PLAYING HINDOO.
"Johnny, Johnny, come to the window, quick!" said Dotty; "see this
bird!"
"I've seen birds before," replied her little cousin, coolly, and walking
as slowly as possible.
"But this one peeps as if he was hurt; see how he pecks to get in."
"Don't you take him in!" exclaimed Angeline, the kitchen girl; "it's a
bad sign to have birds come fluttering round a window."
"What do you mean by a _sign_?" asked Dotty, who had never heard of any
silly superstitions in her life.
"Let him alone," cried Johnny, "or you'll die before the week's out,
sure's you live!"
Dotty laughed. "A bird can't make me die," said she, seizing the
trembling little oriole, and holding him close to her bosom. "O, you
birdie darling! Did your mamma go 'way off, and couldn't find a worm?
Dotty'll be your mamma, so she will."
She put him in a basket stuffed with rags, and hung over him tenderly
for half an hour.
"You're bringing down trouble, I'm afraid, child," said Angeline,
gravely, as she walked back and forth, doing her work.
Mrs. Parlin, away off at Willowbrook, was at that moment bathing Mrs.
Clifford's forehead. I think she might have dropped the sponge in dismay
if she had known what pernicious nonsense was finding its way into
Dotty's ears.
Just as Angeline was in the midst of a ghost story, Johnny rushed in
again.
"Come," said he, shaking Dotty by the shoulders, "let's go play poison."
"O, no, Johnny. I'm hearing the nicest, awfullest story! And then it
rains so, too!"
"Doesn't, either. Only sprinkles. And when it sprinkles, it's a _sure_
sign it isn't going to rain."
"Who told you so?"
"Your grandmother Read. She's a Quaker, and she can't lie. Come, Dot
Parlin; if you don't like poison, come out and play soldier."
"I don't want to play a single thing; so there, now, Johnny Eastman!"
"Then you're a cross old party, miss."
"I'm not a party at all. I'm only one girl."
"O, Dotty!" called Prudy from the cellar-way; "take care! take care!"
"So I am taking care," returned Dotty, stoutly. "For my own mother
doesn't 'low me to go out doors and get rained on, and he knows it."
It was coming, Prudy feared--her sister's naughty temper. She saw a
shadow no larger than a man's hand; but it would not do to let it grow.
She must brush it away at once.
"Let's play something in the house," said she, quickly.
"All right," returned Johnny; "only not sit down."
"Yes, let's _do_ sit down," interposed Dotty, with a view to thwarting
Johnny.
"Suppose we play Hindoo," suggested Prudy, "if we can get Susy and
Flossy into it."
"Play what?"
"Why, play we are Hindoos, and live away off in the Indian Ocean."
"Fishes or sharks?" asked Johnny, growing interested.
"O, _people_; and they act so queer. Mother played it with us once, when
Susy had the toothache."
The older girls were hard to be persuaded. They did not like to leave
their shell-work; but they came at last.
"Johnny shall be Joggo," said Susy; "that's a boy's name; Prudy will be
'Drop of Honey,' and Flossy 'Young Beauty,' and Dotty 'Summer Moon,' and
I 'Onno.'"
"'Young Beauty' 's the prettiest," said Dotty; "if I can't play that,
I'd rather stay with my birdie, and not play."
"Why," cried Susy, "how foo--;" but catching Prudy's eye, she added,
"you may as well be Young Beauty; Flossy wouldn't mind. But now I think
of it, Prudy, we can't play school, for girls don't go to school in
India."
"Make believe you are boys, then," observed Johnny, whose interest in
the game had flagged since he knew that Hindoos were not sharks.
"We'll play it's six o'clock in the morning," continued Susy.
"That isn't school time," remonstrated Dotty.
"O, yes, it is, in India. I'm the teacher. Give me a stick, please."
"Here's my old riding-whip," said Flossy, producing it from the
wood-box. Things were tucked away in very queer places at Mrs.
Eastman's.
Susy tied a string about her waist for a girdle, stuck the whip into it,
and began to march the floor with great dignity.
"Now school has begun. You must all come in, and bow 'way down to the
ground, and say, 'O, respected teacher, grant us knowledge.' They are
very polite in India.--All but Prudy, she may stay behind and play
truant."
The three pupils came forward, touched their foreheads to the floor, and
repeated the sentence as directed, Johnny rendering it,--
"O, respectful Susy Parlin, don't you whip me!"--at the same time
turning a somerset.
