful look mamma knows well, though it is not often seen.
“Never mind, my darling; mamma will make her another cup out of the
next letter she has. Or, better still, she will find her own horn cup,
that has been to Scotland so often, and gone about for weeks in mamma’s
pocket, years ago. Now Sunny shall have it to drink out of.”
“And to swim? May Sunny have it to swim?”
“No, dear, because, though it would not go down to the bottom like the
other cup, it might swim right away and be lost, and then mamma would
be so sorry. No, Sunny can’t have it to swim, but she may drink out of
it as often as she likes. Shall we go home and look for it?”
“Yes.”
The exact truth, told in an intelligible and reasonable way, always
satisfies this reasonable child, who has been accustomed to have every
prohibition explained to her, so far as was possible. Consequently, the
sense of injustice, which even very young children have, when it is
roused, never troubles her. She knows mamma will give her everything
she can, and when she does not, it is simply because she can’t; and she
tells Sunny _why_ she can’t, whenever Sunny can understand it.
So they climbed contentedly up the steep brae, and went home.
Nothing else happened here--at least to the child. If she had a rather
dull life, it was a peaceful one. She was out-of-doors a great deal,
with Lizzie and Nelly of afternoons, with her mamma of early mornings.
Generally, each day, the latter contrived to get a quiet hour or two;
while her child played about the garden steps, and she sat reading the
newspaper,--the terrible newspaper! When Sunny has grown up a woman,
she will know what a year this year 1870 has been, and understand how,
many a time, when her mamma was walking along with her, holding her
little hand and talking about all the pretty things they saw, she was
thinking of other mothers and other children, who, instead of running
merrily over sunshiny hillsides, were weeping over dead fathers, or
dying miserably in burnt villages, or starving, day by day, in besieged
cities. This horrible war, brought about, as war almost always is, by a
few wicked, ambitious men, made her feel half frantic.
One day especially,--the day the Prussians came and sat down before
Paris, and began the siege,--Little Sunshine was playing about, with
her little wooden spade, and a “luggie,” that her papa had lately
bought for her; filling it with pebbles, and then digging in the
garden-beds, with all her small might. Her mamma sat on the garden
steps, reading the newspaper. Sunny did not approve of this at all.
“Come and build me a house. Put that down,” pulling at the newspaper,
“and build Sunny a house. Please, mamma,” in a very gentle tone,--she
knows in a minute, by mamma’s look, when she has spoken too
roughly,--“Please, mamma, come and build Sunny a house.”
And getting no answer, she looked fixedly at her mamma,--then hugged
her tight around the neck and began to sob for sympathy. Poor lamb! She
had evidently thought only little girls cried,--not mammas at all.
The days ran on fast, fast; and it was time for another move and
another change in Little Sunshine’s holiday. Of course she did not
understand these changes; but she took them cheerfully,--she was the
very best of little travellers. The repeated packing had ceased to be
an interest to her; she never wanted now to jump upon mamma’s gowns,
and sit down on her bonnets, by way of being useful; but still the
prospect of going in a puff-puff was always felicitous. She told Nelly
all about it; and how she was afterward to sail in a boat, with Maurice
and Maurice’s papa (Maurice was a little playfellow, of whom more
presently), how they were to go fishing and catch big salmon.
“Wouldn’t you like to catch a big salmon?” she asked Nelly, not
recognising in the least that she was parting with her, probably never
to meet again in all their lives. But the elder child looked sad and
grave during the whole of that day. And when for the last time Nelly
put her arms around Sunny and kissed her over and over again, Sunny
being of course just as merry as ever, and quite unconscious that they
were bidding one another good-bye, it was rather hard for poor little
Nelly.
However, the child did not forget her kind companion. For weeks and
even months afterwards, upon hearing the least allusion to this place,
Sunshine would wake up into sudden remembrance. “Where’s Nelly? I want
to see Nelly,--I want Nelly to come and play with me;” and look quite
disappointed when told that Nelly was far away, and couldn’t come.
Which was, perhaps, as much as could be expected of three years old.
Always happy in the present, and frightened at nothing so long as she
was “close by mamma,” Little Sunshine took her next journey. On the
way she stayed a night at the seaside place where she had been taken
before, and this time the weather was kind. She wandered with her
Lizzie on the beach, and watched the waves for a long time; then she
went indoors to play with some other little children, and to pay a
visit to the dear old lady who had been ill, when she was here last.
Here, I am afraid, she did not behave quite as well as she ought to
have done,--being tired and sleepy; nor did she half enough value the
kind little presents she got; but she will some day, and understand the
difference between eighty years of age and three, and how precious to a
little child is the blessing of an old woman.
[Illustration]
Sunny went to bed rather weary and forlorn, but she woke up, next
morning, and ran in to papa and mamma, still in her nightgown, with
her little bare feet pattering along the floor, looking as bright as
the sunshine itself. Which was very bright that day,--a great comfort,
as there was a ten hours’ sea-voyage before the little woman, who had
never been on board a steamboat, and never travelled so long at a time
in all her life. She made a good breakfast to start with, sitting at
table with a lot of grown-up people whose faces were as blithe as her
own, and behaving very well, considering. Then came another good-bye,
of course unheeded by Little Sunshine, and she was away on her travels
once more.
But what happened to her next must be put into a new chapter.
CHAPTER V.
The pier Sunny started from was one near the mouth of a large estuary
or firth, where a great many ships of all sorts are constantly coming
and going. Sometimes the firth is very stormy, as on the first day when
she was there, but to-day it was smooth as glass. The mountains around
it looked half asleep in a sunshiny haze, and upon the river itself was
not a single ripple. The steamers glided up and down in the distance
as quietly as swans upon a lake. You could just catch the faint
click-clack of their paddle-wheels, and see the long trail of smoke
following after them, till it melted into nothing.
“Where’s Sunny’s steamboat? Sunny is going to sail in a steamboat,”
chattered the little girl; who catches up everything, sometimes even
the longest words and the queerest phrases, nobody knows how.
Sunny’s steamboat lay alongside the pier. Its engines were puffing
and its funnel smoking; and when she came to the gangway she looked
rather frightened, and whispered, “Mamma, take her,” holding out those
pathetic little arms.
Mamma took her, and from that safe eminence she watched everything: the
men loosing the ropes from the pier, the engines moving, the seagulls
flying about in little flocks, almost as tame as pigeons. She was much
amused by these seagulls, which always follow the steamers, seeming
to know quite well that after every meal on board they are sure to
get something. She called her Lizzie to look at them,--her Lizzie who
always sympathises with her in everything. Now it was not quite easy,
as Lizzie also had never been on board a steamer before, and did not
altogether relish it.
But she, too, soon grew content and happy, for it was a beautiful
scene. There was no distant view, the mountains being all in a mist of
heat, but the air was so bright and mild, with just enough saltness in
it to be refreshing, that it must have been a very gloomy person who
did not enjoy the day. Little Sunshine did to the utmost. She could
not talk, but became absorbed in looking about her, endless wonder at
everything she saw or heard shining in her blue eyes. Soon she heard
something which brightened them still more.
“Hark, mamma! music! Sunny hears music.”
It was a flute played on the lower deck, and played exceedingly well.
Now this little girl has a keen sense of music. Before she could speak,
singing always soothed her; and she has long been in the habit of
commanding extempore tunes,--“a tune that Sunny never heard before,”
sometimes taking her turn to offer one. “Mamma, shall I sing you a
song,--a song you never heard before?” (Which certainly mamma never
had). She distinguishes tunes at once, and is very critical over them.
“Sunny likes it,” or “Sunny don’t like it,--it isn’t pretty;” and at
the sound of any sort of music she pricks up her ears, and will begin
to cry passionately if not taken to listen.
This flute she went after at once. It was played by a blind man, who
stood leaning against the stairs leading to the higher deck, his
calm, sightless face turned up to the dazzling sunshine. It could not
hurt him; he seemed even to enjoy it. There was nobody listening,
but he played on quite unconsciously, one Scotch tune after another,
the shrill, clear, pure notes floating far over the sea. Sunny crept
closer and closer,--her eyes growing larger and larger with intense
delight,--till the man stopped playing. Then she whispered, “Mamma,
look at that poor man! Somekin wrong with his eyes.”
Sunny has been taught that whenever there is “somekin (something)
wrong” with anybody,--when they are blind, or lame, or ugly, or
queer-looking, we are very sorry for them, but we never notice it; and
so, though she has friends who cannot run about after her, but walk
slowly with a stick, or even two sticks,--also other friends who only
feel her little face, and pass their hands over her hair, saying how
soft it is,--mamma is never afraid of her making any remark that could
wound their feelings.
“Hush! the poor man can’t see, but we must not say anything about it.
Come with mamma, and we will give him a penny.” All sorts of money are
“pennies” to Sunny,--brown pennies, white pennies, yellow pennies; only
she much prefers the brown pennies, because they are largest, and spin
the best.
So she and mamma went up together to the poor blind man, Sunny looking
hard at him; and he was not pleasant to look at, as his blindness
seemed to have been caused by smallpox. But the little girl said not a
word, only put the white “penny” into his hand and went away.
I wonder whether he felt the touch of those baby fingers, softer than
most. Perhaps he did, for he began to play again, the “Flowers of the
Forest,” with a pathos that even mamma in all her life had never heard
excelled. The familiar mountains, the gleaming river, the “sunshiny”
child, with her earnest face, and the blind man playing there, in notes
that almost spoke the well-known words,
“Thy frown canna fear me, thy smile canna cheer me,
For the flowers o’ the forest are a wede away.”
It was a picture not easily to be forgotten.
Soon the steamer stopped at another pier, where were waiting a number
of people, ready to embark on a large excursion boat which all summer
long goes up and down the firth daily, taking hundreds of passengers,
and giving them twelve pleasant hours of sea air and mountain breezes.
She was called the _Iona_, and such a big boat as she was! She had
two decks, with a saloon below. On the first deck, the passengers
sat in the open air, high up, so as to see all the views; the second
was under cover, with glass sides, so that they could still see all
about; the third, lower yet, was the cabin, where they dined. There
was a ladies’ cabin, too, where a good many babies and children, with
their nurses and mammas, generally stayed all the voyage. Altogether,
a most beautiful boat, with plenty of play-places for little folk, and
comfortable nooks for elder ones; and so big, too, that, as she came
steaming down the river, she looked as if she could carry a townful of
people. Indeed, this summer, when nobody has travelled abroad, owing
to the war, the _Iona_ had carried regularly several hundreds a day.
Sunny gazed with some amazement from the pier, where she had
disembarked, in her mamma’s arms. It is fortunate for Sunny that she
has a rather tall mamma, so that she feels safely elevated above
any crowd. This was a crowd such as she had never been in before;
it jostled and pushed her, and she had to hold very tight round her
mamma’s neck; so great was the confusion, and so difficult the passage
across the gangway to the deck of the _Iona_. Once there, however, she
was as safe and happy as possible, playing all sorts of merry tricks,
and wandering about the boat in all directions, with her papa, or her
Lizzie, or two young ladies who came with her, and were very kind to
her. But after awhile these quitted the boat, and were watched climbing
up a mountainside as cleverly as if they had been young deer. Sunny
would have liked to climb a mountain too, and mamma promised her she
should some day.
She was now in the very heart of the Highlands. There were mountains on
all sides, reflected everywhere in the narrow seas through which the
boat glided. Now and then came houses and piers, funny little “baby”
piers, at which the _Iona_ stopped and took up or set down passengers,
when everybody rushed to the side to look on. Sunny rushed likewise;
she became so interested and excited in watching the long waves the
boat left behind her when her paddles began to move again, that her
mamma was sometimes frightened out of her life that the child should
overbalance herself and tumble in. Once or twice poor mamma spoke so
sharply that Sunny, utterly unaccustomed to this, turned around in mute
surprise. But little girls, not old enough to understand danger, do not
know what terrors mammas go through sometimes for their sakes.
It was rather a relief when Sunny became very hungry, and the bag of
biscuits, and the bottle of milk occupied her for a good while. Then
she turned sleepy. The little Maymie’s apron being secretly produced,
she, laughing a little, began to suck it, under cover of mamma’s shawl.
Soon she fell asleep, and lay for nearly an hour in perfect peace, her
eyes shut upon mountains, sea, and sky; and the sun shining softly upon
her little face and her gold curls, that nestled close into mamma’s
shoulder. Such a happy child!
Almost cruel it seemed to wake her up, but necessary; for there came
another change. The _Iona’s_ voyage was done. The next stage of the
journey was through a canal, where were sights to be seen so curious
that papa and mamma were as much interested in them as the little
girl, who was growing quite an old traveller now. She woke up, rubbed
her eyes, and, not crying at all, was carried ashore, and into the
middle of another crowd. There was a deal of talking and scrambling,
and rushing about with bags and cloaks, then all the heavier luggage
was put into two gigantic wagons, which four great horses walked away
with, and the passengers walked in a long string of twos and threes,
each after the others, for about a quarter of a mile, till they came to
the canal-side. There lay a boat, so big that it could only go forward
and backward,--I am sure if it had wanted to turn itself around it
could not possibly have done so! On board of it all the people began to
climb. Very funny people some of them were.
There was one big tall gentleman in a dress Sunny had never seen
before,--a cap on his head with a feather in it, a bag with furry tails
dangling from his waist, and a petticoat like a little girl. He had
also rather queer shoes and stockings, and when he took out from his
ankle, as it seemed, a shiny-handled sort of knife, and slipped it back
again, Sunny was very much surprised.
“Mamma,” she whispered, “what does that gentleman keep his knife in his
stocking for?” A question to which mamma could only answer “that she
really didn’t know. Perhaps he hadn’t got a pocket.”
“Sunny will give him her pocket,--her French pinafore with pockets in
it, shall she?”
Mamma thought the big Highlander might not care for Sunny’s pretty
muslin pinafore, with embroidery and Valenciennes lace, sewn for her by
loving, dainty hands; and as the boat now moved away, and he was seen
stalking majestically off along the road, there was no need to ask him
the question.
For a little while the boat glided along the smooth canal, so close to
either side that you felt as if you could almost pluck at the bushes,
and ferns, and trailing brambles, with fast-ripening berries, that hung
over the water. On the other side was a foot-road, where, a little way
behind, a horse was dragging, with a long rope, a small, deeply laden
canal-boat, not pretty like this one, which went swiftly and merrily
along by steam. But at last it came to a stand, in front of two huge
wooden gates which shut the canal in, and through every crevice of
which the pent-in water kept spouting in tiny cataracts.
“That’s the first of the locks,” said papa, who had seen it all before,
and took his little girl to the end of the boat to show her the
wonderful sight.
She was not old enough to have it explained, or to understand what a
fine piece of engineering work this canal is. It cuts across country
from sea to sea, and the land not being level, but rising higher in
the middle, and as you know water will not run up a hillside and down
again, these locks had to be made. They are, so to speak, boxes of
water with double gates at either end. The boat is let into them, and
shut in; then the water upon which it floats is gradually raised or
lowered according as may be necessary, until it reaches the level of
the canal beyond the second gate, which is opened and the boat goes
in. There are eight or nine of these locks within a single mile,--a
very long mile, which occupies fully an hour. So the captain told
his passengers they might get out and walk, which many of them did.
But Sunshine, her papa and mamma, were much more amused in watching
the great gates opening and shutting, and the boat rising or falling
through the deep sides of the locks. Besides, the little girl called
it “a bath,” and expressed a strong desire to jump in and “swim like a
fish,” with mamma swimming after her! So mamma thought it as well to
hold her fast by her clothes the whole time.
Especially when another interest came,--three or four little Highland
girls running alongside, jabbering gayly, and holding out glasses of
milk. Her own bottle being nearly drained, Sunny begged for some; and
the extraordinary difficulty papa had in stretching over to get the
milk without spilling it, and return the empty glass without breaking
it, was a piece of fun more delightful than even the refreshing
draught. “Again!” she said, and wanted the performance all repeated for
her private amusement.
[Illustration]
She had now resumed her old tyranny over her papa, whom she pursued
everywhere. He could not find a single corner of the boat in which to
hide and read his newspaper quietly, without hearing the cry, “Where’s
my papa? Sunny must go after papa,” and there was the little figure
clutching at his legs. “Take her up in your arms! up in your own
arms!” To which the victim, not unwillingly, consented, and carried her
everywhere.
Little Sunshine’s next great diversion was dinner. It did not happen
till late in the afternoon, when she had gone through, cheerfully as
ever, another change of boat, and was steaming away through the open
sea, which, however, was fortunately calm as a duck-pond, or what would
have become of this little person?
Papa questioned very much whether she was not far too little a person
to dine at the cabin-table with all the other grown-up passengers, but
mamma answered for her that she would behave properly,--she always did
whenever she promised. For Sunny has the strongest sense of keeping a
promise. Her one argument when wanting a thing, an argument she knows
never denied, is, “Mamma, you promised.” And her shoemaker, who once
neglected to send home her boots, has been immortalised in her memory
as “Mr. James So-and-so, who broke his promise.”
So, having promised to be good, she gravely took her papa’s hand and
walked with him down the long cabin to her place at the table. There
she sat, quite quiet, and very proud of her position. She ate little,
being too deeply occupied in observing everything around her. And she
talked still less, only whispering mysteriously to her mamma once or
twice.
“Sunny would like a potato, with butter on it.” “Might Sunny have one
little biscuit--just one?”
But she troubled nobody, spilt nothing, not even her glass of water,
though it was so big that with both her fat hands she could scarcely
hold it; and said “Thank you” politely to a gentleman who handed her a
piece of bread. In short, she did keep her promise, conducting herself
throughout the meal with perfect decorum. But when it was over, I think
she was rather glad.
“Sunny may get down now?” she whispered; adding, “Sunny was quite
good, she was.” For the little woman always likes to have her virtues
acknowledged.
And in remounting the companion-ladder, rather a trial for her small
legs, she looked at the steward, who was taking his money, and observed
to him, in a confidential tone, “Sunny has had a good dinner; Sunny
liked it,”--at which the young man couldn’t help laughing.
But everybody laughs at Sunny, or with her,--she has such an endless
fund of enjoyment in everything. The world to her is one perpetual
kaleidoscope of ever changing delights.
Immediately after dinner she had a pleasure quite new. Playing about
the deck, she suddenly stopped and listened.
“Mamma, hark! there’s music. May Sunny go after the music?” And her
little feet began to dance rather than walk, as, pulling her mamma by
the hand, she “went after” a German band that was playing at the other
end of the vessel.
