tool-house while he went to dinner, and he always carried matches in his
pipe-pocket. Lady Bird knew that. She put her hand in and drew one out,
feeling guilty, for one of Nursey's chief maxims was, "Never touch
matches, Lady Bird; remember what I say, never!"
"If Nursey knew about Stella's having the measles she'd say different,"
she soliloquized.
There was a good-sized bit of brown paper in the garden-house. Lota
rolled it up, laid it near the bedside, lit the edge, and carefully blew
out the match. The paper did not flame, but smouldered slowly, sending
up a curl of smoke. Lady Bird gazed at it with much satisfaction, then,
with a last kiss to Stella, she went away to fetch the doctor, stopping
at Lady Green's door as she passed, to tell her that she had better not
let any of her children come over, because they might catch the measles
and be sick too.
It took some time to rummage out the muff, for Nursey had tucked it far
back on the shelf behind other things. There was nobody in the nursery.
Something unusual seemed to be going on downstairs, for doors were
opening and shutting, and persons were talking and exclaiming. Lota
paid no attention to this; her head was full of her own affairs, and she
had no time to spend on other people's. Muff in hand, she hastened down
the garden walk. As she drew near she smelt smoke, and smiled with
satisfaction. But the smell grew stronger, and the air was blue and
thick. She became alarmed, and began to run. Another moment, and the
house was in sight. Smoke was pouring from the door, from the window,
and--what was that red thing which darted out from the smoke like a long
tongue? Oh, Lady Bird! Lady Bird! fly, hasten, your house is on fire,
and there are the children inside with none but you to aid them!
Did ever mother hesitate when her little ones were in danger? Lady Bird
did not. With a shriek of affright she plunged boldly into the midst of
the smoke. An awful sight met her eyes through the open door. The
wall-paper was on fire, the cotton rug, the table-cover! Little red
flames were creeping up the valance of the crib in which poor sick
Stella lay! The other children were sitting in a row opposite, very
calm and still, but blisters had begun to form on Imogene's waxen
cheeks, and a cinder, lodged on Ning-Po's flaxen wig, was scorching and
singeing. What a spectacle to meet a mother's eyes! Oh, Lady Bird, haste
to the rescue!
She did not falter. In the twinkling of an eye she had dashed into the
burning room, had caught Stella from her bed, the others from their
chairs, and with all four hugged tight to her heart was making for the
door. Ah! a spark fell on the white apron, on the holland frock! Her
rapid movement fanned it. It flickered, blazed, the red flame rushed
upward. What would have happened I dare not think, if just at that
moment a gentleman, who was hastening down the garden walk, had not
caught sight of the little figure, and, with a horrified exclamation,
seized, held it fast, wrapped round it a great woollen shawl from his
own shoulders, and in one moment put out the deadly fire which was
snatching at the sweet young life. Who was this gentleman, do you
think, thus arrived at the very nick of time? Why, no other than Lady
Bird's own Papa, come home from China a few weeks before any one
expected him!
I cannot pretend to describe all that followed on that bewildering day,
the dismay of Grandmamma and Nursey, the wrath of Jennings over the
match, the joy of everybody at Lady Bird's escape, or her own confusion
of mind at the fire and the excitement and the new Papa, who was and was
not the Papa of the letters. At first she hugged the rescued dolls and
said nothing. But Papa gave her time to get used to him, and she soon
did so. He was very kind and nice, and did not laugh at the children and
call them names as Isabel had done, but felt Stella's pulse, recommended
pomatum for the scorch on Imogene's forehead, and even produced a little
out of his own dressing-case. Best of all, he led Lady Bird upstairs,
unlocked a box and showed her a beautiful little Chinese lady in purple
silk and lovely striped muslin trowsers, which he had brought for her.
"Another child for you to take care of," said Papa.
Pocahontas Maria wrote in her Diary the next day:--
"My Grandpapa has come home from China. He is _very_ nice. He brought me
a little Chinese sister. Her name is Loo Choo, he says, but Mamma calls
her Loo Loo, because it sounds prettier. Grandpapa treats us very
kindly, and never says 'dolls,' as Isabel Berners did; and he went to
call on Lady Green with Mamma. I'm so glad he is come."
When Lady Bird read this she kissed Pocahontas and said,--
"That's right, dear; so am I!"