"I forgot one thing," said the teacher, as her obedient pupils stood
upright again, with flushed faces. "You ought to have brought me a
present, every one of you, such as a fig of tobacco rolled up in a
banana leaf, or--"
"We didn't know you chewed," said Florence, laughing.
"Now you take your seats. No, not there! On the floor! What do you
suppose? You're in India, children. There are mats on the floor (we'll
pretend)."
The children seated themselves.
"O, we ought to say a prayer to the Muse; but I can't remember what it
is. No matter. Multiplication Table comes next. Mother says it's just
the same thing in India that it is in America."
The school repeated part of the table, making very absurd mistakes
intentionally. Susy walked the floor like a general. "Angeline, please
look up some more palm-leaf fans, and some splinters of wood."
Angeline was the soul of good nature, and left her baking to hunt in the
meal-room for the fans.
"A pretty kind of school!" growled Johnny. "Don't they do anything out
there in Hindoo but just fan themselves?"
"O, we pretend these fans are green, just off the trees. We are studying
arithmetic, all so fast, and ciphering on these leaves with
reeds--(that's our splinters). Indian boys don't know what slates are.
They think these leaves are good enough. They come off of the tallest
palm trees. Fans don't grow in this country. Where did you ever see a
leaf as broad as this?"
"Poh, plenty of 'em in Kennebec County!" said Johnny, confidently.
"Now," said the teacher, after a few moments of mock arithmetic, "now
I've looked at my watch, and find it's seven o'clock. How _conscionable_
late! And that Drop of Honey hasn't come to school yet! Joggo, you and
Young Beauty go and bring her!"
Prudy, who was sitting at a little distance, under a swing-table, eating
ginger snaps, was suddenly seized upon by the two little Indian
constables.
"Why, what an idea!" said Prudy, with her mouth full; "I didn't know
that was the way to play it."
"Yes," said Susy, "truants must come to school. If they don't come they
must be arrested."
"Why, I've _been a-resting_ all the time," said Prudy, laughing.
"Well, that doesn't make any difference, Miss Honey Drop," said Johnny,
taking her by the shoulders, while Dotty dragged her feet. There was
great laughing and scrambling, during which Prudy swallowed a crumb the
wrong way, and was finally carried into school on a litter.
"Now, I should judge," said the heartless teacher, looking sternly at
the crimson-faced victim, "I should judge that this wicked creature
ought to have a terrific whipping!"
"That's so!" shouted Johnny; "we found Honey Drop top of a house, firing
mud into a man's eyes."
"Yes, so we did," said Dotty, fully restored to good humor, "black mud;
Honey's a bad Nindian. If you can't whip her hard enough, Joggie will
help."
"There, now!" said the teacher, after dealing several "love-pats" with
great pretended force; "now I should think 'twas time for school to be
out. As you go by me, each of you, I must strike you just as many times
as you were minutes late. Now go home, and eat rice for your dinners."
"Well, I don't think it's much of a play, any way," said Johnny.
"Who said it was?" retorted Florence. "Susy and I didn't want to come
down; we did it just to please you."
"Please _me_!" sniffed Johnny. "_I_ wanted to play poison, out in the
yard!"
"I do wish," thought Susy, privately, "that cousin Flossy would be more
polite to little Johnny. I really think he wouldn't be so rude if she
would treat him as a lady should."
"There's another play we used to have," said Prudy, "where you sit round
on the floor, right among the dishes, and eat your supper."
"Well, I declare for it," said Angeline, "those people off there do need
missionaries more than ever I thought they did."
"Yes," replied Susy, "they tell such horrid stories to their little
children. The children don't dare go out after dark, for they suppose
there are demons up in the high trees, just ready to dart down and
whisk them off."
"Angeline tells just such stories her _own_ self," said Dotty.
"Then she's a heathen," said Florence, who usually spoke the first
thought that came into her head.
"If that's the case," retorted Angeline, with dignity, "you'd better all
walk out of this kitchen before you are entirely ruined."
As Angeline was evidently in earnest, the children slowly took their way
into the dining-room.
"Are there real live ghosts, though, Susy?" asked Dotty, anxiously; "and
if a bird comes to the window will you die?"
"Why, no, indeed, child! Mother told me once, when I was right little,
that I mustn't let people tell me such foolish stories. If Angeline
talks so to you, you must stop your ears. Now, remember!"
Dotty remembered; but she was not quite convinced. Those awful stories
might be true, after all; perhaps Susy didn't know.