Little Sunshine had never before heard a band, and this was of wind
instruments, played very well, as most German musicians can play. The
music seemed to quiver all through her, down to her very toes. And
when the dance-tune stopped, and her dancing feet likewise, and the
band struck up the beautiful “Wacht am Rhein,”--the “Watch on the
Rhine,”--(oh! if its singers had only stopped there, defending their
fatherland, and not invaded the lands of other people!), this little
girl, who knew nothing about French and Prussians, stood absorbed in
solemn delight. Her hands were folded together (a trick she has), her
face grew grave, and a soul far deeper than three years old looked out
of her intent eyes. For when Sunny is earnest, she is _very_ earnest;
and when she turns furious, half a dozen tragedies seem written in her
firm-set mouth, knitted brow, and flashing eyes.
She was disposed to be furious for a minute, when her Lizzie tried to
get her away from the music. But her mamma let her stay, so she did
stay close to the musicians, until the playing was all done.
It was growing late in the afternoon, near her usual bedtime, but no
going to bed was possible. The steamboat kept ploughing on through
lonely seas, dotted with many islands, larger or smaller, with high
mountains on every side, some of them sloping down almost to the
water’s edge. Here and there was a solitary cottage or farmhouse,
but nothing like a town or village. The steamboat seemed to have the
whole world to itself,--sea, sky, mountains,--a magnificent range of
mountains! behind which the sun set in such splendour that papa and
mamma, watching it together, quite forgot for the time being the little
person who was not old enough to care for sunsets.
When they looked up, catching the sound of her laughter, there she was,
in a state of the highest enjoyment, having made friends, all of her
own accord, with two gentlemen on board, who played with her and petted
her extremely. One of them had just taken out of his pocket a wonderful
bird, which jumped out of a box, shook itself, warbled a most beautiful
tune, and then popped down in the box again; not exactly a toy for
a child, as only about half a dozen have ever been made, and they
generally cost about a hundred guineas apiece.
Of course Sunny was delighted. She listened intently to the warble, and
whenever the bird popped down and hid itself again, she gave a scream
of ecstasy. But she cannot enjoy things alone.
“May mamma come and see it? Mamma would like to see it, she would!”
And, running back, Sunny drew her mamma, with all her little might,
over to where the gentlemen were sitting.
They were very polite to the unknown lady, and went over the
performance once again for her benefit. And they were exceedingly kind
to her little girl, showing a patience quite wonderful, unless, indeed,
they had little girls of their own. They tried pertinaciously to find
out Sunny’s name, but she as persistently refused to disclose it,--that
is, anything more than her Christian name, which is rather a peculiar
one, and which she always gives with great dignity and accuracy, at
full length. (Which, should they really have little girls of their own,
and should they buy this book for them and read it, those two gentlemen
will probably remember; nor think the worse of themselves that their
kindness helped to while away what might otherwise have been rather
dreary, the last hour of the voyage,--a very long voyage for such a
small traveller.)
It was ended at last. The appointed pier, a solitary place where only
one other passenger was landed, stood out distinct in the last rays
of sunset. Once again the child was carried across one of those shaky
gangways,--neither frightened nor cross and quite cheerful and wide
awake still. Nay, she even stopped at the pier-head, her attention
caught by some creatures more weary than herself.
Half a dozen forlorn sheep, their legs tied together, and their heads
rolling about, with the most piteous expression in their open eyes, lay
together, waiting to be put on board. The child went up to them and
stroked their faces.
“Poor little baa-lambs, don’t be so frightened; you won’t be
frightened, now Sunny has patted you,” said she, in her tenderest
voice. And then, after having walked a few yards:
“Sunny must go back. Please, mamma, may Sunny go back to say good-bye
to those poor little baa-lambs?”
But the baa-lambs had already been tossed on board, and the steamer was
away with them into the dark.
Into the dark poor little Sunny had also to go; a drive of nine miles
across country, through dusky glens, and coming out by loch sides, and
under the shadow of great mountains, above whose tops the stars were
shining. Only the stars, for there was no moon, and no lamps to the
carriage; and the driver, when spoken to, explained--in slow Highland
English, and in a mournful manner, evidently not understanding the half
of what was said to him--that there were several miles farther to go,
and several hills to climb yet; and that the horse was lame, and the
road not as safe as it might be. A prospect which made the elders of
the party not perfectly happy, as may well be imagined.
But the child was as merry as possible, though it was long past her
tea-time and she had had no tea, and past bedtime, yet there was no
bed to go to; she kept on chattering till it was quite dark, and
then cuddled down, making “a baby” of her mamma’s hand,--a favourite
amusement. And so she lay, the picture of peace, until the carriage
stopped at the welcome door, and there stood a friendly group with two
little boys in front of it. After eleven hours of travelling, Little
Sunshine had reached a shelter at last!
CHAPTER VI.
Sunrise among the mountains. Who that has ever seen it can forget it?
Sunny’s mamma never could.
Arriving here after dark, she knew no more of the place than the child
did. But the first thing she did on waking next morning was to creep
past the sofa where Sunny lay,--oh, so fast asleep! having had a
good scream overnight, as was natural after all her fatigues,--steal
cautiously to the window, and look out.
Such a sight! At the foot of a green slope, or sort of rough lawn,
lay the little loch so often spoken of, upon which Sunny was to go
a-fishing and catch big salmon with Maurice’s papa. Round it was a
ring of mountains, so high that they seemed to shut out half the sky.
These were reflected in the water, so solidly and with such a sharp,
clear outline, that one could hardly believe it was only a reflection.
Above their summit was one mass of deep rose-colour, and this also was
repeated in the loch, so that you could not tell which was reddest,
the water or the sky. Everything was perfectly still; not a ripple
moved, not a leaf stirred, not a bird was awake. An altogether new and
magic world.
Sunny was too much of a baby yet to care for sunrise, or, indeed, for
anything just now, except a good long sleep, so her mamma let her sleep
her fill; and when she woke at last she was as bright as a bird.
Long before she was dressed, she heard down-stairs the voices of the
five little boys who were to be her companions. Their papa and mamma
having no objection to their names being told, I give them, for they
were five very pretty names: Maurice, Phil, Eddie, Franky, and Austin
Thomas. The latter being the youngest, though by no means the smallest
or thinnest, generally had his name in full, with variations, such
as Austin Tummas, or Austin Tummacks. Maurice, too, was occasionally
called Maurie,--but not often, being the eldest, you see.
He was seven, very small for his age, but with a face almost angelic
in its delicate beauty. The first time Sunny saw him, a few months
before, she had seemed quite fascinated by it, put her two hands on
his shoulders, and finally held up her mouth to kiss him,--which she
seldom does to any children, rather preferring “grown-ups,” as she
calls them, for playfellows. She had talked ever since of Maurice,
Maurice’s papa, Maurice’s boat, and especially of Maurice’s “little
baby,” the only sister of the five boys. Yet when he came to greet her
this morning, she was quite shy, and would not play with him or Eddie,
or even Franky, who was nearer her own age; and when her mamma lifted
up Austin Thomas, younger than herself but much bigger in every way,
and petted him a little, this poor little woman fell into great despair.
“Don’t kiss him. I don’t want you to kiss Austin Thomas!” she cried,
and the passion which can rise at times in her merry blue eyes rose
now. She clung to her mamma, almost sobbing.
Of course this was not right, and, as I said before, the little girl
is not a perfect little girl. She is naughty at times, like all of us.
Still, mamma was rather sorry for her. It was difficult for an only
child, accustomed to have her mamma all to herself, to tumble suddenly
into such a crowd of boys, and see that mamma could be kind to and
fond of other children besides her own, as all mothers ought to be,
without taking away one atom from the special mother’s love, which no
little people need be jealous over. Sunny bore the trial pretty well,
on the whole. She did not actually cry,--but she kept fast hold of her
mamma’s gown, and watched her with anxious eyes whenever she spoke to
any other child, and especially to Austin Thomas.
The boys were very kind to her. Maurice went and took hold of her hand,
trying to talk to her in his gentle way; his manners were as sweet as
his face. Eddie, who was stronger and rougher, and more boyish, wanted
her to go down with him to the pier,--a small erection of stones at
the shallow edge of the loch, where two or three boats always lay
moored. Consequently the boys kept tumbling in and out of them,--and
in and out of the water, too, very often,--all day long. But the worst
they ever could get was a good wetting,--except Austin Thomas, who one
day toddled in and slipped down, and, being very fat, could not pull
himself up again; so that, shallow as the water was, he was very near
being drowned. But Maurice and Eddie were almost “water babies,”--so
thoroughly at home in the loch,--and Eddie, though under six years old,
could already handle an oar.
“I can _low_” (row,--he could not speak plain yet). “I once lowed
grandpapa all across the loch. Shall I low you and the little girl?”
But mamma rather hesitated at accepting the kind offer, and compromised
the matter by going down to the pier with Sunny in her arms, to watch
Eddie “low,”--about three yards out and back again,--in a carefully
moored boat. Sunny immediately wanted to go too, and mamma promised her
she should, after breakfast, when papa was there to take care of her.
So the little party went back to the raised terrace in front of the
house, where the sun was shining so bright, and where Phil, who was in
delicate health, stood looking on with his pale, quiet face,--sadly
quiet and grave for such a child,--and Franky, who was reserved and
shy, stopped a moment in his solitary playing to notice the newcomer,
but did not offer to go near her. Austin Thomas, however, kept pulling
at her with his stout, chubby arms, but whether he meant caressing or
punching it was difficult to say. Sunny opposed a dignified resistance,
and would not look at Austin Thomas at all.
“Mamma, I want to stop with you. May Sunny stop with you?” implored
she. “You said Sunny should go in the boat with you.”
Mamma always does what she says, if she possibly can, and, besides, she
felt a sympathy for her lonely child, who had not been much used to
play with other children. So she kept Sunny beside her till they went
down together--papa too--for their first row on the loch.
Such a splendid day! Warm but fresh--how could it help being fresh
in that pure mountain air, which turned Sunny’s cheeks the colour of
opening rosebuds, and made even papa and mamma feel almost as young as
she? Big people like holidays as well as little people, and it was long
since they had had a holiday. This was the very perfection of one, when
everybody did exactly as they liked; which consisted chiefly in doing
nothing from morning till night.
Sunny was the only person who objected to idleness. She must always be
doing something.
“I want to catch fishes,” said she, after having sat quiet by mamma’s
side in the stern of the boat for about three minutes and a half:
certainly not longer, though it was the first time she had ever been
in a boat in all her life, and the novelty of her position sufficed to
sober her for just that length of time. “I want to catch big salmon all
by my own self.”
A fishing-rod had, just as a matter of ceremony, been put into the
boat; but as papa held the two oars, and mamma the child, it was
handed over to Lizzie, who sat in the bow. However, not a single trout
offering to bite, it was laid aside, and papa’s walking-stick used
instead. This was shorter, more convenient, and had a beautiful hooked
handle, which could catch floating leaves. Leaves were much more
easily caught than fishes, and did quite as well.
[Illustration: Little Sunshine goes fishing.]
The little girl had now her heart’s desire. She was in a boat fishing.
“Sunny has caught a fish! Such a big fish!” cried she, in her shrillest
treble of delight, every time that event happened. And it happened
so often that the bench was soon quite “soppy” with wet leaves. Then
she gave up the rod, and fished with her hands, mamma holding her as
tight as possible, lest she should overbalance, and be turned into a
fish herself. But water _will_ wet; and mamma could not save her from
getting her poor little hands all blue and cold, and her sleeves soaked
through. She did not like this; but what will not we endure, even at
two and three-quarters old, in pursuit of some great ambition? It was
not till her hands were numbed, and her pinafore dripping, that Sunny
desisted from her fishing, and then only because her attention was
caught by something else even more attractive.
“What’s that, mamma? What’s that?”
“Water-lilies.”
Papa, busily engaged in watching his little girl, had let the boat
drift upon a shoal of them, which covered one part of the loch like a
floating island. They were so beautiful, with their leaves lying like
green plates flat on the surface of the water, and their white flowers
rising up here and there like ornamental cups. No wonder the child was
delighted.
“Sunny wants a water-lily,” said she, catching the word, though she
had never heard it before. “May Sunny have one, two water-lilies? Two
water-lilies! Please, mamma?”
This was more easily promised than performed, for, in spite of papa’s
skill, the boat always managed to glide either too far off, or too
close to, or right on the top of the prettiest flowers; and when
snatched at, they always would dive down under water, causing the boat
to lurch after them in a way particularly unpleasant. At last, out
of about a dozen unsuccessful attempts, papa captured two expanded
flowers, and one bud, all with long stalks. They were laid along the
seat of the boat, which had not capsized, nor had anybody tumbled out
of it,--a thing that mamma considered rather lucky, upon the whole, and
insisted on rowing away out of the region of water-lilies.
“Let us go up the canal, then,” said papa, whom his host had already
taken there, to show him a very curious feature of the loch.
Leading out of one end of it, and communicating between it and a stream
that fed it from the neighbouring glen, was a channel, called “the
canal.” Unlike most Highland streams, it was as still as a canal; only
it was natural, not artificial. Its depth was so great, that a stick
fifteen feet long failed to find the bottom, which, nevertheless, from
the exceeding clearness of the water, could be seen quite plain, with
the fishes swimming about, and the pebbles, stones, or roots of trees
too heavy to float, lying as they had lain, undisturbed, year after
year. The banks, instead of shallowing off, went sheer down, as deep
as in the middle, so that you could paddle close under the trees that
fringed them,--gnarled old oaks, queerly twisted rowans or beeches, and
nut-trees with trunks so thick and branches so wide-spreading, that
the great-great-grandfathers of the glen must have gone nutting there
generations back.
Yet this year they were as full as ever of nuts, the gathering of which
frightened mamma nearly as much as the water-lilies. For papa, growing
quite excited, _would_ stand up in the boat and pluck at the branches,
and would not see that nutting on dry land, and nutting in a boat
over fifteen or twenty feet of water, were two very different things.
Even the little girl, imitating her elders, made wild snatches at the
branches, and it was the greatest relief to mamma’s mind when Sunny
turned her attention to cracking her nuts, which her sharp little teeth
did to perfection.
“Shall I give you one, mamma? Papa, too?” And she administered them
by turns out of her mouth, which, if not the politest, was the most
convenient way. At last she began singing a song to herself, “Three
little nuts all together! three little nuts all together!” Looking into
the little girl’s shut hands, mamma found--what she in all her long
life had never found but once before, and that was many, many years
ago--a triple nut,--a “lucky” nut; as great a rarity as a four-leaved
shamrock.
“Oh, what a prize! will Sunny give it to mamma?” (which she did
immediately). “And mamma will put it carefully by, and keep it for
Sunny till she is grown a big girl.”
“Sunny is a big girl now; Sunny cracks nuts for papa and mamma.”
Nevertheless, mamma kept the triple nut, as she remembered her own
mamma keeping the former one, when she herself was a little girl. When
Sunny grows a woman, she will find both.
Besides nuts, there were here and there along the canal-side long
trailing brambles, with such huge blackberries on them,--blackberries
that seem to take a malicious pleasure in growing where nobody can get
at them. Nobody could gather them except out of a boat, and then with
difficulty. The best of them had, after all, to be left to the birds.
Oh, what a place this canal must have been for birds in spring! What
safe nests might be built in these overhanging trees! what ceaseless
songs sung there from morning till night! Now, being September, there
were almost none. Dead silence brooded over the sunshiny crags and
the motionless loch. When, far up among the hills, there was heard
the crack of a gun,--Maurice’s papa’s gun, for it could of course be
no other,--the sound, echoed several times over, was quite startling.
What had been shot,--a grouse, a snipe, a wild duck? Perhaps it was
a roe-deer? Papa was all curiosity; but mamma, who dislikes shooting
altogether, either of animals or men, and cannot endure the sight of a
gun, even unloaded, was satisfied with hearing it at a distance, and
counting its harmless echoes from mountain to mountain.
What mountains they were!--standing in a circle, gray, bare, silent,
with their peaks far up into the sky. Some had been climbed by the
gentlemen in this shooting-lodge or by Donald, the keeper, but it
was hard work, and some had never been climbed at all. The clouds
and mists floated over them, and sometimes, perhaps, a stray grouse,
or capercailzie, or ptarmigan, paid them a visit, but that was all.
They were too steep and bare even for the roe-deer. Yet, oh! how grand
they looked, grand and calm, like great giants, whom nothing small and
earthly could affect at all.
The mountains were too big, as yet, for Little Sunshine. Her baby eyes
did not take them in. She saw them, of course, but she was evidently
much more interested in the nuts overhead, and the fishes under water.
And when the boat reached “The Bower,” she thought it more amusing
still.
“The Bower,” so called, was a curious place, where the canal grew so
narrow, and the trees so big, that the overarching boughs met in the
middle, forming a natural arbour,--only of water, not land,--under
which the boat swept for a good many yards. You had to stoop your head
to avoid being caught by the branches, and the ferns and moss on either
bank grew so close to your hand, that you could snatch at them as you
swept by, which Little Sunshine thought the greatest fun in the world.
“Mamma, let me do it. Please, let Sunny do it her own self.”
To do a thing “all my own self” is always a great attraction to this
independent little person, and her mamma allows it whenever possible.
Still there are some things which mamma may do, and little people
may not, and this was one of them. It was obliged to be forbidden as
dangerous, and Little Sunshine clouded over almost to tears. But she
never worries her mamma for things, well aware that “No,” means no, and
“Yes,” yes; and that neither are subject to alteration. And the boat
being speedily rowed out of temptation’s way into the open loch again,
she soon found another amusement.
On the loch, besides water-fowl, such as wild ducks, teal, and the
like, lived a colony of geese. They had once been tame geese belonging
to the farm, but they had emigrated, and turned into wild geese, making
their nests wherever they liked, and bringing up their families in
freedom and seclusion. As to catching them like ordinary geese, it
was hopeless; whenever wanted for the table they had to be shot like
game. This catastrophe had not happened lately, and they swam merrily
about,--a flock of nine large, white, lively, independent birds, which
could be seen far off, sailing about like a fleet of ships on the quiet
waters of the loch. They would allow you to row within a reasonable
distance of them, just so close and no closer, then off they flew in a
body, with a great screeching and flapping of wings,--geese, even wild
geese, being rather unwieldy birds.
Their chief haunt was a tiny island just at the mouth of the canal, and
there papa rowed, just to have a look at them, for one was to be shot
for the Michaelmas dinner. (It never was, by the by, and, for all I
know, still sails cheerfully upon its native loch.)
“Oh, the ducks--the ducks!” (Sunny calls all water-birds ducks.) She
clapped her hands, and away they flew, right over her head, at once
frightening and delighting her; then watched them longingly until they
dropped down again, and settled in the farthest corner of the loch.
“Might Sunny go after them? Might Sunny have a dear little duck to play
with?”
The hopelessness of which desire might have made her turn melancholy
again, only just then appeared, rowing with great energy, bristling
with fishing-rods, and crowded with little people as well as
“grown-ups,” the big boat. It was so busy that it hardly condescended
to notice the little pleasure-boat, with only idle people, sailing
about in the sunshine, and doing nothing more useful than catching
water-lilies and frightening geese.