[Illustration]
ONE, TWO, BUCKLE MY SHOE.
THE old clock on the stairs was drowsy. Its ticks, now lower, now
louder, sounded like the breathings of one asleep. Now and then came a
distincter tick, which might pass for a little machine-made snore. As
striking-time drew near, it roused itself with a quiver and shake. "One,
two, three, four, five," it rang in noisy tones, as who should say,
"Behold, I am wide awake, and have never closed an eye all night." The
sounds sped far. Marianne the cook heard them, rubbed her eyes, and put
one foot out of bed. The nurse, Louisa, turned over and began to dream
that she was at a wedding. Perhaps the sun heard too, for he stood up on
tip-toe on the edge of the horizon, looked about him, then launched a
long yellow ray directly at the crack in the nursery shutter. The ray
was sharp: it smote full on Archie's eyelids, as he lay asleep,
surrounded by "Robinson Crusoe," two red apples, a piece of gingerbread,
and a spade, all of which he had taken to bed with him. When he felt the
prick of the sun-ray he opened his eyes wide. "Why, morning's come!" he
said, and without more ado raised himself and sat up.
"What'll I do to-day?" he thought. "I know. I'll go into the wood and
build a house, a nice little house, just like Wobinson Cwusoe's, all
made of sticks, Nobody'll know where my house is; I'll not tell, not
even Mamma, where it is. Then when I don't want to study or any thing, I
can run away and hide, and they won't know where to find me. That'll be
nice! I guess I'll go and begin it now, 'cause the days are getting
short. Papa said so once. I wonder what makes 'em get short? Pr'aps
sometime they'll be so short that there won't be any days at all, only
nights. That wouldn't be pleasant, I think. Mamma'd have to buy lots of
candles then, or else we couldn't see."
With this he jumped out of bed.
"I must be very quiet," he thought, "else Loo--isa'll hear, and then she
won't let me go till I've had my bekfast. Loo--isa's real cross
sometimes; only sometimes she's kind when she makes my kite fly."
His clothes were folded on a chair by the bedside. Archie had never
dressed himself before, but he managed pretty well, except that he
turned the small ruffled shirt wrong-side out. The other things went on
successfully. There were certain buttons which he could not reach, but
that did not matter. The small stocking toes were folded neatly in, all
ready to slip on to the feet. But the shoes _were_ a difficulty; they
fastened with morocco bands and buckles, and Archie couldn't manage them
at all.
"Oh, dear!" he said to himself, "I wish Loo--isa would come and buckle
my shoes for me. No, I don't, though, 'cause p'raps she'd say, 'Go back
to bed, naughty boy; it isn't time to get up.' I wouldn't like that.
Sometimes Loo--isa does say things to me."
So he put on the shoes without buckling them, and, not stopping to brush
his hair or wash his face, he clapped on his broad-brimmed straw hat,
took "Robinson Crusoe" and the spade, dropped the red apples and the
gingerbread into his pocket, and stole softly downstairs. The little
feet made no noise as they passed over the thick carpets. Marianne, who
was lighting the kitchen fire and clattering the tongs, heard nothing.
He reached the front door, and, stretching up, pulled hard at the bolt.
It was stiff, and would not move.
"Oh, dear!" sighed Archie, "I wish somebody _would_ come and open this
door for me."
He looked at the bolt a minute. Then an idea struck him, and, laying
"Robinson Crusoe" and the little spade down on the floor, he went into
the dining-room pantry, where was a drawer with tools in it.
"I'll get Papa's hammer," he thought to himself, "and I'll pound that
old bolt to pieces."
While he was gone, Marianne, who had lighted her fire, came from the
kitchen with a broom in her hand. She opened the door, shook the mat,
and began to sweep the steps. A sharp tinkle, tinkle met her ear from
the back gate. It was the milkman ringing for some one to come and take
in the milk. Marianne set her broom against the side of the door, and
hurried back to the kitchen. Her foot struck against "Robinson Crusoe"
as she went. She picked it up and laid it on the table.
"Why, the door's open!" exclaimed Archie, who at that moment came from
the dining-room, hammer in hand.
