FINE TIMES UP STAIRS.
One Saturday in July the children had expected to take a ride with Abby
Mapes and her brother Mark. Mr. Mapes's man Sam was to drive the wagon,
and they were going to the "Silver Spring," as it was called, a beautiful
spring of water about three miles from Mr. Bondy's house, and not far
from Mark Mapes's uncle's, where the children were all expected to take
tea, and Sam was to bring them home by dark.
They had talked it over for several weeks; but at last, when the
long-looked for day came, rain came with it.
Rain was very good for the gardens, but not very good for visiting; and
the children had to stay at home disappointed.
They were very sorry they could not go, but they made no noise about it.
They tried to make the best of it. They hoped it might stop raining by
noon. They would still be in time, for they had not expected to start
before three o'clock.
But noon came without any signs of clear weather. So, after dinner, Mark
Mapes came over to say that his father would let Sam take them next
Saturday.
Before Mark went back, Alice, who had been for some time thinking how to
pass away the afternoon, went to her mother and whispered: "Shall I tell
Mark to ask Abby to come over here this afternoon and play with me?"
"You may, if you wish," replied her mother.
Alice ran to the door, which Mark had by this time reached on his way out,
and gave him her message for his sister.
As the house was only a short distance from Mr. Bondy's, Mark was soon
back again, trying, as best he could, to hold a big umbrella over Abby's
head. He felt very large, but he could not manage the umbrella very well.
He was only six years old, and hardly strong enough. Besides, his sister
was so much taller than he, that the points of the umbrella often caught
in her hood, and nearly tore it from her head.
They were hardly seated before Alice asked her mother if they might not
go up garret and play a while. She told them "Yes," and they all started
up stairs.
Alice and Maggie stopped a moment in the nursery to get some dolls and
other toys, while Abby took little Jimmie by the hand and helped him along.
When they reached the garret they were soon at their play. The old toys
were taken from the table, and, with the new ones, made enough to keep
them busy all the afternoon.
Mark and Jimmie found some little blocks, and had great sport in building
houses out of them, and knocking them down. They also took the cart with
one wheel and loaded it with their blocks, and amused themselves in
drawing the load from one end of the garret to the other.
The girls went to work at housekeeping. They had dishes, and pots, and
pans, some made of china, some of wood, and some of pewter. There were
hardly two whole ones in the lot. Nearly all were either cracked, or
broken, or bent.
Alice had a very nice set of china dishes, and Maggie had a set of smaller
ones, which had been given to them by Uncle Fred for their last Christmas
present. But these they kept on the corner stand in the parlor, and did
not very often use.
After a while the boys got tired of carrying blocks in a cart with only
one wheel, so they hunted around for something else.
They found some of the animals belonging to Noah's ark, and two or three
of the people. But whether Noah and his wife were among them I cannot say.
They also found a tin trumpet and a wooden whistle. The trumpet was bent,
and the whistle a little cracked; but still there was enough _squeak_ left
in them to make a noise. But such a noise! It sounded as if both trumpet
and whistle had been out in the rain, and had become hoarse with a cold.
Mark and Jimmie marched up and down the garret, making all the noise they
could, and scraping their feet across the floor. By and by they sat down
for a moment on a small trunk to rest.
When they rose from the trunk, Mark moved it a little with his foot. He
stooped to put it back in its place, and as he did so he saw something on
the floor behind it, and cried out:
"Hey! Jimmie, look here! Isn't this the wheel that belongs to the cart?"
As he said this, he picked up from the floor the missing wheel. How it
ever got behind the trunk I don't know; but there it was, and the boys
were not long in putting it on the axle.
Abby found a small nail on the floor, and put it in the end of the axle to
keep the wheel on. Then the old cart had two wheels, and did the work much
better than when it went dragging along with only one.
There was one very pretty thing that the girls brought up stairs to play
with, that I must tell you about. But I really do not know the name of it.
The lady who made it and gave it to Alice called it, I think, a _boudoir_.
What an odd name, isn't it! Can you pronounce it?
It was a little table about the size and shape of one half of a
dinner-plate, the back being straight, and the front round. It was made
of wood, and had three legs. The hind leg was put in the middle of the
straight back, and went up some distance from the top of the table, like
a pole.
The table and the pole were covered with blue muslin, which was neatly
fastened on the top of the table, and hung down like an apron all around.
A piece of the same also went from the top of the pole to the ends of the
back part of the table.
Then this blue muslin was all covered with white lace. Thus the table had
a lace top over it, a lace apron in front of it, and lace curtains hanging
from the top of the pole, and nicely fastened with ribbons at each corner
of the back.
On the pole, a short distance from the table, there hung a cunning little
looking-glass with a gilt frame.
There were several things on the table: a pincushion, a white china
wash bowl and pitcher, a square scent bottle, also of white china, with
something in it that smelled sweetly, and a tiny glass bottle of cologne
water.
It was really a beautiful toy, and all who saw it were well pleased with
it. Alice did not often play with it, but she saw it as she passed through
the nursery on her way up stairs, and thought it would be a nice thing to
take with her. It looked all the better in the garret, because there were
so many old, and broken, and ugly-looking things around it.
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