Still the little boat greeted the large one with an impertinent hail of
“Ship ahoy! what ship’s that?” and took in a cargo of small boys, who,
as it was past one o’clock, were wanted home to the nursery dinner.
And papa rowed the whole lot of them back to the pier, where everybody
was safely landed. Nobody tumbled in, and nobody was drowned,--which
mamma thought, on the whole, was a great deal to be thankful for.
CHAPTER VII.
Life at the glen went on every day alike, in the simplest, happiest
fashion, a sort of paradise of children, as in truth it was. Even the
elders lived like children; and big people and little people were
together, more or less, all day long. A thing not at all objectionable
when the children are good children, as these were.
The boys were noisy, of course, and, after the first hour of the
morning, clean faces, hands, and clothes became a difficulty quite
insurmountable, in which their mother had to resign herself to fate;
as the mamma of five boys, running about wild in the Highlands,
necessarily must. But these were good, obedient, gentlemanly little
fellows, and, had it been possible to keep them clean and whole, which
it wasn’t, very pretty little fellows, too.
Of course they had a few boyish propensities, which increased the
difficulty. Maurice, for instance, had an extraordinary love for all
creeping things, and especially worms. On the slightest pretence of
getting bait to fish with, he would go digging for them, and stuff them
into his pockets, whence, if you met him, you were as likely as not to
see one or two crawling out. If you remonstrated, he looked unhappy,
for Maurice really loved his worms. He cherished them carefully, and
did not in the least mind their crawling over his hands, his dress, or
his plate. Only, unfortunately, other people did. When scolded, he put
his pets meekly aside, but always returned to them with the same love
as ever. Perhaps Maurice may turn out a great naturalist some day.
The one idea of Eddie’s life was boats. He was for ever at the little
pier waiting a chance of a row, and always wanting to “low” somebody,
especially with “two oars,” which he handled uncommonly well for so
small a child. Fortunately for him, though not for his papa and the
salmon-fishers, the weather was dead calm, so that it was like paddling
on a duck-pond; and the loch being shallow just at the pier, except a
few good wettings, which he seemed to mind as little as if he were a
frog, bright, brave, adventurous Eddie came to no harm.
Nor Franky, who imitated him admiringly whenever he could. But Franky,
who was rather a reserved little man, and given to playing alone, had,
besides the pier, another favourite play-place, a hollow cut out
in the rock to receive the burn which leaped down from the hillside
just behind the house. Being close to the kitchen door, it was put to
all sorts of domestic uses, being generally full of pots and pans,
saucepans and kettles,--not the most advisable playthings, but Franky
found them charming. He also unluckily found out something else,--that
the hollow basin had an outlet, through which any substance, sent
swimming down the swift stream, swam away beautifully for several
yards, and then disappeared underground. And the other end of this
subterraneous channel being in the loch, of course it disappeared
for ever. In this way there vanished mysteriously all sorts of
things,--cups and saucers, toys, pinafores, hats; which last Franky was
discovered in the act of making away with, watching them floating off
with extreme delight. It was no moral crime, and hardly punishable, but
highly inconvenient. Sunny’s beloved luggie, which had been carried
about with her for weeks, was believed to have disappeared in this way,
and, as it could not sink, is probably now drifting somewhere about on
the loch, to the great perplexity of the fishes.
Little Phil, alas! was too delicate to be mischievous. He crept about
in the sunshine, not playing with anybody, but just looking on at the
rest, with his pale, sweet, pensive face. He was very patient and good,
and he suffered very much. One day, hearing his uncle at family prayers
pray that God would make him better, he said, sadly, “If He does,
I wish He would make haste about it.” Which was the only complaint
gentle, pathetic little Phil was ever heard to utter.
Sunny regarded him with some awe, as “the poor little boy who was so
ill.” For herself, she has never yet known what illness is; but she is
very sympathetic over it in others. Anybody’s being “not well” will
at once make her tender and gentle; as she always was to Phil. He in
his turn was very kind to her, lending her his “music,” which was the
greatest favour he could bestow or she receive.
This “music” was a box of infantile instruments, one for each
boy,--trumpet, drum, fife, etc., making a complete band, which a
rash-minded but affectionate aunt had sent them, and with which
they marched about all day long, to their own great delight and the
corresponding despair of their elders. Phil, who had an ear, would go
away quietly with his “music,”--a trumpet, I think it was,--and play it
all by himself. But the others simply marched about in procession, each
making the biggest noise he could, and watched by Sunny with admiration
and envy. Now and then, out of great benevolence, one of the boys
would lend her his instrument, and nobody did this so often as Phil,
though of them all he liked playing his music the best. The picture of
him sitting on the door-step, with his pale fingers wandering over his
instrument, and his sickly face looking almost contented as he listened
to the sound, will long remain in everybody’s mind. Sunny never
objected to her mamma’s carrying him, as he often had to be carried;
though he was fully six years old. He was scarcely heavier than the
little girl herself. Austin Thomas would have made two of him.
Austin’s chief peculiarity was this amiable fatness. He tumbled about
like a roly-poly pudding, amusing everybody, and offending no one but
Little Sunshine. But his persistent pursuit of her mamma, whom he
insisted on calling “Danmamma” (grandmamma), and following whenever he
saw her, was more than the little girl could bear, and she used to knit
her brows and look displeased. However, mamma never took any notice,
knowing what a misery to itself and all about it is a jealous child.
Amidst these various amusements passed the day. It began at 8 A. M.,
when Sunshine and her mamma usually appeared on the terrace in front
of the house. They two were “early birds,” and so they got “the
worm,”--that is, a charming preliminary breakfast of milk, bread and
butter, and an egg, which they usually ate on the door-step. Sometimes
the rest, who had had their porridge, the usual breakfast of Scotch
children,--and very nice it is, too,--gathered around for a share;
which it was pleasant to give them, for they waited so quietly, and
were never rough or rude.
Nevertheless, sometimes difficulties arose. The tray being placed on
the gravel, Maurice often sat beside it, and his worms would crawl out
of his pocket and on to the bread and butter. Then Eddie now and then
spilt the milk, and Austin Thomas would fill the salt-cellar with sand
out of the gravel walk, and stir it all up together with the egg-spoon;
a piece of untidiness which Little Sunshine resented extremely.
She had never grown reconciled to Austin Thomas. In spite of his burly
good-nature, and his broad beaming countenance (which earned him the
nickname of “Cheshire,” from his supposed likeness to the Cheshire Cat
in “Alice’s Adventures”), she refused to play with him; whenever he
appeared, her eye followed him with distrust and suspicion, and when he
said “Danmamma,” she would contradict him indignantly.
“It isn’t grandmamma, it’s _my_ mamma, my own mamma. Go away, naughty
boy!” If he presumed to touch the said mamma, it was always, “Take me
up in your arms, in your own arms,”--so as to prevent all possibility
of Austin Thomas’s getting there.
[Illustration]
But one unlucky day Austin tumbled down, and, though more frightened
than hurt, cried so much that, his own mamma being away, Sunny’s mamma
took him and comforted him, soothing him on her shoulder till he ceased
sobbing. This was more than human nature could bear. Sunny did nothing
at the time, except pull frantically at her mamma’s gown, but shortly
afterward she and Austin Thomas were found by themselves, engaged in
single combat on the gravel walk. She had seized him by the collar of
his frock, and was kicking him with all her might, while he on his part
was pommelling at her with both his little fat fists, like an infant
prize-fighter. It was a pitched battle, pretty equal on both sides; and
conducted so silently, in such dead earnest, that it would have been
quite funny,--if it had not been so very wrong.
Of course such things could not be allowed, even in babies under three
years old. Sunny’s mamma ran to the spot and separated the combatants
by carrying off her own child right away into the house. Sunny was so
astonished that she did not say a word. And when she found that her
mamma never said a word either, but bore her along in total silence,
she was still more surprised. Her bewilderment was at its height, when,
shutting the bedroom door, her mamma set her down, and gave her--not
a whipping: she objects to whippings under any circumstances--but the
severest scolding the child had ever had in her life.
When I say “scolding,” I mean a grave, sorrowful rebuke, showing how
wicked it was to kick anybody, and how it grieved mamma that her good
little girl should be so exceedingly naughty. Mamma grieved is a
reproach under which little Sunny breaks down at once. Her lips began
to quiver; she hung her head sorrowfully.
“Sunny had better go into the cupboard,” suggested she.
“Yes, indeed,” mamma replied. “I think the cupboard is the only place
for such a naughty little girl; go in at once.”
So poor Sunshine crept solemnly into a large press with sliding doors,
used for hanging up clothes, and there remained in silence and darkness
all the while her mamma was dressing to go out. At last she put her
head through the opening.
“Sunny quite good now, mamma.”
“Very well,” said mamma, keeping with difficulty a grave countenance.
“But will Sunny promise never to kick Austin Thomas again?”
“Yes.”
“Then she may come out of the cupboard, and kiss mamma.”
Which she did, with a beaming face, as if nothing at all had happened.
But she did not forget her naughtiness. Some days after, she came up,
and confidentially informed her mamma, as if it were an act of great
virtue, “Mamma, Sunny ’membered her promise. Sunny hasn’t kicked the
little boy again.”
After the eight o’clock breakfast, Sunny, her mamma, and the five
little boys generally took a walk together, or sat telling stories in
front of the house, till the ten o’clock breakfast of the elders. That
over, the party dispersed their several ways, wandering about by land
or water, and meeting occasionally, great folks and small, in boats, or
by hillsides, or indoors at the children’s one o’clock dinner,--almost
the only time, till night, that anybody ever was indoors.
Besides most beautiful walks for the elders, there were, close by the
house, endless play-places for the children, each more attractive than
the other. The pier on the loch was the great delight; but there was,
about a hundred yards from the house, a burn (in fact, burns were
always tumbling from the hillside, wherever you went), with a tiny
bridge across it, which was a charming spot for little people. There
usually assembled a whole parliament of ducks, and hens, and chickens,
quacking and clucking and gobbling together, to their own great content
and that of the children, especially the younger ones. Thither came
Austin Thomas with his nurse Grissel, a thorough Scotch lassie; and
Sunny with her English Lizzie; and there the baby, the pet of all, tiny
“Miss Mary,” a soft, dainty, cuddling thing of six months old, used to
be brought to lie and sleep in the sunshine, watched by Little Sunshine
with never-ending interest. She would go anywhere with “the dear
little baby.” The very intonation of her voice, and the expression
of her eyes, changed as she looked at it,--for this little girl is
passionately fond of babies.
Farther down the mountain-road was another attractive corner, a
stone dike, covered with innumerable blackberries. Though gathered
daily, there were each morning more to gather, and they furnished an
endless feast for both nurses and children. And really, in this sharp
mountain air, the hungriness of both big and little people must have
been alarming. How the house-mother ever fed her household, with the
only butcher’s shop ten miles off, was miraculous. For very often the
usual resort of shooting-lodges entirely failed; the game was scarce,
and hardly worth shooting, and in this weather the salmon absolutely
refused to be caught. Now and then a mournful-looking sheep was led up
to the door, and offered for sale alive, to be consumed gradually as
mutton. But when you have to eat an animal right through, you generally
get a little tired of him at last.
The food that never failed, and nobody ever wearied of, was the trout;
large dishes of which appeared, and disappeared, every morning at
breakfast. A patient guest, who could not go shooting, used to sit
fishing for trout, hour by hour, in the cheerfullest manner; thankful
for small blessings (of a pound or a pound and a half at most), and
always hoping for the big salmon which he had travelled three hundred
miles to fish for, but which never came. Each day, poor gentleman! he
watched the dazzlingly bright sky, and, catching the merest shadow of a
cloud, would say courageously, “It looks like rain! Perhaps the salmon
may bite to-morrow.”
Of afternoons, Sunny and her mamma generally got a little walk and
talk alone together along the hillside road, noticing everything, and
especially the Highland cattle, who went about in family parties,--the
big bull, a splendid animal, black or tawny, looking very fierce, but
really offering no harm to anybody; half a dozen cows, and about twice
that number of calves. Such funny little things these were! not smooth,
like English calves, but with quantities of shaggy hair hanging about
them, and especially over their eyes. Papa used to say that his little
girl, with her incessant activity, and her yellow curls tossing wildly
about on her forehead, was very like a Highland calf.
At first, Sunny was rather afraid of these extraordinary beasts, so
different from Southern cattle; but she soon got used to them, and as
even the big bull did nothing worse than look at her, and pass her by,
she would stand and watch them feeding with great interest, and go
as close to them as ever she was allowed. Once she even begged for a
little calf to play with, but as it ran away up the mountainside as
active as a deer, this was not practicable. And on the whole she liked
the ducks and chickens best.
And for a change she liked to walk with mamma around the old-fashioned
garden. What a beautiful garden it was!--shut in with high walls, and
sloping southward down to the loch. No doubt many a Highland dame,
generations back, had taken great pleasure in it, for its fruit-trees
were centuries old, and the box edging of its straight, smooth gravel
walks was a picture in itself. Also a fuchsia hedge, thick with crimson
blossoms, which this little girl, who is passionately fond of flowers,
could never pass without begging for “a posie, to stick in my little
bosie,” where it was kissed and “loved” until, generally soon enough,
it got broken and died.
Equally difficult was it to pass the apples which lay strewn about
under the long lines of espaliers, where Maurice and Eddie were often
seen hovering about with an apple in each hand, and plenty more in
each pocket. The Highland air seemed to give them unlimited digestion,
but Sunny’s mamma had occasionally to say to her little girl that
quiet denial, which caused a minute’s sobbing, and then, known to be
inevitable, was submitted to.
The child found it hard sometimes that little girls might not do all
that little boys may. For instance, between the terrace and the pier
was a wooden staircase with a hand-rail; both rather old and rickety.
About this hand-rail the boys were for ever playing, climbing up it and
sliding down it. Sunny wanted to do the same, and one day her mamma
caught her perched astride at the top, and preparing to “slidder” down
to the bottom, in imitation of Eddie, who was urging her on with all
his might. This most dangerous proceeding for little girls with frocks
had to be stopped at once; mamma explaining the reason, and insisting
that Sunny must promise never to do it again. Poor little woman, she
was very sad; but she did promise, and, moreover, she kept her word.
Several times mamma saw her stand watching the boys with a mournful
countenance, but she never got astride on the hand-rail again. Only
once, a sudden consolation occurred to her.
“Mamma, ’posing Sunny were some day to grow into a little boy, _then_
she might slide down the ladder?”
“Certainly, yes!” answered mamma, with great gravity, and equal
sincerity. In the meantime she perfectly trusted her reliable child,
who never does anything behind her back any more than before her face.
And she let her clamber about as much as was practicable, up and down
rocks, and over stone dikes, and in and out of burns, since, within
certain limitations, little girls should be as active as little boys.
And by degrees, Sunny, a strong, healthy, energetic child, began to
follow the boys about everywhere.
There was a byre and a hay-house, where the children were very fond
of playing, climbing up a ladder and crawling along the roof to the
ridge-tiles, along which Eddie would drag himself, astraddle, from end
to end, throwing Sunny into an ecstasy of admiration. To climb up to
the top of a short ladder and be held there, whence she could watch
Eddie crawl like a cat from end to end of the byre, and wait till he
slid down the tiles again, was a felicity for which she would even
sacrifice the company of “the dear little baby.”
But, after all, the pier was the great resort. From early morning
till dark, two or three of the children were always to be seen there,
paddling in the shallows like ducks, with or without shoes and
stockings, assisting at every embarkation or landing of the elders, and
generally, by force of entreaties, getting--Eddie especially--“a low”
on their own account several times a day. Even Sunny gradually came to
find such fascination in the water, and in Eddie’s company, that if her
mamma had not kept a sharp lookout after her, and given strict orders
that, without herself, Sunny was never under any pretext to go on the
loch at all, the two children, both utterly fearless, would certainly
have been discovered sailing away like the wise men of Gotham who “went
to sea in a bowl.” Probably with the same ending to their career; that
“If the bowl had been stronger,
My song would have been longer!”
After Little Sunshine’s holiday was done, mamma, thinking over the
countless risks run, by her own child and these other children, felt
thankful that they had all left this beautiful glen alive.
CHAPTER VIII.
The days sped so fast with these happy people, children and
“grown-ups,” as Sunny calls them, that soon it was already Sunday, the
first of the only two Sundays they had to spend at the glen. Shall I
tell about them both?
These parents considered Sunday the best day in all the week, and tried
to make it so; especially to the children, whom, in order to give the
servants rest, they then took principally into their own hands. They
wished that, when the little folks grew up, Sunday should always be
remembered as a bright day, a cheerful day, a day spent with papa and
mamma; when nobody had any work to do, and everybody was merry, and
happy, and good. Also clean, which was a novelty here. Even the elders
rather enjoyed putting on their best clothes with the certainty of not
getting them wetted in fishing-boats, or torn with briers and brambles
on hillsides. Church was not till twelve at noon, so most of the party
went a leisurely morning stroll, and Sunny’s papa and mamma decided to
have a quiet row on the loch, in a clean boat, all by their two selves.
But, as it happened, their little girl, taking a walk with her Lizzie,
espied them afar off.
Faintly across the water came the pitiful entreaty, “Papa! mamma! Take
her. Take her with you.” And the little figure, running as fast as her
fat legs would carry her, was seen making its way, with Lizzie running
after, to the very edge of the loch.
What heart would not have relented? Papa rowed back as fast as he
could, and took her in, her face quivering with delight, though the big
tears were still rolling down her cheeks. But April showers do not dry
up faster than Sunny’s tears.
No fishing to-day, of course. Peacefully they floated down the loch,
which seemed to know it was Sunday, and to lie, with the hills standing
around it, more restful, more sunshiny, more beautiful than ever. Not
a creature was stirring; even the cattle, that always clustered on a
little knoll above the canal, made motionless pictures of themselves
against the sky, as if they were sitting or standing for their
portraits, and would not move upon any account. Now and then, as the
boat passed, a bird in the bushes fluttered, but not very far off, and
then sat on a bough and looked at it, too fearless of harm to fly
away. Everything was so intensely still, so unspeakably beautiful,
that when mamma, sitting in the stern, with her arm fast around her
child, began to sing “Jerusalem the Golden,” and afterward that other
beautiful hymn, “There is a land of pure delight,” the scene around
appeared like an earthly picture of that Celestial Land.
They rowed homeward just in time to dress for church, and start,
leaving the little girl behind. She was to follow, by and by, with
her Lizzie, and be taken charge of by mamma while Lizzie went to the
English service in the afternoon.
This was the morning service, and in Gaelic. With an English
prayer-book it was just possible to follow it and guess at it, though
the words were unintelligible. But they sounded very sweet, and so
did the hymns; and the small congregation listened as gravely and
reverently as if it had been the grandest church in the world, instead
of a tiny room, no bigger than an ordinary sitting-room, with a
communion-table of plain deal, and a few rows of deal benches, enough
to seat about twenty people, there being about fifteen present to-day.