He did not trouble himself to speculate as to how the door happened to
be open, but, picking up the spade, wandered forth into the garden. The
gate gave no trouble. He walked fast, and long before Marianne came back
to her sweeping he had gained the woods, which were near, and enclosed
the house on two sides in a shady half-circle. They were pretty woods,
full of flowers and squirrels and winding, puzzling paths. Archie had
never been allowed to go into them alone before.
The morning was delicious, so full of snap and sunshine that it set him
to dancing and skipping as he went along. All the wood-flowers were as
wide awake as he. They nodded at Archie, as if saying "Good-morning,"
and sent out fresh smells into the air. Busy birds flapped and flew,
doing their marketing, and fetching breakfast to hungry nestlings,
chirping and whistling to each other, as they did so, that the sun was
up and it was a fine day. A pair of striped squirrels frisked and
laughed and called out something saucy as Archie trotted by. None of
these wild things feared the child: he was too small and too quick in
his movements to be fearful. They accepted him as one of themselves,--a
featherless bird, or a squirrel of larger growth; while he, on his part,
smiled vaguely at them and hurried past, intent on his projects for a
house and careless of every thing else.
The sun rose higher and higher. But the thick branching trees kept off
the heat, and the wood remained shady and cool. The paths twisted in and
out, and looped into each other like a tangled riband. No grown person
could have kept a straight course in their mazes. Archie did not even
try, but turned to right or to left just as it happened, taking always
the path which looked prettiest, or which led into deepest shade. If he
saw anywhere a particularly red checkerberry, he went that way;
otherwise it was all one to him where he went. So it came to pass that,
by the end of an hour, he was as delightfully and completely lost as
ever little boy has succeeded in being since woods grew or the world was
made.
"I dess this is a nice place for my house," he said suddenly, as the
path he had been following led into a small open space, across which lay
a fallen tree, with gray moss, which looked like hair, hanging to its
trunk. It _was_ a nice place; also, Archie's feet were tired, and he was
growing hungry, which aided in the decision. The ground about the fallen
tree was carpeted with thick mosses. Some were bright green, with stems
and little branches like tiny, tiny pine-trees. Others had horn-shaped
cups of yellow and fiery red. Others still were bright beautiful brown,
while here and there stood round cushion-shaped masses which looked as
soft as down.
Into the very middle of one of these pretty green cushions plumped
Archie. He rested his back against a tree trunk, and gave a sigh of
comfort. It was like an easy chair, except that it had no arms; but what
does a little boy want of arms to chairs? He put his hand into his
pocket and pulled out, first the red apples, and then the gingerbread.
The gingerbread was rather mashed; but it tasted most delicious, only
there was too little of it.
"I wish I'd brought a hundred more pieces," soliloquized Archie, as he
nibbled the last crumb. "One isn't half enough bekfast."
The red apples, however, proved a consolation; and, quite rested and
refreshed now, he jumped from the moss cushion and prepared to begin his
house-building.
"First, I must pick up some sticks," he thought,--"a great many, many
sticks, heaps of 'em. Then I'll hammer and make a house. Only--I
haven't got any nails," he added with an after-thought.
There were plenty of sticks to be had in that part of the wood; twigs
and branches from the dead tree, fragments of bark, odds and ends of dry
brush. Close by stood a white birch. The thin, paper-like covering hung
loose on its stem, like grey-white curls. Archie could pull off large
pieces, and he enjoyed this so much that he pulled till the birch trunk,
as far up as he could reach, was perfectly bare. Some of the boughs were
crooked. Archie tried to lay them straight with the others, but they
wouldn't fit in nicely, and stuck their stiff angles out in all
directions.
"Those are naughty sticks," said Archie, giving the crookedest a shove.
"They shan't go into my house at all."
The want of nails became serious as the heap of wood grew large and
Archie was ready to build. What was the use of a hammer without nails?
He tried various ways. At last he laid the longest boughs in a row
against the side of the fallen tree. This left a little place beneath
their slope into which it was possible to creep. Archie smiled with
satisfaction, and proceeded to thatch the sloping roof with moss and
bits of bark. Then he grubbed up the green cushion and transferred it
bodily to his house.
"This'll be my chair," he said to himself. "I dess I don't want any more
furnture except just a chair. Loo--isa, she said, 'so many things to
dust is a bodder.'"
At that moment came a rustling sound in the underbrush. "P'raps it's
savages," thought Archie, and, half pleased, half frightened at the
idea, he gave a loud whoop. Out flew a fat motherly hen, cackling and
screaming. What she was doing there in the woods I cannot imagine.
