There were so many things to see at Aunt Lou’s that the little pilgrim
lived out of doors nearly all the time.
“You must come and see my baby-house,” said Nelly; and Bessie wondered
if it would be prettier than hers.
It was in a very funny place, for Nellie took her down by the brook;
and there was a hollow in a great tree that had a little table in
it, and two or three rag dollies sitting by the table, and cups and
saucers on it; but the cups and saucers were not like any that Bessie
had ever seen before. They were made of acorns, which Jimmie had cut
out for her, and the cups looked like little thimbles. Fresh grass was
spread down for a carpet, and Nellie told her little cousin that this
was her summer-house.
“You see,” she said, “that I can leave my dollies and all out in the
rain, and it don’t hurt them a bit. I have nicer ones for in-doors,
but I love these just as well, because I can do what I like with
them.--Hold up your head, Polly, but don’t stare so at the company;
haven’t you any manners?”
Bessie looked all around for the little girl, but she did not see any.
Nellie burst out laughing.
“There she is,” said she, pointing to the largest rag doll; “I always
talk to her as if she was alive. It’s real fun. This is her sister,
Martha Jane. She has fits.”
“My rag doll is Sarah Jane,” said the little pilgrim. “What does Martha
Jane have fits for?”
“’Cos she likes ’em,” replied Nellie; “she’d rather have fits than
anything else. But Polly likes measles best.”
This seemed very strange to Bessie, but Nellie was so much older that
she thought she must know.
When they got tired of playing with the baby-house they took off
their shoes and stockings and paddled in the brook. The water was
delightfully cool, and Bessie knew now why the cows like to stand in
the water in warm weather.
There were stepping-stones in the brook, and the two little girls
crossed from one to another, and paddled about as much as they liked.
“It is nicer here than it is at our house,” said Bessie; “we haven’t
got any brook, nor any barn nor corn-crib; and I’m going to ask my papa
to come here to live.”
“Then we could visit every day,” said Nellie; “you could come to see
me, and I could go to see you.”
But when Bessie got back to her home again she forgot all about going
to live at Brook Farm, and was just as well satisfied with grandpapa’s
house as ever.
When they were tired of the brook they put on their shoes and stockings
again and went to look at Martha’s dairy. Martha had said that they
might come and see her make butter.
Bessie liked going into funny little houses, and it was so nice and
cool in the dairy. Everything was so clean and shining, and the tin
milk-pans were bright enough for looking-glasses. Some of them were
full of milk with rich cream on top, and the little visitor was
allowed to skim some of this off in a pitcher for dinner. She liked to
do it very much.
Martha was churning, and she said that the butter had ’most come. She
kept looking into the churn every few minutes; and soon she took out
large yellow lumps and put them on a flat dish.
These lumps were butter, and she washed them very clean in cold water,
and then worked them into shape. She made them into neat-looking pats,
and stamped them with different figures. She let Bessie stamp one with
a wooden rose, and it looked very pretty.
Then Martha gave each of the children a drink of rich buttermilk from
the churn, and they thanked her and went to the house, for it was
nearly dinner-time. When they were not far from the kitchen-door they
knew that Charlie was coming, there was such a terrible screaming.
“Oh, he’s hurt!” said Bessie, looking frightened; “he’s so little, you
know.”
“Pooh!” said Nellie; “I guess he isn’t hurt; he always screams for
nothing.”
It happened that Charlie was hurt this time--pretty badly hurt too, for
a little boy. But it was some time before his mamma knew it, for, as
Nellie said, he always screamed for nothing, and if Aunt Lou had run to
him every time that he screamed she would not have been able to do much
else.
This is the story he told his mamma between his sobs when he had found
her: “Great wicked bumble-bee bited Charlie in his mouf!”
“Let me see the mouth,” said mamma.
Charlie roared afresh with pain, and showed his lip, badly swollen on
the inside. He certainly had been stung, but mamma did not see how the
bee could have got at him there. When she asked her little boy he hung
his head and said that “Charlie bited a little bite out of a napple,
and then the ugly bee bited his mouf;” and then his mamma knew that he
had disobeyed her and gone into the orchard to eat the apples that had
fallen on the ground.
Mamma made her little boy as comfortable as she could, and then she
talked to him about his naughtiness until Charlie felt very sorry and
promised not to disobey again.