Some of them had walked several miles, as they did every Sunday, and
often, their good clergyman said, when the glen was knee-deep in snow.
He himself spent his quiet days among them, winter and summer, living
at a farmhouse near, and scarcely ever quitting his charge. A lonelier
life, especially in winter-time, it was hardly possible to imagine.
Yet he looked quite contented, and so did the little congregation
as they listened to the short Gaelic sermon (which, of course, was
incomprehensible to the strangers), then slowly went out of church and
stood hanging about on the dike-side in the sunshine, till the second
service should begin.
Very soon a few more groups were seen advancing toward church. There
was Maurice, prayer-book in hand, looking so good and gentle and sweet,
almost like a cherub in a picture; and Eddie, not at all cherubic, but
entirely boyish, walking sedately beside his papa; Eddie clean and
tidy, as if he had never torn his clothes or dirtied his face in all
his life. Then came the children’s parents, papa and mamma and their
guests, and the servants of the house following. While far behind,
holding cautiously by her Lizzie’s hand and rather alarmed at her new
position, was a certain little person, who, as soon as she saw her own
papa and mamma, rushed frantically forward to meet them, with a cry of
irrepressible joy.
“Sunny wants to go to church! Sunny would like to go to church with the
little boys, and Lizzie says she mustn’t.”
Lizzie was quite right, mamma explained; afraid that so small a
child might only interrupt the worship, which she could not possibly
understand. But she compromised the matter by promising that Sunny
should go to church as soon as ever she was old enough, and to-day she
should stay with mamma out in the sunshiny road, and hear the singing
from outside.
Staying with mamma being always sufficient felicity, she consented to
part with the little boys, and they passed on into church.
By this time the post, which always came in between the services on
Sundays, appeared, and the postmaster, who was also schoolmaster and
beadle at the church,--as the school, the church, and the post-office
were all one building,--began arranging and distributing the contents
of the bag.
Everybody sat down by the roadside and read their letters. Those who
had no letters opened the newspapers,--those cruel newspapers, full of
the war. It was dreadful to read them, in this lovely spot, on this
calm September Sunday, with the good pastor and his innocent flock
preparing to begin the worship of Him who commanded “Love your enemies;
bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them that despitefully use you and persecute you.”
Oh, what a mockery “church” seemed! You little children can never
understand the pain of it; but you will when you are grown up. May
God grant that in your time you may never suffer as we have done, but
that His mercy may then have brought permanent peace; beating “swords
into ploughshares, and spears into pruning-hooks,” for ever and ever
throughout the world!
Sunny’s mamma prayed so with all her heart, when, the newspaper laid
down, she sat on a stone outside the church, with her child playing
beside her; far enough not to disturb the congregation, but near enough
to catch a good deal of the service, which was the English Episcopal
service; there being few Presbyterians in this district of Scotland,
and not a Presbyterian church within several miles.
Presently a harmonium began to sound, and a small choir of voices,
singing not badly, began the _Magnificat_. It was the first time in
her life that the little girl had heard choral music,--several people
singing all together. She pricked up her ears at once, with the
expression of intense delight that all kinds of music bring into her
little face.
“Mamma, is that church? Is that my papa singing?”
Mamma did not think it was, but it might be Maurice’s papa, and his
mamma, and Lizzie, and several other people; Sunny must listen and be
quite quiet, so as not to disturb them.
So she did, good little girl! sitting as mute as a mouse all the while
the music lasted, and when it ceased, playing about, still quietly;
building pebble mountains, and gathering a few withered leaves to stick
on the top of them. For she and her mamma were sitting on the gravel
walk of the schoolmaster’s garden, beside a row of flowerpots, still
radiant with geraniums and fuchsias. They were so close to the open
window under which stood the pulpit, that mamma was able to hear almost
every word of the sermon,--and a very good sermon it was.
When it ended, the friendly little congregation shook hands and talked
a little; then separated, half going up and the other half down the
road. The minister came home to dinner, walking between Maurice and
Eddie, of whom he was a particular friend. They always looked forward
to this weekly visit of his as one of the Sunday enjoyments, for he was
an admirable hand at an oar, and Eddie, who tyrannised over him in the
most affectionate way, was quite sure of “a low” when the minister was
there.
So, after dinner, all went out together, parents and children, pastor
and flock, in two boats, and rowed peacefully up and down the loch,
which had fallen into the cool gray shadow of evening, with the most
gorgeous sunset light, resting on the mountains opposite, and gradually
fading away, higher and higher, till the topmost peaks alone kept the
glow. But that they did to the very last; like a good man who, living
continually in the smile of God, lives cheerfully on to the end.
Sunny and her mamma watched the others, but did not go out, it being
near the child’s bedtime; and unless it is quite unavoidable, nobody
ever puts Sunny to bed, or hears her say her little prayers, except her
own mamma. She went to sleep quite happily, having now almost forgotten
to ask for Tommy Tinker, or any other story. The continual excitement
of her life here left her so sleepy that the minute she had her little
nightgown on, she was ready to shut her eyes, and go off into what
mamma calls “the land of Nod.”
And so ended, for her, the first Sunday in the glen, which, in its
cheerful, holy peace, was a day long to be remembered. But the little
boys, Maurice and Eddie, who did not go to bed so early, after the loch
grew dark, and the rowing was all done, spent a good long evening in
the drawing-room, climbing on the minister’s knees, and talking to him
about boats and salmon, and all sorts of curious things: he was so
very kind to little children. And after the boys were gone to bed, he
and the elder folk gathered around the not unwelcome fire, and talked
too. This good minister, who spent his life in the lonely glen, with
very little money,--so little that rich Southern people would hardly
believe an educated clergyman could live upon it at all,--and almost no
society, except that of the few cottagers and farmers scattered thinly
up and down, yet kept his heart up, and was cheerful and kindly, ready
to help old and young, rich and poor, and never complaining of his dull
life, or anything else--this gentleman, I say, was a pattern to both
great folk and small.
The one only subject of discontent in the house, if anybody could feel
discontent in such a pleasant place and amid such happy circumstances,
was the continued fine weather. While the sky remained unclouded, and
the loch as smooth as glass, no salmon would bite. They kept jumping
up in the liveliest and most provoking way; sometimes you could see
their heads and shoulders clean out of water, and of course they looked
bigger than any salmon ever seen before. Vainly did the master of the
house and his guests go after them whenever there was the least cloud
on the sky, and coax them to bite with the most fascinating flies
and most alluring hooks; they refused to take the slightest notice of
either. Only trout, and they not big ones, ever allowed themselves to
be caught.
The children and mammas, delighting in the warm sunshiny weather, did
not grieve much, but the gentlemen became quite low in their spirits,
and at last, for their sakes, and especially for the sake of that one
who only cared for fishing, and had come so far to fish, the whole
household began to watch the sky, and with great self-sacrifice to long
for a day--a whole day--of good, settled, pelting rain.
And on the Monday following this bright Sunday, it seemed likely.
The morning was rather dull, the sunshiny haze which hung over the
mountains melted away, and they stood out sharp and dark and clear.
Toward noon, the sky clouded over a little,--a very little! Hopefully
the elders sat down to their four o’clock dinner, and by the time it
was over a joyful cry arose:
“It’s raining! it’s raining!”
Everybody started up in the greatest delight. “Now we shall have a
chance of a salmon!” cried the gentlemen, afraid to hope too much.
Nevertheless, they hastily put on their greatcoats, and rushed down to
the pier, armed with a rod apiece, and with Donald, the keeper, to
row them; because, if they did hook a salmon, Eddie explained, they
would want somebody to “low” the boat, and follow the fish wherever he
went. Eddie looked very unhappy that he himself had not this duty, of
which he evidently thought he was capable. But when his father told him
he could not go, he obeyed, as he always did. He was very fond of his
father.
The three boys, Maurice, Eddie, and Franky,--Phil, alas! was too ill
to be much excited, even over salmon-fishing,--resigned themselves
to fate, and made the best of things by climbing on the drawing-room
table, which stood in front of the window, and thence watching the boat
as it moved slowly up and down the gray loch, with the four motionless
figures sitting in it,--sitting contentedly soaking. The little boys,
Eddie especially, would willingly have sat and soaked too, if allowed.
At length, as some slight consolation, and to prevent Eddie’s dangling
his legs out at the open window, letting in the wind and the rain, and
running imminent risk of tumbling out, twenty feet or so, down to the
terrace below, Sunny’s mamma brought a book of German pictures, and
proposed telling stories out of them.
They were very funny pictures, and have been Little Sunshine’s delight
for many months. So she, as the owner, displayed them proudly to the
rest, and it having been arranged with some difficulty how six pairs
of eyes could look over the same book, the party arranged themselves
thus: Sunny’s mamma sat on the hearth-rug, with her own child on her
lap, Austin Thomas on one side, and Phil on the other; while Maurice,
Eddie, and Franky managed as well as they could to look over her
shoulders. There was a general sense of smothering and huddling up,
like a sparrow’s nest when the young ones are growing a little too
big, but everybody appeared happy. Now and then, Sunshine knitted her
brows fiercely, as she can knit them on occasion, when Austin Thomas
came crawling too close upon her mamma’s lap, with his intrusively
affectionate “Danmamma,” but no open quarrel broke out. The room was so
cosy and bright with firelight, and everybody was so comfortable, that
they had almost forgotten the rain outside, also the salmon-fishing,
when the door suddenly opened, and in burst the cook.
Mary was a kind, warm-hearted Highland woman, always ready to do
anything for anybody, and particularly devoted to the children. Gaelic
was easier to her than English always, but now she was so excited that
she could hardly get out her words.
“Master’s hooked a salmon! He’s been crying” (calling) “on Neil to get
out another boat and come to him. It must be a very big salmon, for
he is playing him up and down the loch. They’ve been at it these ten
minutes and more.”
Mary’s excitement affected the mistress, who laid down her baby. “Where
are they? Has anybody seen them?”
“Anybody, ma’am? Why, everybody’s down at the shore looking at them.
The minister, too; he was passing, and stopped to see.”
As a matter of course, cook evidently thought. Even a minister could
not pass by such an interesting sight. Nor did she seem in the least
surprised when the mistress sent for her waterproof cloak, and, drawing
the hood over her head, went deliberately out into the pelting rain,
Maurice and Franky following. As for Eddie, at the first mention of
salmon, he had been off like a shot, and was now seen standing on the
very edge of the pier, gesticulating with all his might for somebody to
take him into a boat. Alas! in vain.
Never was there such an all-absorbing salmon. As Mary had said, the
whole household was out watching him and his proceedings. The baby,
Austin Thomas, Sunny, and Sunny’s mamma were left alone, to take care
of one another.
These settled down again in front of the fire, and Sunny, who had been
a little bewildered by the confusion, recovered herself, and, not at
all alive to the importance of salmon-fishing, resumed her entreating
whisper:
“’Bout German pictures, mamma; tell me ’bout German pictures.”
And she seemed quite glad to go back to her old ways; for this little
girl likes nothing better than snuggling into her mamma’s lap, on the
hearth-rug, and being told about German pictures.
They came to her all the way from Germany as a present from a kind
German friend, and some of them are very funny. They make regular
stories, a story on each page. One is about a little greedy boy, so
like a pig, that at last, being caught with a sweetmeat by an old
witch, she turns him into a pig in reality. He is put into a sty, and
just about to be killed, when his sister comes in to save him with a
fairy rose in her hand; the witch falls back, stuck through with her
own carving-knife, and poor piggy-wiggy, touched by the magic rose,
turns into a little boy again. Then there is another page, “’bout
effelants,” as Sunny calls them,--a papa elephant and a baby elephant
taking a walk together. They come across the first Indian railway, and
the papa elephant, who has never seen a telegraph wire before, is very
angry at it and pulls it down with his trunk. Then there comes whizzing
past a railway-train, which makes him still more indignant, as he does
not understand it at all. He talks very seriously on the subject to
his little son, who listens with a respectful air. Then, determined to
put an end to such nuisances, this wise papa elephant marches right in
front of the next train that passes. He does not stop it, of course,
but it stops him, cutting him up into little pieces, and throwing him
on either side the line. At which the little elephant is so frightened
that you see him taking to his heels, very solid heels too, and running
right away.
Sunny heard this story for the hundredth time, delighted as ever, and
then tried to point out to Austin Thomas which was the papa “effelant,”
and which the baby “effelant.” But Austin Thomas’s more infantile
capacity did not take it in; he only “scrumpled” the pages with his fat
hands, and laughed. There might soon have been an open war if mamma had
not soothed her little girl’s wounded feelings by the great felicity
of taking off her shoes and stockings, and letting her warm her little
feet by the fire, while she lay back on her mamma’s lap, sucking her
Maymie’s apron.
The whole group were in this state of perfect peace, outside it had
grown dark, and mamma had stirred the fire and promised to begin a
quite new story, when the door again opened and Eddie rushed in.
Maurice and Franky followed, wet, of course, to the skin,--for each
left a little pool of water behind him wherever he stood,--but
speechless with excitement. Shortly after, up came the three gentlemen,
likewise silent, but not from excitement at all.
“But where’s the salmon?” asked Sunny’s mamma. “Pray let us see the
salmon.”
Maurice’s papa looked as solemn as--what shall I say?--the renowned
Buff, when he
“Strokes his face with a sorrowful grace,
And delivers his staff to the next place.”
He delivered his--no, it was not a stick, but a “tommy” hat, all
ornamented with fishing-flies, and dripping with rain, to anybody that
would hang it up, and sank into a chair, saying, mournfully:
“You can’t see the salmon.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s at the bottom of the loch. He got away.”
“Got away!”
“Yes, after giving us a run of a full hour.”
“An hour and five minutes by my watch,” added Sunny’s papa, who looked
as dejected as the other two. Though no salmon-fisher, he had been so
excited by the sport that he had sat drenched through and through, in
the stern of the boat, and afterward declared “he didn’t know it had
rained.”
“Such a splendid fish he was,--twenty-five pounds at least.”
“Twenty,” suggested some one, who was put down at once with scorn.
“Twenty-five, I am certain, for he rose several times, and I saw
him plain. So did Donald. Oh, what a fish he was! And he bit upon a
trout-line! To think that we should have had that one trout-line with
us, and he chose it. It could hardly hold him, of course. He required
the tenderest management. We gave him every chance.” (Of being killed,
poor fish!) “The minute he was hooked, I threw the oars to Donald, who
pulled beautifully, humouring him up and down, and you should have seen
the dashes he made! He was so strong,--such a big fish!”
“Such a big fish!” echoed Eddie, who stood listening with open mouth
and eyes that gradually became as melancholy as his father’s.
“And, as I said, we played him for an hour and five minutes. He was
getting quite exhausted, and I had just called to Neil to row close and
put the gaff under him, when he came up to the surface,--I declare,
just as if he wanted to have a stare at me,--then made a sudden
dart, right under the boat. No line could stand that, a trout-line
especially.”
“So he got away?”
“Of course he did, with my hook in his mouth, the villain! I dare say
he has it there still.”
It did occur to Sunny’s mamma that the fish was fully as uncomfortable
as the fisherman, but she durst not suggest this for the world.
Evidently, the salmon had conducted himself in a most unwarrantable
manner, and was worthy of universal condemnation.
Even after the confusion had a little abated, and the younger children
were safely in bed, twenty times during tea he was referred to in the
most dejected manner, and his present position angrily speculated
upon,--whether he would keep the hook in his mouth for the remainder of
his natural life, or succeed in rubbing it off among the weeds at the
bottom of the loch.
“To be sure he will, and be just as cheerful as ever, the wretch! Oh,
that I had him,--hook and all! For it was one of my very best flies.”
“Papa, if you would let me ‘low’ you in the boat, while you fished,
perhaps he might come and bite again to-morrow?”
This deep diplomatic suggestion of Eddie’s did not meet with half the
success it deserved. Nobody noticed it except his mother, and she only
smiled.
“Well!” she said, trying to cheer up the mournful company, “misfortunes
can’t be helped sometimes. It is sad. Twenty-five pounds of fish;
boiled, fried into steaks, kippered. Oh, dear! what a help in the
feeding of the household!”
“Yes,” said the patient gentleman, who, being unable to walk, could
only sit and fish, and, having come all the way from London to catch
a salmon, had never yet had a bite except this one. “Yes, twenty-five
pounds at two shillings the pound,--Billingsgate price now. That makes
two-pound-ten of good English money gone to the bottom of the loch!”
Everybody laughed at this practical way of putting the matter, and
the laugh a little raised the spirits of the gentlemen. Though still
they mourned, and mourned, looking as wretched as if they had lost
their whole families in the loch, instead of that unfortunate--or
fortunate--salmon.
“It isn’t myself I care for,” lamented Maurice’s papa. “It’s you
others. For I know you will have no other chance. The rain will clear
off--it’s clearing off now, into a beautiful starlight night. To-morrow
will be another of those dreadfully sunshiny days. Not a fish will
bite, and you will have to go home at the week’s end,--and there’s that
salmon lying snugly in his hole, with my hook in his mouth!”
“Never mind,” said the patient gentleman, who, though really the most
to be pitied, bore his disappointment better than anybody. “There’s
plenty of fish in the loch, for I’ve seen them every day jumping up;
and somebody will catch them, if I don’t. After all, we had an hour’s
good sport with that fellow to-day,--and it was all the better for him
that he got away.”
With which noble sentiment the good man took one of the boys on his
knee,--his godson, for whom he was planning an alliance with his
daughter, a young lady of four and a half,--and began discussing the
settlements he expected; namely, a large cake on her side, and on the
young gentleman’s, at least ten salmon out of the loch, to be sent in a
basket to London. With this he entertained both children and parents,
so that everybody grew merry as usual, and the lost salmon fell into
the category of misfortunes over which the best dirge is the shrewd
Scotch proverb, “It’s nae use greeting ower spilt milk.”
CHAPTER IX.
The forebodings of the disappointed salmon-fishers turned out true.
That wet Monday was the first and last day of rain, for weeks. Scarcely
ever had such a dry season been known in the glen. Morning after
morning the gentlemen rowed out in a hopeless manner, taking their
rods with them, under a sky cloudless and hot as June; evening after
evening, if the slightest ripple arose, they went out again, and
floated about lazily in the gorgeous sunset, but not a salmon would
bite. Fish after fish, each apparently bigger than the other, kept
jumping up, sometimes quite close to the boat. Some must have swum
under the line and looked at it, made an examination of the fly and
laughed at it, but as for swallowing it, oh, dear, no! Not upon any
account.