Perhaps she had lost her way. Perhaps she had private business there
which only hens can understand. Or it may be that she, too, had built a
little house and hidden it away so that no one should know where it
was.
Archie was enchanted. "A hen, a hen," he cried. "I'll catch her and keep
her for my own. Then I'll have eggs, and I'll give 'em to Mamma, and
I'll make custards. Custards _is_ made of eggs. Loo--isa said so."
"Chicky, chicky, chicky," he warbled in a winning voice, waving his
fingers as if he were sprinkling corn on the ground for the hen to eat.
But the hen was not to be enticed in that manner, and, screaming louder
than ever, ran into the bushes again. Then Archie began to run too.
Twice he almost seized her brown wings, but she slipped through his
hands. Had the hen been silent she would easily have escaped him, but
she cackled as she flew, and that guided him along. His shoe came off,
next the hammer flew out of his hand, but he did not stop for either.
Running, plunging, diving, on he went, the frightened hen just before,
till at last a root tripped him up and he fell forward on his face. The
hen vanished into the thicket. Her voice died away in distance. By the
time Archie had picked himself up there was not even the rustling of a
leaf to show which way she had gone.
He rose from the ground disconsolate. His nose bled from the fall, and
there was a bump on his forehead, which ached painfully. A strong desire
to cry came over him. But, like a brave fellow, he would not give way to
it, and sat down under a tree to rest and decide what was to be done
next.
"I'll go back again to my house," was his decision. But where _was_ the
house? He ran this way, that way; the paths all looked alike. The house
had vanished like the hen. Archie had not the least idea which way he
ought to turn to find it.
One big tear did force its way to his eyes when this fact became
evident. House and hen, it was hard to lose both at once. The hammer,
too, was gone. Only the spade remained, and, armed with this, Archie,
like a true hero, started to find a good place and build another house.
Surely nowhere, save in the histories of the great Boston and Chicago
fires, is record to be found of parallel pluck and determination!
House-building was not half so easy in this part of the wood where he
then was, for the bushes were thick and stood closely together. Their
branches hung so low, that, small as Archie was, he had to bend forward
and walk almost double to avoid having his eyes scratched by them. At
last, in the middle of a circle of junipers, he found a tolerably free
space which he thought would do. The ground, however, was set thick with
sharp uncomfortable stones, and the first thing needed was to get rid of
them.
So for an hour, with fingers and spade, Archie dug and delved among the
stones. It was hard work enough, but at last he cleared a place somewhat
larger than his small body, which he carpeted with soft mosses brought
from another part of the wood. This done, he lay down flat on his back,
and looked dreamily up at the pretty green roof made by the juniper
boughs overhead. "I dess I'll take a nappy now," he murmured, and in
five minutes was sleeping as soundly as a dormouse. Two striped
squirrels, which may or may not have been the same which he had seen in
the early morning, came out on a bough not a yard from his head,
chattered, winked, put their paws to their noses and made disrespectful
remarks to each other about the motionless figure. Birds flew and sang,
bees hummed, the wind went to and fro in the branches like the notes of
a low song. But Archie heard none of these things. The hen herself might
have come back, cackled her best, and flapped her wings in his very face
without arousing him, so deep was his slumber.
Meantime at home, two miles away, there was great commotion over the
disappearance of Master Archie. Marianne had lingered quite a long time
at the back gate. The milkman was a widower, looking out for a wife,
and Marianne, as she said, could skim cream with anybody; so it was
only natural that they should have a great deal to say to each other,
and that measuring the milk at that particular gate should be a slow
business. This morning their talk was so interesting that twenty minutes
at least went by before Marianne, with very rosy cheeks and very bright
eyes, came back, pail in hand, along the garden walk. As she took up the
broom to finish her sweeping, she heard a great commotion overhead,
steps running about, voices exclaiming; but her mind was full of the
milkman, and she paid no attention, till Louisa came flying downstairs,
half-dressed, and crying,--
"Sake's alive, Marianne, where's Master Archie?"
"How should I know? Not down here, anyway," was Marianne's reply.
"But he _must_ be down here," persisted Louisa. "He's gone out of the
nursery, and so are his clothes. Whatever's taken him I can't imagine.
