[Frontispiece: Timidly walking up to the door Bryda tapped
gently.]
MIXED PICKLES.
A STORY FOR GIRLS AND BOYS.
By MRS. E. M. FIELD.
_WITH THIRTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS BY T. PYM._
A. L. BURT COMPANY,
PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Idle Hands
CHAPTER II.
A Princess
CHAPTER III.
Another Terrible Scrape
CHAPTER IV.
What Can I Do?
CHAPTER V.
Old Roger
CHAPTER VI.
Uncle Jack's Story
CHAPTER VII.
Beppo
CHAPTER VIII.
The Rest of the Story
CHAPTER IX.
A Prince in Disguise
CHAPTER X.
Beppo's Friend
CHAPTER XI.
Dreadfully Frightened
CHAPTER XII.
Some Use for Moll
CHAPTER XIII.
More About Beppo
CHAPTER XIV.
Beppo in Trouble
CHAPTER XV.
Up a Tree
CHAPTER XVI.
Poor Moll
CHAPTER XVII.
Where Thieves Break Through
CHAPTER XVIII.
Friend, Go Up Higher
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
"Pussy, Pussy! Come here, Puss."
Maurice Gray, with his queer little Scotch Terrier, Toby
Maurice fills the Syringe and sets to work
Timidly walking up to the door Bryda tapped gently
And where the water fell this Spring rose up
For a whole week there were Games
The Fairy came flying over the Town
"Little Boy," said Bryda shyly, "where do you live?"
"Our Father," Bryda prayed, "let me help Beppo."
Tom, who had now become a Poet
Bryda after looking around for Beppo, seized the Cat
Bryda and Beppo amuse themselves walking about the Field
Only one word, too--"Speranza."
Bryda appeared to have thrown the Reading Book to the other end of
the room
Bryda called to the old woman, who laughed and shook her fist
Bryda laughed, and then looked solemn
MIXED PICKLES.
CHAPTER I.
IDLE HANDS.
Bryda was very lonely! Not because she was alone, for she was rather
fond of wandering off by herself, away from every one else, and
talking to herself and to the birds and flowers, and still more to
any little stream that came in her way. But then to be alone because
you fancy it, and to be alone because there is no one to play with,
are two very different things, and the last was Bryda's case.
"If I had even a kitten," she said aloud, standing before the sundial
in her grandmother's old-fashioned garden, and looking at the shadow
that did not seem to move at all. Bryda had read of King Hezekiah,
for whom the shadow moved backward; she wished it would move a little
forward for her, and bring tea time, after which meal she might go
and sit by the couch of her invalid cousin, Salome, who had soft
fingers that rested soothingly on her rumpled hair, and a soft low
voice that told pleasant stories pleasantly, and good long ones, too.
[Illustration: (Bryda standing at the sundial)]
"If I had only a kitten!"
Why, only yesterday, before Uncle Jack went away and took all the
brightness of the house with him, he said he thought there were
kittens in a loft over the stable, and he would try and catch one for
Bryda. But he had gone off on a shooting expedition, and would not
be home for days and days. And he did not know how lonely Bryda was.
You see her father and mother had gone abroad a fortnight before this
lonely day, and had left her in charge of grandfather and
grandmother. They were very kind, but they were so old, and so fond
of going to sleep in their chairs with very grave books before them,
always open at the same place, that Bryda thought they looked more
like two wax figures from Madame Tussaud's--put, one on either side
of the fire in winter and of the big window in summer--than like real
people.
They had lived so long, probably, that they could not care much about
anything. If you told any striking piece of news to grandmother she
only said, "Say it again, my dear. I'm a stupid old woman. Sit down
beside me, speak slowly, and always remember to wipe your shoes on
the mat."
If you had just rushed in full of the great news that the robin's
blue eggs in that dear little nest by the garden door were gone, and
four gaping, featherless darlings were there instead, you felt that
it was much worth while to try and make grandmother enter into the
delight of the surprise. And when you had told her, she would only
say, "Very nice, my dear; very charming, I'm sure. Now run out
again, and don't get freckled." After which she would smooth down
her heavy watered-silk gown, and doze over the big grave book again.