What was most tantalising, the gardener, going out one day, without
orders, and with one of his master’s best lines, declared he had hooked
a splendid salmon! As it got away, and also carried off the fly, a
valuable one, perhaps it was advisable to call it a salmon, but nobody
quite believed this. It might have been only a large trout.
By degrees, as salmon-fishing, never plentiful, became hopeless, and
game scarcer than ever, the gentlemen waxed dull, and began to catch
at the smallest amusements. They grew as excited as the little boys
over nutting-parties, going in whole boat-loads to the other side of
the loch, and promising to bring home large bags of nuts for winter
consumption, but somehow the nuts all got eaten before the boats
reached land.
The clergyman was often one of the nutting-party. He knew every nook
and corner of the country around, was equally good at an oar or a
fishing-rod, could walk miles upon miles across the mountains, and
scramble over rocks as light as a deer. Besides, he was so kind to
children, and took such pleasure in pleasing them, that he earned their
deepest gratitude, as young things understand gratitude. But they are
loving, anyhow, to those that love them, and to have those little
boys climbing over him, and hanging about him, and teasing him on all
occasions to give them “a low,” was, I dare say, sufficient reward for
the good minister.
Sunny liked him, too, very much, and was delighted to go out with him.
But there was such dangerous emulation between her and the boys in
the matter of “fishing” for dead leaves with a stick, which involved
leaning over the boat’s side and snatching at them when caught, and
mamma got so many frights, that she was not sorry when the minister
announced that every nut-tree down the canal had been “harried” of its
fruit, and henceforward people must content themselves with dry land
and blackberries.
This was not an exciting sport, and one day the gentlemen got so hard
up for amusement that they spent half the morning in watching some
gymnastics of Maurice and Eddie, which consisted in climbing up to
their papa’s shoulder and sitting on his head. (A proceeding which
Sunny admired so, that she never rested till she partly imitated it by
“walking up mamma as if she was a tree,” which she did at last like a
little acrobat.)
Children and parents became quite interested in their mutual
performances; everybody laughed a good deal, and forgot to grumble at
the weather, when news arrived that a photographer, coming through the
glen, had stopped at the house, wishing to know if the family would
like their portraits taken.
Now, anybody, not an inhabitant, coming through the glen, was an object
of interest in this lonely place. But a photographer! Maurice’s papa
caught at the idea enthusiastically.
“Have him in, by all means. Let us see his pictures. Let us have
ourselves done in a general group.”
“And the children,” begged their mamma. “Austin Thomas has never been
properly taken, and baby not at all. I must have a portrait of baby.”
“Also,” suggested somebody, “we might as well take a portrait of the
mountains. They’ll sit for it quiet enough; which is more than can be
said for the children, probably.”
It certainly was. Never had a photographer a more hard-working morning.
No blame to the weather, which (alas, for the salmon-fishers!) was
perfect as ever; but the difficulty of catching the sitters and
arranging them, and keeping them steady, was enormous.
First the servants all wished to be taken; some separately, and then
in a general group, which was arranged beside the kitchen door, the
scullery being converted into a “dark room” for the occasion. One
after the other, the maids disappeared, and re-appeared full-dressed,
in the most wonderful crinolines and chignons, but looking not half
so picturesque as a Highland farm-girl, who, in her woollen striped
petticoat and short gown, with her dark red hair knotted up behind,
sat on the wall of the yard contemplating the proceedings.
The children ran hither and thither, highly delighted, except Franky
and Austin Thomas, who were made to suffer a good deal, the latter
being put into a stiff white piqué frock, braided with black braid,
which looked exactly as if some one had mistaken him for a sheet of
letter-paper and begun to write upon him; while Franky, dressed in
his Sunday’s best, with his hair combed and face clean, was in an
aggravating position for his ordinary week-day amusements. He consoled
himself by running in and out among the servants, finally sticking
himself in the centre of the group, and being depicted there, as
natural as life.
A very grand picture it was, the men-servants being in front,--Highland
men always seem to consider themselves superior beings, and are
seen lounging about and talking, while the women are shearing, or
digging, or hoeing potatoes. The maids stood in a row behind, bolt
upright, smiling as hard as they could, and little Franky occupied the
foreground, placed between the gardener’s knees. A very successful
photograph, and worthy of going down to posterity, as doubtless it will.
Now for the children. The baby, passive in an embroidered muslin frock,
came out, of course, as a white mass with something resembling a face
at the top; but Austin Thomas was a difficult subject. He wouldn’t sit
still, no, not for a minute, but kept wriggling about on the kitchen
chair that was brought for him, and looked so miserable in his stiff
frock, that his expression was just as if he were going to be whipped,
and didn’t like it at all.
In vain Franky, who always patronised and protected his next youngest
brother in the tenderest way, began consoling him: “Never mind,
sonnie,”--that was Franky’s pet name for Austin,--“they sha’n’t hurt
you. I’ll take care they don’t hurt you.”
Still the great black thing, with the round glass eye fixed upon
him, was too much for Austin’s feelings. He wriggled, and wriggled,
and never would this likeness have been taken at all,--at least that
morning,--if somebody had not suggested “a piece.” Off flew Mary, the
cook, and brought back the largest “piece”--bread with lots of jam upon
it--that ever little Scotchman revelled in. Austin took it, and being
with great difficulty made to understand that he must pause in eating
now and then, the photographer seized the happy moment, and took him
between his mouthfuls, with Franky keeping guard over him the while,
lest anybody did him any harm. And a very good picture it is, though
neither boy is quite handsome enough, of course. No photographs ever
are.
Little Sunshine, meanwhile, had been deeply interested in the whole
matter. She was quite an old hand at it, having herself sat for her
photograph several times.
“Would you like to see my likenesses?” she kept asking anybody or
everybody; and brought down the whole string of them, describing them
one by one: “Sunny in her mamma’s arms, when she was a little baby,
very cross;” “Sunny just going to cry;” “Sunny in a boat;” “Sunny
sitting on a chair;” “Sunny with her shoes and stockings off, kicking
over a basket;” and lastly (the little show-woman always came to this
with a scream of delight), “That’s my papa and mamma, Sunny’s own papa
and mamma, both together!”
Though then she had not been in the least afraid of the camera, but,
when the great glass eye looked at her, looked steadily at it back,
still she did not seem to like it now. She crept beside her mamma and
her Lizzie, looking on with curiosity, but keeping a long way off, till
the groups were done.
There were a few more taken, in one of which Sunny stood in the doorway
in her Lizzie’s arms.
And her papa and mamma, who meanwhile had taken a good long walk up
the hill-road, came back in time to figure in two rows of black dots
on either side of a shady road, which were supposed to be portraits
of the whole party. The mountains opposite also sat for their
likenesses,--which must have been a comfort to the photographer, as
they at least could not “move.” But, on the whole, the honest man made
a good morning’s work, and benefited considerably thereby.
Which was more than the household did. For, as was natural, the cook
being dressed so beautifully, the dinner was left pretty much to dress
itself. Franky and Austin Thomas suffered so much from having on their
best clothes that they did not get over it for ever so long. And Sunny,
too, upset by these irregular proceedings, when taking a long-promised
afternoon walk with her papa, was as cross as such a generally good
little girl could be, insisting on being carried the whole way, and
carried only by her mamma. And though, as mamma often says, “she
wouldn’t sell her for her weight in gold,” she is a pretty considerable
weight to carry on a warm afternoon.
Still the day had passed pleasantly away, the photographs were all
done, to remain as memorials of the holiday, long after it was ended.
In years to come, when the children are all men and women, they may
discover them in some nook or other, and try to summon up faint
recollections of the time. Oh, if Little Sunshine might never cry
except to be carried in mamma’s arms! and Austin Thomas find no sorer
affliction in life than sitting to be photographed in stiff white
clothes!
But that cannot be. They must all bear their burdens, as their parents
did. May God take care of them when we can do it no more!
The week had rolled by,--weeks roll by so fast!--and it was again
Sunday, the last Sunday at the glen, and just such another as before:
calm, still, sunshiny; nothing but peace on earth and sky. Peace!
when far away beyond the circle of mountains within which parents and
children were enjoying such innocent pleasures, such deep repose,
there was going on, for other parents and children, the terrible siege
of Paris. Week by week, and day by day, the Germans were closing in
round the doomed city, making ready to destroy by fire, or sword, or
famine,--all sent by man’s hand, not God’s,--hundreds, thousands of
innocent enemies. Truly, heaven will have been well filled, and earth
well emptied during the year 1870.
What a glorious summer it was, as to weather, will long be remembered
in Scotland. Even up to this Sunday, the 2d of October, the air was
balmy and warm as June. Everybody gathered outside on the terrace,
including the forlorn salmon-fishers, whose last hope was now
extinguished; for the patient gentleman, and Sunny’s papa, too, were to
leave next morning. And the fish jumped up in the glassy loch, livelier
than ever, as if they were having a special jubilee in honour of their
foe’s departure.
He sat resigned and cheerful, smoking his cigar, and protesting that,
with all his piscatory disappointments, this was the loveliest place he
had ever been in, and that he had spent the pleasantest of holidays!
There he was left to enjoy his last bit of the mountains and loch in
quiet content, while everybody else went to church.
Even Little Sunshine. For her mamma and papa had taken counsel together
whether it was not possible for her to be good there, so as at least to
be no hindrance to other people’s going, which was as much as could be
expected for so small a child. Papa doubted this, but mamma pleaded for
her little girl, and promised to keep her good if possible. She herself
had a great desire that the first time ever Sunny went to church should
be in this place.
So they had a talk together, mamma and Sunny, in which mamma explained
that Sunny might go to church, as Maurice and Eddie did, if she would
sit quite quiet, as she did at prayers, and promise not to speak
one word, as nobody ever spoke in church excepting the minister.
She promised, this little girl who has such a curious feeling
about keeping a promise, and allowed herself to be dressed without
murmuring--nay, with a sort of dignified pride--to “go to church.” She
even condescended to have her gloves put on, always a severe trial; and
never was there a neater little figure, all in white from top to toe,
with a white straw hat, as simple as possible, and the yellow curls
tumbling down from under it. As she put her little hand in her mamma’s
and they two started together, somewhat in advance of the rest, for
it was a long half-mile for such baby feet, her mamma involuntarily
thought of a verse in a poem she learnt when she herself was a little
girl:
“Thy dress was like the lilies,
And thy heart was pure as they;
One of God’s holy angels
Did walk with me that day.”
Only Sunny was not an angel, but an ordinary little girl. A good little
girl generally, but capable of being naughty sometimes. She will have
to try hard to be good every day of her life, as we all have. Still,
with her sweet, grave face, and her soft, pretty ways, there was
something of the angel about her this day.
Her mamma tried to make her understand, in a dim way, what “church”
meant,--that it was saying “thank you” to God, as mamma did
continually; especially for His giving her her little daughter. How He
lived up in the sky, and nobody saw Him, but He saw everybody; how He
loved Little Sunshine, just as her papa and mamma loved her, and was
glad when she was good, and grieved when she was naughty. This was all
the child could possibly take in, and even thus much was doubtful; but
she listened, seeming as if she comprehended a small fragment of the
great mystery which even we parents understand so little. Except that
when we look at our children, and feel how dearly we love them, how
much we would both do and sacrifice for them, how if we have to punish
them it is never in anger but in anguish and pain, suffering twice as
much ourselves the while,--then we can faintly understand how He who
put such love into us, must Himself love infinitely more, and meant us
to believe this, when He called Himself our Father. Therefore it was
that through her papa’s and mamma’s love Sunny could best be taught her
first dim idea of God.
She walked along very sedately, conversing by the way, and not
attempting to dart from side to side, after one object or another, as
this butterfly child always does on a week-day. But Sunday, and Sunday
clothes, conduced exceedingly to proper behaviour. Besides, she felt
that she was her mamma’s companion, and was proud accordingly. Until,
just before reaching the church, came a catastrophe which certainly
could not have happened in any other church-going walk than this.
A huge, tawny-coloured bull stood in the centre of the road, with half
a dozen cows and calves behind him. They moved away, feeding leisurely
on either side the road, but the bull held his ground, looking at mamma
and Sunny from under his shaggy brows, as if he would like to eat them
up.
“Mamma, take her!” whispered the poor little girl, rather frightened,
but neither crying nor screaming.
Mamma popped her prayer-book in her pocket, dropped her parasol on
the ground, and took up her child on her left arm, leaving the right
arm free. A fortnight ago she would have been alarmed, but now she
understood the ways of these Highland cattle, and that they were not
half so dangerous as they looked. Besides, the fiercest animal will
often turn before a steady, fearless human eye. So they stood still,
and faced the bull, even Sunny meeting the creature with a gaze as firm
and courageous as her mamma’s. He stood it for a minute or so, then he
deliberately turned tail, and walked up the hillside.
“The big bull didn’t hurt Sunny! He wouldn’t hurt little Sunny, would
he, mamma?” said she, as they walked on together. She has the happiest
conviction that no creature in the world would ever be so unkind as
to hurt Sunny. How should it, when she is never unkind to any living
thing? When the only living thing that ever she saw hurt--a wasp that
crept into the carriage, and stung Sunny on her poor little leg, and
her nurse was so angry that she killed it on the spot--caused the child
a troubled remembrance. She talked, months afterward, with a grave
countenance, of “the wasp that was obliged to be killed, because it
stung Sunny.”
She soon looked benignly at the big bull, now standing watching her
from the hillside, and wanted to play with the little calves, who
still stayed feeding near. She was also very anxious to know if
they were going to church too? But before the question--a rather
puzzling one--could be answered, she was overtaken by the rest of the
congregation, including Maurice and Eddie with their parents. The two
boys only smiled at her, and walked into church, so good and grave
that Sunny was impressed into preternatural gravity too. When the rest
were seated, she, holding her mamma’s hand, walked quietly in as if
accustomed to it all and joined the congregation.
The seat they chose was, for precaution, the one nearest the door, and
next to “_the_ pauper,” an old man who alone of all the inhabitants of
the glen did not work, but received parish relief. He was just able to
come to church, but looked as if he had “one foot in the grave,” as
people say (whither, indeed, the other foot soon followed, for the poor
old man died not many weeks after this Sunday). He had a wan, weary,
but uncomplaining face; and as the rosy child, with her bright curls,
her fair, fresh cheeks, and plump, round limbs, sat down upon the bench
beside him, the two were a strange and touching contrast.
[Illustration: Two little churchgoers.]
Never did any child behave better than Little Sunshine, on this her
first going to church. Yes, even though she soon caught sight of her
own papa, sitting a few benches off, but afraid to look at her lest she
should misbehave. Also of Maurice’s papa and mamma, and of Maurice and
Eddie themselves, not noticing her at all, and behaving beautifully.
She saw them, but, faithful to her promise, she did not speak one word,
not even in a whisper to mamma. She allowed herself to be lifted up
and down, to sit or stand as the rest did, and when the music began
she listened with an ecstasy of pleasure on her little face; but
otherwise she conducted herself as well as if she had been thirteen
instead of not quite three years old. Once only, when the prayers were
half through, and the church was getting warm, she gravely took off
her hat and laid it on the bench before her,--sitting the rest of the
service with her pretty curls bare,--but that was all.
During the sermon she was severely tried. Not by its length, for it was
fortunately short, and she sat on her mamma’s lap, looking fixedly into
the face of the minister, as pleased with him in his new position as
when he was rowing her in the boat, or gathering nuts for her along the
canal bank. All were listening, as attentive as possible, for everybody
loved him, Sundays and week-days; and even Sunny herself gazed as
earnestly as if she were taking in every word he said,--when her quick
little eyes were caught by a new interest,--a small, shaggy Scotch
terrier, who put his wise-looking head inquiringly in at the open door.
Oh, why was the church door left open? No doubt, so thought the
luckless master of that doggie! He turned his face away; he kept as
quiet as possible, hoping not to be discovered; but the faithful animal
was too much for him. In an ecstasy of joy, the creature rushed in and
out and under several people’s legs, till he got to the young man
who owned him, and then jumped upon him in unmistakable recognition.
Happily, he did not bark; indeed, his master, turning red as a peony,
held his hand over the creature’s mouth.
What was to be done? If he scolded the dog, or beat him, there would be
a disturbance immediately; if he encouraged or caressed him, the loving
beast would have begun--in fact, he did slightly begin--a delighted
whine. All the perplexed master could do was to keep him as quiet as
circumstances allowed, which he managed somehow by setting his foot on
the wildly wagging tail, and twisting his fingers in one of the long
ears, the dog resisting not at all. Quite content, if close to his
master, the faithful beast snuggled down, amusing himself from time to
time by gnawing first a hat and then an umbrella, and giving one small
growl as an accidental footstep passed down the road; but otherwise
behaving as well as anybody in church. The master, too, tried to face
out his difficulty, and listen as if nothing was the matter; but I
doubt he rather lost the thread of the sermon.
So did Sunny’s mamma for a few minutes. Sunny is so fond of little
doggies, that she fully expected the child to jump from her lap, and
run after this one; or, at least, to make a loud remark concerning it,
for the benefit of the congregation generally. But Sunny evidently
remembered that “nobody spoke in church;” and possibly she regarded the
dog’s entrance as a portion of the service, for she maintained the most
decorous gravity. She watched him, of course, with all her eyes; and
once she turned with a silent appeal to her mamma to look too, but said
not a word. The little terrier himself did not behave better than she,
to the very end of the service.
It ended with a beautiful hymn,--“O Thou from whom all goodness flows.”
Everybody knows it, and the tune too; which I think was originally
one of those sweet litanies to the Virgin which one hears in French
churches, especially during the month of May. The little congregation
knew it well, and sang it well, too. When Sunny saw them all stand up,
she of her own accord stood up likewise, mounting the bench beside the
old pauper, who turned half round, and looked on the pleasant child
with a faint, pathetic sort of smile.
Strange it was to stand and watch the different people who stood
singing, or listening to, that hymn; Maurice and Eddie, with their
papa and mamma; other papas and mammas with their little ones; farmers
and farm-servants who lived in the glen, with a chance tourist or
two who happened to be passing through; several old Highland women,
grim and gaunt with long, hard-working lives; the poor old pauper,
who did not know that his life was so nearly over; and lastly, the
little three-year-old child, with her blue eyes wide open and her rosy
lips parted, not stirring a foot or a finger, perfectly motionless
with delight. Verse after verse rose the beautiful hymn, not the less
beautiful because so familiar:
“O Thou from whom all goodness flows,
I lift my soul to Thee;
In all my sorrows, conflicts, woes,
O Lord, remember me!
“When on my aching, burdened heart,
My sins lie heavily,
Thy pardon grant, Thy peace impart,
In love, remember me!
“When trials sore obstruct my way,
And ills I cannot flee,
Oh I let my strength be as my day,
For good, remember me!
“When worn with pain, disease, and grief,
This feeble body see,
Give patience, rest, and kind relief,
Hear, and remember me!