I've searched the closets, and looked under the beds, and up in the
attic, and I took Mr. Gray his hot water, and he isn't there. His
spade's gone too, and his ap-- Oh, mercy! there's his story-book now,"
and she pounced on "Robinson Crusoe," where it lay on the table. "He's
been down here certain sure, for that book was on his bed when he went
to sleep last night. Don't stand there, Marianne, but come and help me
find him."
Into the parlor, the dining-room, the pantry, ran the maids, calling
"Archie! Archie!" at the tops of their voices. But Archie, who as we
know was a good mile away by that time, did not hear them. They searched
the kitchen, the cellar, the wood-shed, the store-closet. Marianne even
lifted the lid of the great copper boiler and peeped in to make sure
that he was not there! Louisa ran wildly about the garden, looking
behind currant bushes and raspberry vines, and parting the tall feathers
of the asparagus lest Archie should have chosen to hide among them. She
tapped the great green watermelons with her fingers as she
passed,--perhaps she fancied that Archie might be stowed away inside of
one. All was in vain. Archie was not behind the currant bushes, not even
in the melon patch. Louisa began to sob and cry, Marianne, never
backward, joined her with a true Irish howl; and it was in this
condition that Archie's Papa found things when he came downstairs to
breakfast.
Then ensued a fresh confusion.
"Where did you say the book was lying, Louisa?" said Mr. Gray, trying to
make out the meaning of her sobbing explanation.
"Just here, sir, on the hall table. Oh, the darling child, whatever has
come to him?"
"Oh, wurra! wurra!" chimed in Marianne. "He been and got took away by
wicked people, perhaps. Well niver get him back, niver!"
"The hall table? Then he must have passed out this way. Surely you must
have seen him or heard him open the door, Marianne?"
"Is it I see him, sir? I'd niver forget it if I had. Oh, the pretty face
of him! Wurra! wurra!"
"But, now I think of it, the child couldn't have opened the door for
himself," went on Papa, growing impatient. "Did you leave it standing
open at all, Marianne?"
"Only for a wee moment while I fetched in the milk," faltered Marianne,
growing rosy-red as she reflected on the length of the "moment" which
she had passed at the gate with the milkman.
"That must have been the time, then," said Mr. Gray. "Probably the
little fellow has set off by himself for a walk. I'll go after and look
for him. Don't frighten Mrs. Gray when she comes down, Louisa, but just
say that Archie and I are both gone out. Try to look as you usually do."
This, however, was beyond Louisa's powers. Her eyes were as red as a
ferret's, and her cheeks the color of purple cherries from crying and
excitement of mind. Mrs. Gray saw at once that something was wrong. She
began to question, Louisa to cry, and the secret came out in a burst of
sobs and tears. "Master Archie--bless his little heart!--has got out of
bed and ran away into the woods. The master was gone after him, but he'd
niver find him at all at all"--(this was Marianne's addition). "The
tramps had him fast by this time, no doubt. They'd niver let him go."
"How could he get away all by himself?" asked poor frightened Mrs. Gray.
"Ah, who knows? Like as not the thaves came into the room and lifted him
out of his very bed. They're iverywhere, thim tramps! There's no
providing against thim. Oh, howly St. Patrick! who'd have thought it?"
This happy idea of tramps having lodged itself in Marianne's mind, the
story grew rapidly. The butcher was informed of it when he came, the
fishmonger, and the grocer's boy. By noon all the village had heard the
tale, and farmers' wives for ten miles round were shuddering over these
horrible facts, that three men in black masks, with knives as long as
your arm, had broken into Mr. Gray's house at midnight, gagged the
family, stowed the silver and money in pillow-cases, token the little
boy from his bed,--that pretty little boy with curly hair, you know, my
dear,--and, paying no attention to his screams and cries, had carried
him off nobody knew where. Poor Mrs. Gray was half dead with grief, of
course, and Mr. Gray had gone in pursuit; but law! my dear, he'll never
catch 'em, and if he did, what could he do against three men?
"He'd a ought to have taken the constable with him," said old Mrs.
Fidgit, "then perhaps he'd have got him back. I guess the thieves won't
keep the boy long though, he's too troublesome! His ma sent him over
once on an errand, and I'd as lieve have a wild-cat in the house any
day. Mark my word, they'll let him drop pretty soon!"