And grandfather was worse. He had long white hair, and a very long
white beard, and bushy white eyebrows; so that there were only two
round spots on each cheek bone, and a very narrow strip of
forehead--unless you included his nose--on which to kiss him, without
burying your face in white hair dusted with snuff. For grandfather
took a great deal of snuff, and if you--that is, if Bryda--went to
talk to him, he would say, when he was awake enough to listen, "Yes,
yes, my dear, quite so, exactly so. Give me a kiss, my dear; give me
a kiss. I want a bite from those cherries on your cheeks."
And then came the difficulty of kissing grandfather (who did not like
to be refused) without kissing the white, snuff-scented beard, which
was only to be avoided by a sudden and rapid peck at the two rosy
circles on his cheeks, or the little bits of forehead between the
long locks.
When Bryda's mother went away her last words were:
"Be good to the grannies, my darling, and do all they tell you; and
don't forget father and mother."
Here the mother's voice trembled and broke, and she got very quickly
into the carriage.
Forget! Oh, no, Bryda could not forget And she tried "to be good to
the grannies" by kissing grandfather whenever he wished, much as she
disliked the operation, and trying to remember all grandmother said
about dry shoes, and sitting in draughts, and eating slowly, and
putting on pinafores, and various other little matters we are all
familiar with.
Uncle Jack was quite different. We shall hear more of him. But
perhaps the house was a little too quiet for him; he was so often
away.
The dullness did not matter to Cousin Salome. She lay in bed all the
morning, and was carefully wheeled into a little sunny sitting-room
in the afternoon; and there, when the pain was not too bad (for she
had hurt her back, and would never be well again), she was always
ready to welcome Bryda with that quiet smile on her white, loving
face, that was like moonlight on a sea that sings low and sadly on a
summer night.
Uncle Jack was away, and Cousin Salome worse, and the governess who
was to come and teach Bryda had not arrived; and so, as we have seen,
Bryda was very lonely, and very much in want of a kitten. She looked
herself rather like a kitten that has got wet, for a kitten never
looks so forlorn as she did unless it is quite wet, and perhaps muddy
too.
But in two minutes after this bright idea had struck her Bryda looked
much like the same kitten when it has been dried by a nice warm fire,
and fed on creamy milk, and has licked its paws and washed its face,
and is ready for the next ball of wool that some one will be kind
enough to throw on the floor for it to play with.
Gathering some ripe summer pears, and hastily stuffing them into the
pockets of her pinafore, Bryda, hurried off to the stable. It was
locked, but the key was in the door; it turned easily, and she found
herself as she entered rather near the heels of the fat old
carriage-horses, Gog and Magog. But they would not kick; they were,
or seemed, as old and sleepy as their master and mistress. Gog in
particular would really rather be stung by a horsefly than take any
particular trouble about brushing it away. They were not animals
suited to Bryda's taste, however much grandmother might appreciate
their steady ways, They were like those horses of whom the little
girl in the poem could find nothing more interesting to tell than that
"The tails of both hung down behind,
Their shoes were on their feet."
And John, the coachman, was as fat, and old, and lazy as they were.
Altogether the family coach, when the dear old folks were in it, was
quite a curiosity. They went for a short drive every day, one day
along one of the roads outside the lodge gates, and the next day
along the other, turn about, and always to the same distance, which
Uncle Jack called "going to there-and-back-again." Only on Sunday
they went to church, which was a very short way indeed, only just
outside the gates in fact, and on that day they did not sleep in the
carriage as they did on the other six days.
But if Bryda was, as a treat, taken for a drive, it really was a
little dull. Both the grannies went to sleep, and nodded so that
poor Bryda was really afraid their heads might come off; and John the
coachman looked as if he were asleep, and Gog and Magog went along at
such a slow, solemn trot that they might well be walking in their
sleep, too.