“When in the solemn hour of death
I wait Thy just decree,
Be this the prayer of my last breath,
‘O Lord, remember me!’”
As Little Sunshine stood there, unconsciously moving her baby lips to
the pretty tune,--ignorant of all the words and their meaning,--her
mother, not ignorant, took the tiny soft hand in hers and said for her
in her heart, “Amen.”
When the hymn was done, the congregation passed slowly out of church,
most of them stopping to speak or shake hands, for of course all knew
one another, and several were neighbours and friends. Then at last
Sunny’s papa ventured to take up his little girl, and kiss her, telling
her what a very good little girl she had been, and how pleased he was
to see it. The minister, walking home between Maurice and Eddie, who
seized upon him at once, turned round to say that he had never known a
little girl, taken to church for the first time, behave so remarkably
well. And though she was too young to understand anything except that
she had been a good girl, and everybody loved her and was pleased with
her, still Sunny also looked pleased, as if satisfied that church-going
was a sweet and pleasant thing.
CHAPTER X.
Little Sunshine’s delicious holiday--equally delicious to her papa and
mamma, too--was now fast drawing to a close. This Sunday sunset, more
gorgeous perhaps than ever, was the last that the assembled party of
big and little people watched together from the terrace. By the next
Sunday, they knew, all of them would be scattered far and wide, in all
human probability never again to meet, as a collective party, in this
world. For some of them had come from the “under world,” the Antipodes,
and were going back thither in a few months, and all had their homes
and fortunes widely dispersed, so as to make their chances of future
reunion small.
They were sorry to part, I think,--even those who were nearly strangers
to one another,--and those who were friends were very sorry indeed. The
children, of course, were not sorry at all, for they understood nothing
about the matter. For instance, it did not occur in the least to Sunny
or to Austin Thomas (still viewing one another with suspicious eyes,
and always on the brink of war, though Sunny kept her promise, and did
not attack again), that the next time they met might be as big boy and
girl, learning lessons, and not at all disposed to fight; or else as
grown young man and woman, obliged to be polite to one another whether
they liked it or not.
But the elders were rather grave, and watched the sun set, or rather
not the sun,--for he was always invisible early in the afternoon, the
house being placed on the eastern slope of the hill,--but the sunset
glow on the range of mountains opposite. Which, as the light gradually
receded upward, the shadow pursuing, had been, evening after evening,
the loveliest sight imaginable. This night especially, the hills seemed
to turn all colours, fading at last into a soft gray, but keeping their
outlines distinct long after the loch and valley were left dark.
So, good-bye, sun! When he rose again, two of the party would be on
board a steamboat,--_the_ steamboat, for there was but one,--sailing
away southward, where there were no hills, no lochs, no salmon-fishing,
no idle, sunshiny days,--nothing but work, work, work. For “grown-ups,”
as Sunny calls them, do really work; though, as a little girl once
observed pathetically to Sunny’s mamma, “Oh, I wish I was grown up,
and then I might be idle! We children have to work _so_ hard! while
you and my mamma do nothing all day long.” (Oh, dear!)
Well, work is good, and pleasant too; though perhaps Sunny’s papa did
not exactly think so, when he gave her her good-night kiss, which
was also good-bye. For he was to start so early in the morning that
it was almost the middle of the night, in order to catch the steamer
which should touch at the pier ten miles off, between six and seven
A. M. Consequently, there was breakfast by candle-light, and hasty
adieux, and a dreary departure of the carriage under the misty morning
starlight; everybody making an effort to be jolly, and not quite
accomplishing it. Then everybody, or as many as had had courage to
rise, went to bed again, and tried to sleep, with varied success,
Sunny’s mamma with none at all.
It recurred to her, as a curious coincidence, that this very day,
twenty-five years before, after sitting up all night, she had watched,
solemnly as one never does it twice in a lifetime, a glorious sunrise.
She thought she would go out and watch another, from the hillside, over
the mountains.
My children, did you ever watch a sunrise? No? Then go and do it as
soon as ever you can. Not lazily from your bedroom window, but out
in the open air, where you seem to hear and see the earth gradually
waking up, as she does morning after morning, each waking as wonderful
and beautiful as if she had not done the same for thousands of years,
and may do it for thousands more.
When the carriage drove off, it was still starlight,--morning
starlight, pale, dreary, and excessively cold; but now a faint coloured
streak of dawn began to put the stars out, and creep up and up behind
the curves of the eastern hills. Gradually the daylight increased,--it
was clear enough to see things, though everything looked cheerless and
gray. The grass and heather were not merely damp, but soaking wet, and
over the loch and its low-lying shores was spread a shroud of white
mist. There was something almost painful in the intense stillness; it
felt as if all the world were dead and buried, and when suddenly a cock
crew from the farm, he startled one as if he had been a ghost.
But the mountains,--the mountains! Turning eastward, to look at them,
all the dullness, solitude, and dreariness of the lower world vanished.
They stood literally bathed in light, as the sun rose up behind them,
higher and higher, brighter and brighter, every minute. Suddenly an
arrow of light shot across the valley, and touched the flat granite
boulder on which, after a rather heavy climb, Sunny’s mamma had
succeeded in perching herself like a large bird, tucking her feet under
her, and wrapping herself up as tightly as possible in her plaid, as
some slight protection against the damp cold. But when the sunshine
came, chilliness and cheerlessness vanished. And as the beam broadened,
it seemed to light up the whole world.
How she longed for her child, not merely for company, though that would
have been welcome in the extreme solitude, but that she might show
her, what even such baby eyes could not but have seen,--the exceeding
beauty of God’s earth, and told her how it came out of the love of God,
who loved the world and all that was in it. How He loved Sunny, and
would take care of her all her life, as He had taken care of her, and
of her mamma, too. How, if she were good and loved Him back again, He
would be sure to make for her, through all afflictions, a happy life;
since, like the sunrise, “His mercies are new every morning, and His
compassions fail not.”
Warmer and warmer the cold rock grew; a few birds began to twitter, the
cocks crowed from the farmyard, and from one of the cottages a slender
line of blue peat smoke crept up, showing that somebody else was awake
besides Sunny’s mamma; which was rather a comfort,--she was getting
tired of having the world all to herself.
Presently an old woman came out of a cottage-door, and went to the burn
for water, probably to make her morning porridge. A tame sheep followed
her, walking leisurely to the burn and back again, perhaps with an eye
to the porridge-pot afterward. And a lazy pussy-cat also crept out, and
climbed on the roof of the cottage, for a little bit of sunshine before
breakfast. Sunny’s mamma also began to feel that it was time to see
about breakfast, for sunrise on the mountains makes one very hungry.
Descending the hill was worse than ascending, there being no regular
track, only some marks of where the sheep were in the habit of
climbing. And the granite rocks presented a flat, sloping surface,
sometimes bare, sometimes covered with slippery moss, which was not
too agreeable. Elsewhere, the ground was generally boggy with tufts
of heather between, which one might step or jump. But as soon as one
came to a level bit it was sure to be bog, with little streams running
through it, which had to be crossed somehow, even without the small
convenience of stepping-stones.
Once, when her stout stick alone saved her from a sprained ankle, she
amused herself with thinking how in such a case she might have shouted
vainly for help, and how bewildered the old woman at the cottage would
have been on finding out that the large creature, a sheep as she had
probably supposed, sitting on the boulder overhead, which she had
looked up at once or twice, was actually a wandering lady!
It was now half-past seven, and the usual breakfast party on the
door-step was due at eight. Welcome was the sound of little voices, and
the patter of small eager feet along the gravel walk. Sunny’s mamma had
soon her own child in her arms and the other children around her, all
eating bread and butter and drinking milk with the greatest enjoyment.
The sun was now quite warm, and the mist had furled off the loch,
leaving it clear and smooth as ever.
Suddenly Eddie’s sharp eyes caught something there which quite
interrupted his meal. It was a water-fowl, swimming in and out among
the island of water-lilies, and even coming as close inshore as
the pier. Not one of the nine geese, certainly; this bird was dark
coloured, and small, yet seemed larger than the water-hens, which also
were familiar to the children. Some one suggested it might possibly be
a wild duck.
Eddie’s eyes brightened. “Then might I ‘low’ in a boat, with papa’s
gun, and go and shoot it?”
This being a too irregular proceeding, Sunny’s mamma proposed a medium
course, namely, that Eddie should inform his papa that there was a bird
supposed to be a wild duck, and then he might do as he thought best
about shooting it.
Maurice and Eddie were accordingly off like lightning; three of
Maurice’s worms which had taken the opportunity of crawling out of his
pocket and on to the tray, being soon afterward found leisurely walking
over the bread and butter plate. Franky and Austin Thomas took the
excitement calmly, the one thinking it a good chance of eating up his
brothers’ rejected shares, and the other proceeding unnoticed to his
favourite occupation of filling the salt-cellar with sand from the walk.
Soon Donald, who had also seen the bird, appeared, with his master’s
gun all ready, and the master, having got into his clothes in
preternaturally quick time, hurried down to the loch, his boys
accompanying him. Four persons, two big and two little, after one
unfortunate bird! which still kept swimming about, a tiny black dot on
the clear water, as happy and unconscious as possible.
The ladies, too, soon came out and watched the sport from the terrace;
wondering whether the duck was within range of the gun, and whether it
really was a wild duck, or not. A shot, heard from behind the trees,
deepened the interest; and when, a minute after, a boat containing
Maurice, Eddie, their papa, and Donald, was seen to pull off from the
pier, the excitement was so great that nobody thought about breakfast.
“It must be a wild duck; they have shot it; it will be floating on the
water, and they are going after it in the boat.”
“I hope Eddie will not tumble into the water, in his eagerness to pull
the bird out.”
“There,--the gun is in the boat with them! Suppose Maurice stumbles
over it, and it goes off and shoots somebody!”
Such were the maternal forebodings, but nothing of the sort happened,
and by and by, when breakfast was getting exceedingly cold, a little
procession, all unharmed, was seen to wind up from the loch, Eddie and
Maurice on either side of their papa.
He walked between them, shouldering his gun, so that, loaded or not,
it could not possibly hurt his little boys. But he looked extremely
dejected, and so did Donald, who followed, bearing “the body”--of a
poor little dripping, forlorn-looking bird.
“Is that the wild duck?” asked everybody at once.
“Pooh! It wasn’t a wild duck at all. It was only a large water-hen. Not
worth the trouble of shooting, certainly not of cooking. And then we
had all the bother of getting out the gun, and tramping over the wet
grass to get a fair shot, and, after we shot it, of rowing after it, to
fish it up out of the loch. Wretched bird!”
Donald, imitating his master, regarded the booty with the utmost
contempt, even kicking it with his foot as it lay, poor little thing!
But no kicks could harm it now. Sunny only went up and touched it
timidly, stroking its pretty, wet feathers with her soft little hand.
“Mamma, can’t it fly? why doesn’t it get up and fly away? And it is
so cold. Might Sunny warm it?” as she had once tried to warm the only
dead thing she ever saw,--a little field mouse lying on the garden walk
at home, which she put in her pinafore and cuddled up to her little
“bosie,” and carried about with her for half an hour or more.
Quite puzzled, she watched Donald carrying off the bird, and only half
accepted mamma’s explanation that “there was no need to warm it,--it
was gone to its bye-bye, and would not wake up any more.”
Though she was living at a shooting-lodge, this was the only dead thing
Sunny had yet chanced to see, for there was so little game about that
the gentlemen rarely shot any. But this morning one of them declared
that if he walked his legs off over the mountains, he must go and
have a try at something. So off he set, guided by Donald, while the
rest of the party fished meekly for trout, or went along the hill-road
on a still more humble hunt after blackberries. Sometimes they
wondered about the stray sportsman, and listened for gun-shots from
the hills,--the sound of a gun could be heard for so very far in this
still, bright weather.
And when, at the usual dinner-hour, he did not appear, they waited a
little while for him. They were going at length to begin the meal, when
he was seen coming leisurely along the garden walk.
Eager were the inquiries of the master.
“Well,--any grouse?”
“No.”
“Partridges?”
“No.”
“I knew it. There has not been a partridge seen here for years. Snipes,
perhaps?”
“Never saw one.”
“Then what have you been about? Have you shot nothing at all?”
“Not quite nothing. A roe-deer. The first I ever killed in my life.
Here, Donald.”
With all his brevity, the sportsman could not hide the sparkle of his
eye. Donald, looking equally delighted, unloosed the creature, which he
had been carrying around his neck in the most affectionate manner, its
fore legs clasped over one shoulder, and its hind legs over the other,
and laid it down on the gravel walk.
What a pretty creature it was, with its round, slender, shapely limbs,
its smooth satin skin, and its large eyes, that in life would have
been so soft and bright! They were dim and glazed now, though it was
scarcely cold yet.
Everybody gathered around to look at it, and the sportsman told the
whole story of his shot.
“She is a hind, you see; most likely has a fawn somewhere not far
off. For I shot her close by the farm here. I was coming home, not
over-pleased at coming so empty-handed, when I saw her standing on the
hill top, just over that rock there: a splendid shot she was, but so
far off that I never thought I should touch her. However, I took aim,
and down she dropped. Just feel her. She is an admirable creature, so
fat! Quite a picture!”
So it was, but a rather sad one. The deer lay, her graceful head
hopelessly dangling, and bloody drops beginning to ooze from her open
mouth.
Otherwise she might have been asleep,--as innocent. Sunny, who had run
with the boys to see the sight, evidently thought she was.
“Mamma, look at the little baa-lamb, the dear little baa-lamb. Won’t it
wake up?”
Mamma explained that it was not a baa-lamb, but a deer, and there
stopped, considering how to make her child understand that solemn
thing, death; which no child can be long kept in ignorance of, and yet
which is so difficult to explain. Meantime, Sunny stood looking at the
deer, but did not attempt to touch it as she had touched the water-hen.
It was so large a creature to lie there so helpless and motionless. At
last she looked up, with trouble in her eyes.
“Mamma, it won’t wake up. Make it wake up, please!”
“I can’t, my darling!” And there came a choke in mamma’s throat,--this
foolish mamma, who dislikes “sport,”--who looks upon soldiers as
man-slayers, “glory” as a great delusion, and war a heinous crime. “My
little one, the pretty deer has gone to sleep, and nobody can wake it
up again. But it does not suffer. Nothing hurts it now. Come away, and
mamma will tell you more about this another day.”
The little fingers contentedly twined themselves in her mamma’s, and
Sunshine came away, turning back now and then a slightly regretful
look on the poor hind that lay there, the admiration of everybody, and
especially of the gentleman who had shot it.
“The first I ever shot,” he repeated, with great pride. “I only wish
I could stay and eat her. But the rest of you will.” (Except Sunny’s
mamma, who was rather glad to be spared that satisfaction.)
A single day was now all that remained of the visit,--a day which
dawned finer than ever, making it so hard to quit the hills, and the
loch, and all the charms of this beautiful place. Not a cloud on the
sky, not a ripple on the waters, blackberries saying “come gather me,”
by hundreds from every bramble, ferns of rare sort growing on dikes,
and banks, and roots of trees. This whole morning must be spent on the
hillside by Sunny and her mamma, combining business with pleasure, if
possible.
So they took a kitchen knife as an extempore spade; a basket, filled
with provisions, but meant afterwards to carry roots, and the
well-known horn cup, which was familiar with so many burns. Sunny used
it for all sorts of purposes besides drinking; filled it with pebbles,
blackberries, and lastly with some doubtful vegetables, which she
called “ferns,” and dug up, and brought to her mamma to take home “very
carefully.”
Ere long she was left to mamma’s charge entirely, for this was the
last day, and Lizzie had never climbed a mountain, which she was most
anxious to do, having the common delusion that to climb a mountain is
the easiest thing in the world,--as it looks, from the bottom.
Off she started, saying she should be back again directly, leaving
mamma and the child to watch her from the latest point where there
was a direct path,--the cottage where the old woman had come out and
gone to the burn at sunrise. Behind it was a large boulder, sunshiny
and warm to sit on, sheltered by a hayrick, on the top of which was
gambolling a pussy-cat. Sunny, with her usual love for animals, pursued
it with relentless affection, and at last caught it in her lap,
where it remained about one minute, and then darted away. Sunny wept
bitterly, but was consoled by a glass of milk kindly brought by the old
woman; with which she tried to allure pussy back again, but in vain.
So there was nothing for it but to sit on her mamma’s lap and watch her
Lizzie climbing up the mountain, in sight all the way, but gradually
diminishing to the size of a calf, a sheep, a rabbit; finally of a
black speck, which a sharp eye could distinguish moving about on
the green hillside, creeping from bush to bush, and from boulder to
boulder, till at last it came to the foot of a perpendicular rock.
“She’ll no climb that,” observed the old woman, who had watched the
proceeding with much interest. “Naebody ever does it: she’d better
come down. Cry on her to come down.”
“Will she hear?”
“Oh, yes.”
And in the intense stillness, also from the law of sound ascending, it
was curious how far one could hear. To mamma’s great relief, the black
dot stopped in its progress.
“Lizzie, come down,” she called again, slowly and distinctly, and
in a higher key, aware that musical notes will reach far beyond the
speaking-voice. “You’ve lost the path. Come down!”
“I’m coming,” was the faint answer, and in course of time Lizzie
came, very tired, and just a little frightened. She had begun to
climb cheerfully and rapidly at first, for the hillside looked in the
distance nearly as smooth as an English field. When she got there, she
found it was rather different,--that heather bushes, boulders, mosses,
and bogs were not the pleasantest walking. Then she had to scramble on
all-fours, afraid to look downward, lest her head should turn dizzy,
and she might lose her hold, begin rolling and rolling, and never
stop till she came to the bottom. Still, she went on resolutely, her
stout English heart not liking to be beaten even by a Scotch mountain;
clinging from bush to bush,--at this point a small wood had grown
up,--until she reached a spot where the rock was perpendicular, nay,
overhanging, as it formed the shoulder of the hill.
“I might as well have climbed up the side of a house,” said poor
Lizzie, forlornly; and looked up at it, vexed at being conquered but
evidently thankful that she had got down alive. “Another time,--or if I
have somebody with me,--I do believe I could do it.”
Bravo, Lizzie! Half the doings in the world are done in this spirit.
Never say die! Try again. Better luck next time.
Meanwhile she drank the glass of milk offered by the sympathising old
Highland woman, who evidently approved of the adventurous English girl,
then sat down to rest beside Little Sunny.
But Sunny had no idea of resting. She never has, unless in bed and
asleep. Now she was bent upon also climbing a mountain,--a granite
boulder about three feet high.
“Look, mamma, look at Sunny! Sunny’s going to climb a mountain, like
Lizzie.”
Up she scrambled, with both arms and legs,--catching at the edges of
the boulder, but tumbling back again and again. Still she was not
daunted.
