The children came home from school--Charles and Lucy.
"I have a surprise for you in the kitchen," said their mother, Mrs.
Van Buren. "No, take off your things first, then you may go down
and see. Now don't laugh--a laugh that hurts anyone's feelings is so
unkind--tip-toe too! No, Charlie, one at a time; let Lucy go first."
Lucy tip-toed with eyes full of wonder to the dark banister-stairs that
led down to the quarters below. Her light feet were as still as a little
mouse's in a cheese closet. Presently she came back with dancing eyes.
"Oh, mother! where did you get him? His eyes are like two almonds, and
his braided hair dangles away down almost to the floor, and there are
black silk tassels on the end of it, and kitty is playing with them;
and when Norah caught my eye she bent over double to laugh, but he
kept right on shelling peas. Charlie, come and see; let me go with
Charlie, mother?"
Charlie followed Lucy, tip-toeing to the foot of the banister, where
a platform-stair commanded a view of the kitchen.
It was a very nice kitchen, with gas, hot water and cold, ranges and
gas-stoves, and two great cupboards with glass doors through which
all sorts of beautiful serving-dishes shone. Green ivies filled the
window-cases, and geraniums lined the window-sills. A fine old parrot
from the Andes inhabited a large cage with an open door, hanging over
the main window, where the wire netting let in the air from the apple
boughs.
On reaching the platform-stair, Charlie was as astonished as Lucy could
wish.
There sat a little Chinese boy, as it seemed, although at second glance
he looked rather old for a boy. He wore blue clothes and was shelling
peas. His glossy black "pigtail" reached down to the floor, and the
kitten was trying to raise the end of it in her pretty white paws.
As Lucy had said, heavy black silk cords were braided in with the hair,
with handsome tassels.
The parrot had come out of her cage, and was eying the boy and the
kitten, plainly hoping for mischief. Suddenly she caught Charlie's eye,
and with a flap of her wings she cried out to him.
"He's a quare one! Now, isn't he?"
The bird had heard Irish Nora say this a number of times during the day
and had learned the words. Charlie could not help laughing out in
response. With this encouragement Polly came down towards the door of
the cage, and thrust her green and yellow head out into the room. "Now,
isn't he, sure?" cried she, in Nora's own voice.
Nora was sole ruler of this cheerful realm below stairs; the only other
inhabitants of the kitchen were the parrot and the kitten, and now this
Chinese boy. Nora's special work-room was a great pantry with a latticed
window. Near-by a wide door led out into a little garden of apple, pear,
and cherry trees; the garden had a grape-arbor too, which ran from the
door to a roomy cabin. Here was every convenience for washing and
ironing.
Nora was a portly woman, with a round face, large forehead, and a little
nose which seemed to be always laughing. She was a merry soul; and she
used to tell "the children," as Charles and Lucy were called,
"Liliputian stories," tales of the Fairy Schoolmaster of Irish lore.
The Chinese boy did not look up to Polly as she gazed and exclaimed at
him, but shelled his peas.
Presently, however, the pretty kitten whirled the industrious boy's
pigtail around in a circle until it pulled. Then he cast his almond eyes
at her, and addressed her in a tone like the clatter of rolling rocks.
"Ok-oka-ok-a-a!"
The kitten flew to the other side of the room, and Nora appeared from
the pantry. When she saw the two children on the stairs, she put her
hands on her sides and laughed with her nose. "We've a quare one here,
now, haven't we?" said she.
Polly stretched her lovely head out into the room from the cage, and
flapped her wings, and swung to and fro, and the kitten returned,
whereupon the boy drew up his pigtail and tied it around his neck like
a necktie.
"See, children," said Nora, pointing, "what your mother has brought
home! She says we must all be good to him, and it's never hard I would
be to any living crater. He came down from the sun, he says. What do you
think his name is? And you could never guess! It's Sky-High, which is to
say, come-down-from-the-sun. And a man in a coach it was that brought
him. Sure, I never came here in a coach, but on my two square feet; he
came from the consul's office--Misther Bradley's--and a ship it was that
brought him there. Ah, but he's a quare kitchen-boy!
"But your mother, all with a heart as warm as pudding, she's going to
educate him; and if he does well, she's going to promote him up aloft,
to take care of all the foine rooms, and furniture and things, and to
wait upon the table, and tend the door for aught I know. She made me
promise I would be remarkable good to him--but it don't do no harm for
me to say that he's a quare one! _he_ can't understand it--_he_ speaks
the language of the sun, all like the cracking of nuts, or the rattling
of a loose thunder-storm over the shingles."
"Sky-High?" ventured little Lucy mischievously.
The Chinese boy looked up, with a quick blink of his eyes.
"At your service, madam," said he in very good English.
Nora lifted her great arms.
"And he does speak English! Who knows but he understood all I said, and
what the parrot said too. Poll, you go into your cage! 'At your service,
madam!' And did you hear it, Lucy? No errand-boy ever spoke in the
loikes o' that before! I'd think h'd been brought up among the quality.
It maybe he's a Fairy Shoemaker, spaking the queen's court-language, and
no errand-boy at all!"
A bell sounded up-stairs, and the two children ran back.
"Oh, mother, never was there a boy like that!" said Charlie.
"Well," said Mrs. Van Buren, "you shall tell your father how you found
little Sky-High--it will be a pretty after-supper story. I want you to
think kindly of him, for if he does well he is to stay with us a year."
The children found their father in the dining-room; and as they kissed
him they both cried, "Oh, oh!"
"What is it now?" asked Mr. Van Buren. "What has happened to-day?"
"Wait until after supper," said Mrs. Van Buren; "then they shall tell
you of a curious event in the kitchen. There really is something to
tell," she added, smiling.