So Bryda was not much afraid that either of these grave old horses
would take the trouble to kick her. But she had not the same
confidence in Uncle Jack's high-spirited hunter, Paddy, who lived in
a big stall with a bar at the end, called a loose box, in which he
could walk about; and now he put his handsome head with the white
star on the forehead over this bar, and looked at Bryda as much as to
say, "What business have you here?"
Next to Paddy's loose box there was a ladder, which went up through a
hole in the ceiling into the loft where hay was kept, and where Uncle
Jack said kittens lived.
Carefully closing the stable door, Bryda, with her heart certainly
beating unusually fast, climbed the ladder without stopping to think
what grandmother would say, and was soon up in the loft--a delightful
place, with a raftered roof, and little windows with sprays of Ivy
pushing their way in, as if to remind the scented hay that it once
grew outside and was called green grass.
It was a nice place! and, oh, joy! from a dark corner came the sound
Bryda longed for, a kitten's "mew!" It was not the voice of an
elderly cat, but the plaintive little "mew" of a kitten, and Bryda,
as she went toward the sound, could see a pair of very round, bright
eyes. Carefully, not to frighten the little creature, she went
toward it; but, alas! kittens born in lofts are apt to be wild and
shy, and in spite of all her coaxing, "Pussy, pussy! Come here,
puss!" the round, bright eyes went further off, and finally the
kitten took refuge in the darkest corner of all. But Bryda was not
going to be beaten by a kitten. Treading carefully and slowly, she
came nearer; one step more and she would reach the soft, furry thing.
Another moment, and it was in her arms; and Bryda, delighted, sat
down on a heap of hay, and hugged it, saying, "Now, kitty, let's
pretend!"
[Illustration: "Pussy, pussy! Come here, puss!"]
What fun the games are that begin "Let's pretend!" Why, one can be a
king, a queen, a judge, or a lord chancellor. We can grow up in two
minutes into happy people, who do no lessons, and can order exactly
what they like for dinner every day, and need not go to bed at the
dreadfully early hour we young folks must.
Then, merely to eat a pear is so dull! Grown people have parties to
amuse them at dinner, the very dogs growl and play with their bones,
and the cats act a little play over every mouse they catch.
So Bryda would be Queen Elizabeth seated on a throne, dining off
goose on that Michaelmas day when news came of the defeat of the
great Spanish Armada. The kitten should be the messenger, a pear
should be the goose. Bryda had just read this story in her English
history. Hay makes a capital throne; Bryda piled one up, and had
just sat down with much dignity, when----
Have you ever heard people say, when something awkward happened, they
would like to go through the floor? Poor Bryda did! She suddenly
tumbled right through the scattered hay--right through the ceiling!
She was not really hurt, only a little bruised, after all; for she
had fallen into a sort of deep cage with strong wooden bars, into
which hay was pushed down from the loft, and the bottom of this cage
was inside Paddy's loose box, close to the manger. So that the first
thing Bryda knew, when she recovered herself enough to look round,
was that Paddy was standing looking at her, and seemed very much
surprised, as well he might be, for little girls were not generally
kept in the loft along with the hay, or poked into his stall for him
to make his dinner off.
In fact, it is very likely that, if she had only known it, the big,
beautiful creature was much more afraid of her than she of him.
Indeed, she was very much afraid, and grew more and more frightened
as the horse, finding she did not move, came a few steps nearer, and
then began snuffing at her. If she were to try to climb into the
loft again, which did not seem very easy, he might--he probably
would--bite her long black legs, she thought.
It would not be very easy to climb into the loft either; the cage was
so very deep. What was the unfortunate child to do? Paddy kept on
sniffing at her, the real reason being that he could smell the pears
in her pinafore pocket. Bryda could smell them too, and a bright
idea struck her. She remembered a fairy tale about a princess who
softened the hard heart of a lion by feeding him with cake. Perhaps
this nice juicy fruit would have the same good effect on Paddy.