“Don’t help me!--don’t help me!” she kept saying. “Sunny wants to climb
a mountain all by her own self.”
Which feat she accomplished at last, and succeeded in standing upright
on the top of the boulder, very hot, very tired, but triumphant.
“Look, mamma! Look at Sunny! Here she is!”
Mamma looked; in fact had been looking out of the corner of her eye the
whole time, though not assisting at all in the courageous effort.
[Illustration]
“Yes, I see. Sunny has climbed a mountain. Clever little girl! Mamma is
so pleased!”
How many “mountains” will she climb in her life, that brave little
soul! Mamma wonders often, but knows not. Nobody knows.
In the meantime, success was won. She, her mamma, and her Lizzie, had
each “climbed a mountain.” But they all agreed that, though pleasant
enough in its way, such a performance was a thing not to be attempted
every day.
CHAPTER XI.
The last day came,--the last hour. Sunny, her mamma, and her Lizzie,
had to turn their ways homeward,--a long, long journey of several
hundred miles. To begin it at four in the morning, with a child, too,
was decided as impracticable; so it was arranged that they should
leave overnight, and sleep at the only available place, an inn which
English superiority scornfully termed a “public-house,” but which
here in the Highlands was called the “hotel,” where “gentlemen could
be accommodated with excellent shooting quarters.” Therefore, it was
supposed to be able to accommodate a lady and a child,--for one night,
at least.
Fortunately, the shooting gentlemen did not avail themselves of it; for
the hotel contained only two guest-rooms. These being engaged, and the
exact time of the boat next morning learned,--which was not so easy, as
everybody in the neighbourhood gave different advice and a different
opinion,--the departure was settled.
Lovelier than ever looked the hills and the loch when the carriage
came around to the door. All the little boys crowded around it, with
vociferous farewell,--which they evidently thought great fun,--Sunny
likewise.
“Good-bye! good-bye!” cried she, as cheerfully as if it had been “how
d’ye do,” and obstinately refused to be kissed by anybody. Indeed, this
little girl does not like kisses, unless she offers them of her own
accord.
One only grief she had, but that was a sharp one. Maurice’s papa, who
had her in his arms, suddenly proposed that they should “send mamma
away and keep Sunny;” and the scream of agony she gave, and the frantic
way she clung to her mamma, and would not look at anybody for fear of
being kept prisoner, was quite pathetic.
At last the good-byes were over. For Little Sunshine these are as yet
meaningless; life to her is a series of delights,--the new ones coming
as the old ones go. The felicity of kissing her hand and driving away
was soon followed by the amusement of standing on her mamma’s lap,
where she could see everything along the road, which she had passed a
fortnight before in dark night.
Now it was golden twilight,--such a twilight! A year or two hence Sunny
would have been in ecstasy at the mountains, standing range behind
range, literally transfigured in light, with the young moon floating
like a “silver boat” (only turned the wrong way uppermost) over their
tops. As it was, the large, distant world interested her less than the
small, near one,--the trees that swept her face as she drove along the
narrow road, and the numerous cows and calves that fed on either side
of it.
There was also a salt-water loch, with fishing-boats drawn up on
the beach, and long fishing-nets hanging on poles; but not a living
creature in sight, except a heron or two. These stood on one leg,
solemnly, as herons do, and then flew off, flapping their large
wings with a noise that made Little Sunshine, as she expressed it,
“nearly jump.” Several times, indeed, she “nearly jumped” out of the
carriage at the curious things she saw: such funny houses, such little
windows,--“only one pane, mamma,”--and, above all, the girls and boys
barefooted, shock-headed, that hung about staring at the carriage as it
passed.
“Have those little children got no Lizzie to comb their hair?” she
anxiously inquired; and mamma was obliged to confess that probably they
had not, at which Sunny looked much surprised.
It was a long, long drive, even with all these entertainments; and
before it ended, the twilight had faded, the moon crept higher over
the hill, and Sunshine asked in a whisper for “Maymie’s apron.” The
little “Maymie’s apron,” which had long lain in abeyance, was produced,
and she soon snuggled down in her mamma’s arms and fell fast asleep.
When she woke up the “hotel” was reached. Such a queer hotel! You
entered by a low doorway, which opened into the kitchen below, and a
narrow staircase leading to the guest-rooms above. From the kitchen
Sunny heard a baby cry. She suddenly stopped, and would not go a step
till mamma had promised she should see the baby,--a very little baby,
only a week old. Then she mounted with dignity up the rickety stairs,
and began to examine her new apartments.
They were only two, and as homely as they well could be. Beside the
sitting-room was a tiny bedroom, with a “hole in the wall,” where
Lizzie was to sleep. This “hole in the wall” immediately attracted
Sunny; she jumped in it, and began crawling about it, and tried to
stand upright under it, which, being such a very little person, she
was just able to do. Finally, she wanted to go to sleep in it, till,
hearing she was to sleep with mamma, a much grander thing, she went up
to the bed, and investigated it with great interest likewise. Also the
preparations for her bath, which was to be in a washing-tub in front
of the parlour fire,--a peat fire. It had a delicious, aromatic smell,
and it brightened up the whole room, which was very clean and tidy,
after all.
So was the baby, which shortly appeared in its mother’s arms. She
was a pale, delicate woman, speaking English with the slow precision
of a Highlander, and having the self-composed, courteous manner that
all Highlanders have. She looked much pleased when her baby was
admired,--though not by Sunny, who, never having seen so young a baby
before, did not much approve of it, and especially disapproved of
seeing it taken into her own mamma’s arms. So presently it and its
mother disappeared, and Sunny and her mamma were left to eat their
supper of milk, bread and butter, and eggs; which they did with great
content. Sunny was not quite so content to go to bed, but cried a
little, till her mamma set the parlour door half open, that the
firelight might shine in. Very soon she also crept in beside her little
girl; who was then not afraid of anything.
But when they woke, in the dim dawn, it was under rather “frightening”
circumstances. There was a noise below, of a most extraordinary kind,
shouting, singing, dancing,--yes, evidently dancing, though at that
early hour of the morning. It could not have been continued from
overnight, mamma having distinctly heard all the family go to bed,
the children tramping loudly up the stairs at nine o’clock, after
which the inn was quite quiet. No, these must be new guests, and very
noisy guests, too. They stamped, they beat with their feet, they
cried “whoop!” or “hech!” or some other perfectly unspellable word,
at regular intervals. Going to sleep again was impossible; especially
as Sunny, unaccustomed to such a racket, began to cry, and would have
fallen into a downright sobbing fit, but for the amusement of going to
the “hole in the wall,” to wake her Lizzie. Upon which everybody rose,
the peat fire was rekindled, and the new day began.
The good folk below stairs must have begun it rather early. They were a
marriage party, who had walked over the hills several miles, to see the
bride and bridegroom off by the boat.
“Sunny wants to look at them,” said the child, who listens to
everything, and wants to have a finger in every pie.
So, as soon as dressed, she was taken down, and stood at the door in
her mamma’s arms to see the fun.
Very curious “fun” it was. About a dozen young men and women, very
respectable-looking, and wonderfully dressed, though the women had
their muslin skirts pretty well draggled,--not surprising, considering
the miles they had trudged over mountain and bog, in the damp dawn of
the morning,--were dancing with all their might and main, the lassies
with their feet, the lads with feet, heads, hands, tongues, snapping
their fingers and crying “hech!” or whatever it was, in the most
exciting manner. It was only excitement of dancing, however; none of
them seemed the least drunk. They stopped a minute, at sight of the
lady and child, and then went on again, dancing most determinedly, and
as solemnly as if it were to save their lives, for the next quarter of
an hour.
English Lizzie, who had never seen a Highland reel before, looked on
with as much astonishment as Sunny herself. That small person, elevated
in her mamma’s arms, gazed on the scene without a single smile; there
being no music, the dance was to her merely a noise and a scuffle.
Presently she said, gravely, “Now Sunny will go away.”
They went away, and after drinking a glass of milk,--oh, what delicious
milk those Highland cows give!--they soon heard the distant paddles of
the boat, as she steamed in between the many islands of which this sea
is full.
Then mounting an extraordinary vehicle, which in the bill was called a
“carridge,” they headed a procession, consisting of the wedding party
walking sedately two and two, a young man and young woman arm in arm,
down to the pier.
The married couple were put on board the boat (together with Sunny, her
mamma, and her Lizzie, who all felt very small, and of no consequence
whatever), then there was a great shouting and waving of handkerchiefs,
and a spluttering and splattering of Gaelic good wishes, and the vessel
sailed away.
By this time it was broad daylight, though no sun was visible. Indeed,
the glorious sunrises seemed ended now; it was a gray, cheerless
morning, and so misty that no mountains could be seen to take farewell
of. The delicious Highland life was all gone by like a dream.
This homeward journey was over the same route that Sunny had travelled
a fortnight before, and she went through it in much the same fashion.
She ran about the boat, and made friends with half a dozen people,
for no kindly face is long a strange face to Little Sunshine. She was
noticed even by the grim, weather-beaten captain (he had a lot of
little people of his own, he said), only when he told her she was “a
bonnie wee lassie,” she once more indignantly repelled the accusation.
“I’m not a bonnie wee lassie. I’m Sunny, mamma’s little Sunny,”
repeated she, and would not look at him for at least two minutes.
She bore the various changes from sea-boat to canal-boat, etc., with
her usual equanimity. At one place there was a great crush, and they
got so squeezed up in a crowd that her mamma did not like it at all,
but Sunny was perfectly composed, mamma’s arms being considered
protection against anything. And when the nine locks came, she
cheerfully disembarked, and walked along the towing-path for half a
mile in the bravest manner. Gradually, as amusement began to fail her,
she found several playfellows on board, a little dog tied by a string,
and a pussy-cat shut up in a hamper, which formed part of the luggage
of an unfortunate gentleman travelling to London with five daughters,
six servants, and about fifty boxes,--for he was overheard counting
them. In the long, weary transit between the canal-boat and the sea,
Sunny followed this imprisoned cat, which mewed piteously; and in its
sorrows she forgot her own.
But she was growing very tired, poor child! and the sunshine, which
always has a curious effect upon her temper and spirits, had now
altogether disappeared. A white, dull, chill mist hung over the water,
fortunately not thick enough to stop traffic, as had happened two days
before, but still enough to make the river very dreary.
Little Sunshine, too, went under a cloud; she turned naughty, and
insisted on doing whatever she was bid not to do; climbing in the
most dangerous places, leaning over the boat’s side to look at the
waves: misbehaviour which required a strong hand and watchful eyes to
prevent serious consequences. But mamma was more sorry than angry, for
it was hard for the little woman; and she was especially touched when,
being obliged to forbid some stale, unwholesome fruit and doubtful
“sweeties,” over which Sunny lingered and longed, by saying “they
belonged to the captain,” the child answered, sweetly:
“But if the kind captain were to give Sunny some, then she might have
them?”
The kind captain not appearing, alas! she passed the basket with a
sigh, and went down to the engines. To see the gigantic machinery
turning and turning, never frightened, but only delighted her. And
mamma was so thankful to find anything to break the tedium of the
fourteen hours’ journey, that though her little girl went down to
the engine-room neat and clean in a white pelisse, and came up again
looking just like a little sweep, she did not mind it at all!
Daylight faded; the boat emptied gradually of its passengers, including
the gentleman with the large family and the fifty boxes; and on deck
it began to grow very cold. Sunny had made excursions down below for
breakfast, dinner, and tea, at all of which meals she conducted
herself with the utmost propriety, but now she took up her quarters
permanently in the comfortable saloon.
Not to sleep, alack! though her mamma settled down in a corner, and
would have given anything for “just one little minute,” as Sunny says,
of quiet slumber, but the child was now preternaturally wide awake, and
as lively as a cricket. So was a little boy, named Willie, with whom
she had made friends, and was on such terms of intimacy that they sat
on the floor and shared their food together, and then jumped about,
playing at all sorts of games, and screaming with laughter, so that
even the few tired passengers who remained in the boat, as she steamed
up the narrow, foggy river, could not help laughing too.
This went on for the space of two hours more, and even then Sunny,
who was quite good now, was with difficulty caught and dressed, in
preparation for the stopping of the boat, when she was promised she
should see papa. But she will endure any martyrdom of bonnet-tying or
boot-buttoning if only she thinks she is going to meet her papa.
Unluckily there had been some mistake as to hours, and when she was
carried on deck, in the sudden darkness, broken only by the glimmer
of the line of lights along the wharf, and plunged into the midst
of a dreadful confusion,--porters leaping on board and screaming to
passengers, and passengers searching wildly for their luggage,--no papa
was there. To double her grief, she also lost her mamma, who of course
had to see to things at once herself. Through the noise and whirl
she heard the voice of the child, “Mamma! mamma!” It was a cry not
merely of distress,--but agony, with a “grown-up” tone in it of actual
despair. No doubt the careless jest of Maurice’s papa had rankled in
her little mind, and she thought mamma was torn from her in real truth,
and for ever.
When at last mamma came back, the grasp with which the poor little girl
clung to her neck was absolutely frantic.
“Mamma went away and left Sunny,--Sunny lost mamma,” and mamma could
feel the little frame shaking with terror and anguish. Poor lamb! there
was nothing to be done but to take her and hold her tight, and stagger
with her somehow across the gangway to the cab. But even there she
never loosened her clasp for a minute till she got safe into a bright,
warm house, where she found her own papa. Then the little woman was
content.
She had still another journey before her, and without her papa too. A
night journey, which promised to be easy and comfortable, but turned
out quite the contrary. A journey in which Sunny’s powers of endurance
were taxed to the utmost, so that it will be years before she forgets
the wind-up of her holiday.
Her papa put his family safe in a carriage all to themselves, and under
special charge of the guard. Then he left them, just settling down to
sleep; Sunny being disposed of in a snug corner, with an air-cushion
for a pillow, and furry shawls wrapped about her, almost as cosy
as in her own little crib, in which, after her various changes and
vicissitudes, she was soon to repose once more.
She fell asleep in five minutes, and her mamma, who was very tired,
soon dozed also, until roused by a sharp cry of fright. There was the
poor little girl, lying at the bottom of the carriage, having been
thrown there by its violent rocking. It rocked still, and rocked for
many, many miles, in the most dreadful manner. When it stopped the
guard was appealed to, who said it was “the coupling-chains too slack,”
and promised to put all right. So the travellers went to sleep again,
this time Sunny in her mamma’s arms, which she refused to quit.
Again more jolting, and another catastrophe; mamma and the child
finding themselves lying both together on the floor. This time Sunny
was much frightened, and screamed violently, repulsing even her mamma.
“I thought you were not my own mamma; I thought you were somebody
else,” said she, afterward, and it was a long time before she came
to her right self and cuddled down; the oscillation of the carriage
continuing so bad that it was as much as her mamma could do, by
wrapping her own arms around her, to protect the poor child from being
hurt and bruised.
The guard, again appealed to, declared there was no danger, and that he
would find a more comfortable carriage at the next stopping-place: but
in vain. It was a full train, and the only two seats vacant were in a
carriage full of gentlemen, who might object to a poor, sleepy, crying
child. The little party went hopelessly back.
“Perhaps those gentlemen might talk so loud they might waken Sunny,”
said the child, sagely, evidently remembering her experiences of five
weeks ago. At any rate, nobody wished to try the experiment.
Since there was no actual danger, the only remedy was endurance. Mamma
settled herself as firmly as she could, making a cradle of her arms.
There, at length, the poor child, who had long ceased crying, and only
gave an occasional weary moan, fell into a doze, which ended in quiet
sleep. She was very heavy, and the hours seemed very long, but still
they slipped away somehow. Nothing is absolutely unbearable when one
feels that, being inevitable, it must be borne.
Of course nobody slept, except the child, until near daybreak,
when a new and more benevolent guard came to the rescue, had the
coupling-chains fastened (which, they found, had never been done at all
till now), and lessened the shaking of the carriage. Then tired Lizzie
dropped asleep too, and the gray morning dawned upon a silent carriage,
sweeping rapidly across the level English country, so different from
that left behind. No more lochs, no more mountains. No more sunshine
either, as it appeared; for there was no sign of sunrise, and the day
broke amidst pelting rain, which kept drip, drip, upon the top of the
carriage, till it seemed as if a deluge would soon be added to the
troubles of the journey.
But these were not so bad now. Very soon the little girl woke up,
neither frightened nor cross, but the same sunshiny child as ever.
“Mamma!” she said, and smiled her own beaming smile, and sat up and
looked about her. “It’s daylight. Sunny wants to get up.”
That getting up was a most amusing affair. It lasted as long as mamma’s
ingenuity could possibly make it last, without any assistance from
poor, worn-out Lizzie, who was left to sleep her fill. First, Sunny’s
face and hands had to be washed with a damp sponge, and wiped with
mamma’s pocket-handkerchief. Then her hair was combed and brushed,
with a brush that had a looking-glass on the back of it; in which
she contemplated herself from time to time, laughing with exceeding
merriment. Lastly, there was breakfast to be got ready and eaten.
A most original breakfast! Beginning with a large pear, out of a
basketful which a kind old gentleman had made up as a special present
to Sunny; then some ham sandwiches,--from which the ham was carefully
extracted; then a good drink of milk. To uncork the bottle in which
this milk had been carried, and pour it into the horn cup without
spilling, required an amount of skill and care which occupied both
mamma and Sunny for ever so long. In fact, they spent over their
dressing and breakfasting nearly an hour; and by this time they were
both in the best of spirits, and benignly compassionate to Lizzie, who
slept on, and wanted no breakfast.
And when the sun at last came out, a watery and rather melancholy orb,
not at all like the sun of the Highlands, the child was as bright and
merry as if she had not travelled at all, and played about in the
railway-carriage just as if it were her own nursery.
This was well, for several weary hours had still to be passed; the
train was far behind its time; and what poor mamma would have done
without the unfailing good temper of her “sunshiny child,” she could
not tell. When London was reached, and the benevolent guard once more
put his head into the carriage, with “Here we are at last. I should
think you’d had enough of it, ma’am,” even he could not help giving a
smile to the “little Missy” who was so merry and so good.
In London was an hour or two more of weary delay; but it was under a
kindly roof, and Sunny had a second beautiful breakfast, all proper,
with tea-cups and a table-cloth; which she did not seem to find half so
amusing as the irregular one in the railway-carriage. But she was very
happy, and continued happy, telling all her adventures in Scotland to a
dear old Scotchwoman whom she loves exceedingly, and who loves her back
again. And being happy, she remained perfectly good, until once more
put into a “puff-puff,” to be landed at her own safe home.
Home. Even the child understood the joy of going home. She began
talking of “Sunny’s nursery;” “Sunny’s white pussy;” “Sunny’s little
dog Rose;” and recalling all the servants by name, showing she forgot
nothing and nobody, though she had been absent so long. She chattered
all the way down, till some ladies who were in the carriage could
hardly believe she had been travelling all night. And when the train
stopped, she was the first to look out of the window and call out,
“There’s godmamma!”