Perhaps, too, while he was eating it she might escape. Cautiously
she drew one out, and it went into the horse's big mouth as a
gooseberry would have gone into her own, and was as quickly
swallowed. That was a bad plan; he wanted more at once. The next
she threw on the ground; and while Paddy stooped his sleek curved
neck to pick it up, she made a desperate effort to escape.
In vain! Hardly had she risen from her cramped position and made a
struggle to get her hands up to the floor of the loft, when the
bright eyes and big mouth were back again, and dreadfully near her
legs!
"Oh, don't! _don't_! Paddy!" cried Bryda. "Here, you may eat all my
pears, but really I know I should not taste nice; so please don't
bite me."
The remaining pears were soon gone; but when they came to an end the
difficulty still remained, and Paddy could not be brought to see that
he could have no more simply because there were no more. So he
sniffed and sniffed, poking his nose more and more between the bars,
and showing those dreadful teeth. He only wanted pears; but Bryda
grew perfectly wild with fright, and finally, when Paddy actually
touched her hand with a hot nose, she could bear it no longer, but
gave first one wild shriek and then another, and another, till the
spirited horse, terrified by the noise, plunged about in the loose
box, adding still more to her dismay; and even Gog and Magog pricked
up their ears, and looked round, as if they would say, "Please don't
spoil our digestion by this dreadful screaming."
To Bryda's joy, however, the stable door opened, and old John came
tottering slowly in.
"Oh, John! John! save me! Don't let me be eaten up!" implored
Bryda, as soon as she saw him; while Paddy became more composed, and
stopped prancing.
Old John scratched his head; that was natural. Then he very
deliberately walked toward the ladder, muttering:
"Well, I'm blessed if this 'ere ain't the rummiest go as ever I see!"
Which, you will observe, was not the sort of English one finds in the
dictionaries; but then John was born before the days of school boards.
"Oh, John! make haste!" cried Bryda again.
But really it was a terribly long time before John climbed the
ladder, and gave his hands to the frightened child, who was soon safe
on the floor of the loft.
"Be you hurt, miss?" asked old John, looking at her as if she were a
china figure that might have lost an arm or a leg in the fall.
But Bryda was not hurt; only she trembled from head to foot, and,
after thanking John, turned away and walked with a grave face into
the garden again, and to the foot of the old sundial.
The shadow had only moved on half an hour. Bryda tried to hold her
hand in such a way as to make another shadow, that should come
further over the dial. But that was a bad imitation of the real
thing, and made her think of one evening when Uncle Jack had told
her, with such a serious face, to take a candle, and go to see the
time by the old sundial; how she had actually gone, and had only
remembered when she got there that the sun was in bed, and therefore
could not tell her what she wanted to know.
Up the pillar on which stood the dial two very large snails were
crawling--oh, so slowly! They seemed to go even more slowly than the
long hot hours.
How amusing it would be to make them run, or rather crawl races!
Bryda gathered a nice fresh leaf, and put it at one edge of the dial.
Then she startled the two snails at the ether end, and for the next
hour or so was perfectly happy watching them, and starting them again
and again.
But at the end of that time the biggest and fattest snail gave up the
game in disgust, finding he never could enjoy his leaf quietly when
he _had_ got it, because a giant hand always came, and would put him
back at the starting-place.
So he drew in his horns first, and then went bodily into his house,
which those gentlemen conveniently carry on their backs. There he
sulked, and would come out no more; so Bryda threw him into a
cabbage-bed, and went indoors.
Bryda had so many funny ways of amusing herself that Uncle Jack, who
was very fond of making jokes, declared she "lived in a jar of mixed
pickles." Indeed, these same amusements often ended by becoming
small scrapes, which he called Bryda's pickles; and we shall see that
they were of all sorts, and really "mixed."
None are very wise at eight years old, and many of us are, like my
little Bryda, very anxious to do right and be of some use in the
world. So we will follow her as she goes into the house.