So it was! Sunny’s own, kind godmamma, come unexpectedly to meet her
and her tired mamma at the station; and oh, they were both so glad!
“Glad” was a small word to express the perfect and entire felicity
of getting home,--of finding the house looked just as usual; that
the servants’ cheerful faces beamed welcome; that even the doggie
Rose barked, and white pussy purred, as if both were glad Little
Sunshine was back again. She marched up-stairs, lifting her short
legs deliberately one after the other, and refusing to be carried;
then ran into her nursery just as if she had left it only yesterday.
And she “allowed” her mamma to have dinner with her there, sitting at
table, as grand as if she were giving a dinner-party; and chattering
like a little magpie to the very end of the meal. But after that she
collapsed. So did her mamma. So did her Lizzie. They were all so
dreadfully tired that human nature could endure no more. Though it was
still broad daylight, and with all the delights of home around them,
they went to bed, and slept straight on,--mamma “all around the clock,”
and the child and her Lizzie for fourteen hours!
Thus ended Little Sunshine’s Holiday. It is told just as it happened,
to amuse other little people, who no doubt are as fond as she is of
hearing “stories.” Only this is not a story, but the real truth. Not
the whole truth, of course, for that would be breaking in upon what
grown-up people term “the sanctities of private life.” But there is no
single word in it which is _not_ true. I hope you will like it, little
people, simple as it is. And so, good-bye!
[Illustration: Finis]
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY’S
Cosy Corner Series
OF
Charming Juveniles
[Illustration]
Each one volume, 16mo, cloth, Illustrated, 50 cents
[Illustration]
=Ole Mammy’s Torment.= By ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON.
Author of “The Little Colonel,” etc.
=The Little Colonel.= By ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON.
Author of “Big Brother.”
=Big Brother.= By ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON.
Author of “The Little Colonel,” etc.
=The Gate of the Giant Scissors.= By ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON.
Author of “The Little Colonel,” etc.
=Two Little Knights of Kentucky=, who were “The Little Colonel’s”
neighbors. By ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON.
A sequel to “The Little Colonel.”
=The Story of Dago.= By ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON.
Author of “The Little Colonel,” etc.
=Farmer Brown and the Birds.= By FRANCES MARGARET FOX.
A little story which teaches children that the birds are man’s best
friends.
=Story of a Short Life.= By JULIANA HORATIA EWING.
This beautiful and pathetic story is a part of the world’s
literature and will never die.
=Jackanapes.= By JULIANA HORATIA EWING.
A new edition, with new illustrations, of this exquisite and
touching story, dear alike to young and old.
=The Little Lame Prince.= By MISS MULOCK.
A delightful story of a little boy who has many adventures by means
of the magic gifts of his fairy godmother.
=The Adventures of a Brownie.= By MISS MULOCK.
The story of a household elf who torments the cook and gardener, but
is a constant joy and delight to the children.
=His Little Mother.= By MISS MULOCK.
Miss Mulock’s short stories for children are a constant source of
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attractive dress, will be welcomed by hosts of readers.
=Little Sunshine’s Holiday.= By MISS MULOCK.
“Little Sunshine” is another of those beautiful child-characters for
which Miss Mulock is so justly famous.
=Wee Dorothy.= By LAURA UPDEGRAFF.
A story of two orphan children, the tender devotion of the eldest, a
boy, for his sister being its theme.
=Rab and His Friends.= By Dr. JOHN BROWN.
Doctor Brown’s little masterpiece is too well known to need
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=The Water People.= By CHARLES LEE SLEIGHT.
Relating the further adventures of “Harry,” the little hero of “The
Prince of the Pin Elves.”
=The Prince of the Pin Elves.= By CHAS. LEE SLEIGHT.
A fascinating story of the underground adventures of a sturdy,
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=Helena’s Wonderworld.= By FRANCES HODGES WHITE.
A delightful tale of the adventures of a little girl in the
mysterious regions beneath the sea.
=The Adventures of Beatrice and Jessie.= By RICHARD MANSFIELD.
A bright and amusing story of the strange adventures of two little
girls in the “realms of unreality.”
=A Child’s Garden of Verses.= By R. L. STEVENSON.
This little classic is undoubtedly the best of all volumes of
poetry for children.
=Little King Davie.= By NELLIE HELLIS.
It is sufficient to say of this book that it has sold over 110,000
copies in England, and consequently should well be worthy of a
place in “The Cosy Corner Series.”
=Little Peterkin Vandike.= By CHARLES STUART PRATT.
The author’s dedication furnishes a key to this charming story.
“I dedicate this book, made for the amusement of the boys who may
read it, to the memory of one boy, who would have enjoyed as much
as Peterkin the plays of the Poetry Party.”
=The Making of Zimri Bunker.= A TALE OF NANTUCKET. By W. J. LONG.
The story deals with a sturdy American fisher lad during the war of
1812.
=The Fortunes of the Fellow.= By WILL ALLEN DROMGOOLE. A sequel to
“The Farrier’s Dog and His Fellow.”
=The Farrier’s Dog and His Fellow.= By WILL ALLEN DROMGOOLE.
This story, written by the gifted young Southern woman, will appeal
to all that is best in the natures of her many admirers.
=The Sleeping Beauty.= A MODERN VERSION. By MARTHA B. DUNN.
A charming story of a little fishermaid of Maine, intellectually
“asleep,” until she meets the “Fairy Prince.”
=The Young Archer.= By CHARLES E. BRIMBLECOM.
A strong and wholesome story of a boy who accompanied Columbus on
his voyage to the New World.
=For His Country.= By MARSHALL SAUNDERS.
A beautiful story of a patriotic little American lad.
=A Little Puritan’s First Christmas.= By EDITH ROBINSON.
=A Little Daughter of Liberty.= By EDITH ROBINSON.
Author of “A Loyal Little Maid,” “A Little Puritan Rebel,” etc.
A true story of the Revolution.
=A Little Puritan Rebel.= By EDITH ROBINSON.
An historical tale of a real girl, during the time when the gallant
Sir Harry Vane was governor of Massachusetts.
=A Loyal Little Maid.= By EDITH ROBINSON.
A delightful and interesting story of Revolutionary days, in which
the child heroine, Betsey Schuyler, renders important services to
George Washington and Alexander Hamilton.
=A Dog of Flanders.= A CHRISTMAS STORY. By LOUISE DE LA RAMÉE (Ouida).
=The Nurnberg Stove.= By LOUISE DE LA RAMÉE (Ouida).
This beautiful story has never before been published at a popular
price.
=The King of the Golden River.= A LEGEND OF STIRIA. By JOHN RUSKIN.
Written fifty years or more ago, this little fairy tale soon became
known and made a place for itself.
=La Belle Nivernaise.= THE STORY OF AN OLD BOAT AND HER CREW. By
ALPHONSE DAUDET.
It has been out of print for some time, and is now offered in cheap
but dainty form in this new edition.
=The Young King.= =The Star Child.=
Two stories chosen from a recent volume by a gifted author, on
account of their rare beauty, great power, and deep significance.
=A Great Emergency.= By MRS. EWING.
=The Trinity Flower.= By JULIANA HORATIA EWING.
In this little volume are collected three of Mrs. Ewing’s best
short stories for the young people.
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY’S
Gift Book Series
FOR
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Each one volume, tall 12mo, cloth, Illustrated, $1.00
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=The Little Colonel’s House Party.= By ANNIE FELLOWS-JOHNSTON.
Author of “Little Colonel,” etc. Illustrated by E. B. Barry.
Mrs. Johnston has endeared herself to the children by her charming
little books published in the Cosy Corner Series. Accordingly, a
longer story by her will be eagerly welcomed by the little ones
who have so much enjoyed each story from her pen.
=Chums.= By MARIA LOUISE POOL.
Author of “Little Bermuda,” etc. Illustrated by L. J. Bridgman.
“Chums” is a girls’ book, about girls and for girls. It relates the
adventures, in school, and during vacation, of two friends.
=Three Little Crackers.= FROM DOWN IN DIXIE. By WILL ALLEN DROMGOOLE.
Author of “The Farrier’s Dog.” A fascinating story for boys and
girls, of the adventures of a family of Alabama children who move
to Florida and grow up in the South.
=Miss Gray’s Girls=; OR, SUMMER DAYS IN THE SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS. By
JEANNETTE A. GRANT.
A delightfully told story of a summer trip through Scotland,
somewhat out of the beaten track. A teacher, starting at Glasgow,
takes a lively party of girls, her pupils, through the Trossachs
to Oban, through the Caledonian Canal to Inverness, and as far
north as Brora.
=King Pippin=: A STORY FOR CHILDREN. By MRS. GERARD FORD.
Author of “Pixie.”
One of the most charming books for young folks which has been
issued for some time. The hero is a lovable little fellow, whose
frank and winning ways disarm even the crustiest of grandmothers,
and win for him the affection of all manner of unlikely people.
=Feats on the Fiord=: A TALE OF NORWEGIAN LIFE. By HARRIET MARTINEAU.
This admirable book, read and enjoyed by so many young people,
deserves to be brought to the attention of parents in search of
wholesome reading for their children to-day. It is something more
than a juvenile book, being really one of the most instructive
books about Norway and Norwegian life and manners ever written.
=Songs and Rhymes for the Little Ones.= Compiled by MARY WHITNEY
MORRISON (Jenny Wallis).
New edition, with an introduction by Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney.
No better description of this admirable book can be given than Mrs.
Whitney’s happy introduction:
“One might almost as well offer June roses with the assurance of
their sweetness, as to present this lovely little gathering of
verse, which announces itself, like them, by its own
deliciousness. Yet, as Mrs. Morrison’s charming volume has long
been a delight to me, I am only too happy to declare that it is to
me--and to two families of my grandchildren--the most bewitching
book of songs for little people that we have ever known.”
=The Young Pearl Divers=: A STORY OF AUSTRALIAN ADVENTURE BY LAND AND
BY SEA. By LIEUT. H. PHELPS WHITMARSH.
This is a splendid story for boys, by an author who writes in
vigorous and interesting language, of scenes and adventures with
which he is personally acquainted.
=The Woodranger.= By G. WALDO BROWNE.
The first of a series of five volumes entitled “The Woodranger
Tales.”
Although based strictly on historical facts the book is an
interesting and exciting tale of adventure, which will delight all
boys, and be by no means unwelcome to their elders.
=Three Children of Galilee=: A LIFE OF CHRIST FOR THE YOUNG. By JOHN
GORDON.
There has long been a need for a Life of Christ for the young,
and this book has been written in answer to this demand. That it
will meet with great favor is beyond question, for parents have
recognized that their boys and girls want something more than a
Bible story, a dry statement of facts, and that, in order to hold
the attention of the youthful readers, a book on this subject
should have life and movement as well as scrupulous accuracy and
religious sentiment.
=Little Bermuda.= By MARIA LOUISE POOL.
Author of “Dally,” “A Redbridge Neighborhood,” “In a Dike Shanty,”
“Friendship and Folly,” etc.
The adventures of “Little Bermuda” from her home in the tropics
to a fashionable American boarding-school. The resulting conflict
between the two elements in her nature, the one inherited from her
New England ancestry, and the other developed by her West Indian
surroundings, gave Miss Pool unusual opportunity for creating an
original and fascinating heroine.
=The Wild Ruthvens=: A HOME STORY. By CURTIS YORK.
A story illustrating the mistakes, failures, and successes of
a family of unruly but warm-hearted boys and girls. They are
ultimately softened and civilized by the influence of an invalid
cousin, Dick Trevanion, who comes to live with them.
=The Adventures of a Siberian Cub.= Translated from the Russian of
Slibitski by LEON GOLSCHMANN.
This is indeed a book which will be hailed with delight, especially
by children who love to read about animals. The interesting and
pathetic adventures of the orphan-bear, Mishook, will appeal to
old and young in much the same way as have “Black Beauty” and
“Beautiful Joe.”
=Timothy Dole.= By JUNIATA SALSBURY.
The youthful hero, and a genuine hero he proves to be, starts
from home, loses his way, meets with startling adventures, finds
friends, kind and many, and grows to be a manly man. It is a
wholesome and vigorous book, that boys and girls, and parents as
well, will read and enjoy.
=The Young Gunbearer.= By G. WALDO BROWNE.
This is the second volume of “The Woodranger Tales.” The new story,
while complete in itself, continues the fortunes and adventures of
“The Woodranger’s” young companions.
=A Bad Penny.= By JOHN T. WHEELRIGHT.
A dashing story of the New England of 1812. In the climax of the
story the scene is laid during the well-known sea-fight between
the _Chesapeake_ and _Shannon_, and the contest is vividly
portrayed.
=The Fairy Folk of Blue Hill=: A STORY OF FOLK-LORE. By LILY F.
WESSELHOEFT.
A new volume by Mrs. Wesselhoeft, well known as one of our best
writers for the young, and who has made a host of friends among
the young people who have read her delightful books. This book
ought to interest and appeal to every child who has read her
earlier works.
Selections from
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY’S
Books for Young People
[Illustration]
=Old Father Gander=; OR, THE BETTER-HALF OF MOTHER GOOSE. RHYMES,
CHIMES, AND JINGLES scratched from his own goose-quill for
American Goslings. Illustrated with impossible Geese, hatched and
raised by WALTER SCOTT HOWARD.
1 vol., oblong quarto, cloth decorative $2.00
The illustrations are so striking and fascinating that the
book will appeal to the young people aside from the fact even
of the charm and humor of the songs and rhymes. There are
thirty-two full-page plates, of which many are in color. The
color illustrations are a distinct and successful departure from
the old-fashioned lithographic work hitherto invariably used for
children’s books.
=The Crock of Gold=: A NEW BOOK OF FAIRY TALES. By S. BARING GOULD.
Author of “Mehalah,” “Old Country Life,” “Old English Fairy
Tales,” etc. With twenty-five full-page illustrations by F. D.
Bedford.
1 vol., tall 12mo, cloth decorative, gilt top $1.50
This volume will prove a source of delight to the children of two
continents, answering their always increasing demand for “more
fairy stories.”
=Shireen and Her Friends=: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PERSIAN CAT. By
GORDON STABLES.
Illustrated by Harrison Weir.
1 vol., large 12mo, cloth decorative $1.25
A more charming book about animals Dr. Stables himself has not
written. It is similar in character to “Black Beauty,” “Beautiful
Joe,” and other books which teach us to love and protect the dumb
animals.
=The Voyage of the Avenger=: IN THE DAYS OF THE DASHING DRAKE. By
HENRY ST. JOHN.
Author of “A Middy of Nelson’s Day,” etc. With twenty-five
full-page illustrations by Paul Hardy.
1 vol., tall 12mo, cloth decorative, gilt top, 400 pages $1.50
A book of adventure, the scene of which is laid in that stirring
period of colonial extension when England’s famous naval heroes
encountered the ships of Spain, both at home and in the West
Indies. Mr. St. John has given his boy readers a rattling good
story of the sea. There is plenty of adventure, sufficient in
fact to keep a boy fixed near the fireside until the last page is
reached.
=A Child’s History of Spain.= By LEONARD WILLIAMS.
Author of “Ballads and Songs of Spain,” etc.
1 vol., small 12mo, with frontispiece, cloth, gilt top $0.75
Although the recent war with Spain has aroused general interest
and caused a great demand for literature relating to the subject,
there has not as yet been published a condensed history of Spain
for young people. Mr. Williams’s little book will prove a
desirable addition to the children’s historical library.
=Fairy Folk from Far and Near.= By A. C. WOOLF, M. A.
With numerous full-page color illustrations by Hans Reitz.
1 vol., large 12mo, cloth decorative $1.50
It is long since there has appeared such a thoroughly delightful
volume of fairy tales as that of Annie C. Woolf. An added
attraction to the book is found in the exquisite colored
illustrations, the work of Hans Reitz. As a Christmas gift-book to
children, these tales will be hard to excel.
=The Magnet Stories.= By LYNDE PALMER.
A new edition; new binding and larger size volume, 5 vols., 12mo.
Reduced price.
=Drifting and Steering= $1.00
=One Day’s Weaving= 1.00
=Archie’s Shadow= 1.00
=John-Jack= 1.00
=Jeannette’s Cisterns= 1.00
=Bully, Fag, and Hero.= By CHARLES J. MANSFORD.
With six full-page illustrations by S. H. Vedder.
1 vol., large 12mo, cloth decorative, gilt top $1.50
An interesting story of schoolboy life and adventure in school and
during the holidays.
=The Adventures of a Boy Reporter= IN THE PHILIPPINES. By HARRY
STEELE MORRISON.
Author of “A Yankee Boy’s Success.”
1 vol., large 12mo, cloth, illustrated $1.25
A true story of the courage and enterprise of an American lad. It
is a splendid boys’ book, filled with healthy interest, and will
tend to stimulate and encourage the proper ambition of the young
reader.
=Tales Told in the Zoo.= By F. C. GOULD.
With many illustrations from original drawings.
1 vol., large quarto $2.00
A new book for young people on entirely original lines. The tales
are supposed to be told by an old adjutant stork in the Zoological
Gardens to the assembled birds located there, and they deal
with legendary and folk-lore stories of the origins of various
creatures, mostly birds, and their characteristics.
=Philip=: THE STORY OF A BOY VIOLINIST. By T. W. O.
1 vol., 12mo, cloth $1.00
The life-story of a boy, reared among surroundings singular enough
to awaken interest at the start, is described by the present
author as it could be described only by one thoroughly familiar
with the scene. The reader is carried from the cottages of the
humblest coal-miners into the realms of music and art; and the
_finale_ of this charming tale is a masterpiece of pathetic
interest.
=Black Beauty=: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A HORSE. By ANNA SEWELL. _New
Illustrated Edition._
With twenty-five full-page drawings by Winifred Austin.
1 vol., large 12mo, cloth decorative, gilt top $1.25
There have been many editions of this classic, but we confidently
offer this one as the most appropriate and handsome yet produced.
The illustrations are of special value and beauty, and should
make this the standard edition wherever illustrations worthy of
the story are desired.
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY’S
Cosy Corner Series
FOR
Older Readers
[Illustration]
=Memories of the Manse.= By ANNE BREADALBANE. Illustrated.
=Christmas at Thompson Hall.= By ANTHONY TROLLOPE.
=A Provence Rose.= By LOUISE DE LA RAMÉE (OUIDA).
=In Distance and in Dream.= By M. F. SWEETSER.
A story of immortality, treating with profound insight of the
connection between the life which now is and the life which is to
come.
=Will o’ the Mill.= By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
An allegorical story by this inimitable and versatile writer. Its
rare poetic quality, its graceful and delicate fancy, its strange
power and fascination, justify its separate publication.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.
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