her with solemn politeness, inviting her to a party, which was just
about to begin. "You had better have your hair dressed first," the girl
said, "and I will lend you a decent frock."
"Very well," said Rosy, thinking fondly of the blue camel's-hair in the
wardrobe at home; "of course, this old every-day serge won't do for a
party."
The girl took her to the shop of a female barber, who made Rosy kneel
down before a mirror of polished steel, and parted her hair in two or
three long manes, which were stiffened with bandoline, and tied with
paper twine in a wonderful bow-knot on top. A fine tortoise-shell skewer
was added, and the barberess, stepping back to survey her work, caught
sight of Rosy's eyebrows.
"Tut, tut," she said, angrily; "what were her parents thinking of to let
them grow like this?" And without more ado Rosy's eyebrows were shaved
off, and her face and neck were daubed with a thick white paste. Her
under lip had a patch of red paint, and her teeth were stained with some
horrid black mixture. Then she went with the Japanese girl into a paper
house, where the party was to be held, and the girl lent her a loose
silk gown, tied round the waist by a wide sash of pink crepe. On her
feet were put foot mittens of white cloth, with a separate place for the
big toe, and high lacquered clogs.
"How can I walk?" said Rosy, tottering around when she was finally
equipped in her narrow uncomfortable garments.
"Sh-h! the company is arriving!" said her hostess; and as there was no
furniture, not even a chair, Rosy wondered where the company would sit.
The company solved this difficulty by sitting on the floor; and then
trays were handed around, containing all sorts of wonderful sweetmeats,
flowers and fruits in lovely colors, with conserved fruits, sugared
beans, and candy fish, animals, and birds. Each dainty was more tempting
than the one before, and Rosy found the loose front of her Japanese gown
the very thing for a "party-pocket," if any of you know what that means!
Next came games; "Lady-go-to-see," "Sick man-and-doctor,"
Alphabet-cards, and Proverbs; and then, more sweetmeats. Pleasant as it
was, a sudden stop was put to the entertainment, by a commotion,
everybody seizing hold of another, all with frightened faces. Without
warning, an earthquake came and turned the house upside down. Everybody
fell out on the ground but Rosy, who flew up in the air, becoming
entangled in the tail of a huge man-kite, carried along by the wind at a
fearful rate of speed.
Rosy thought this much more exciting than any coasting down hill she had
ever tried; and she flew up, up, until the tail of the kite gave a flop,
tossing her through a rift in the clouds. There she was, passing again
through the bottom of the porcelain-jar, and in another moment she had
landed in the very centre of the bear-skin hearth-rug.
Rosy was just getting her breath, and wondering how she came to have her
hair hanging in the usual tawny stream, when, to her great surprise, the
bear-skin began to move.
"Hold on tight there. We are off," it said, in a low growling tone,
though not unkindly. "Want to go to a party, hey? Well, I'll see what we
can do for you in my part of the world."
"Really you take one so unpleasantly by surprise," exclaimed poor Rosy,
as she felt herself again setting forth on an airy journey. "It is so
cold here, I wish you had let me stop for my seal-skin jacket."
"Don't talk about seal-skins, child. We are going where you will see
enough of them. Ho! but it's grand there, up among the icebergs and the
everlasting snow-drifts, where the frozen lakes gleam like red jewels in
the light of the sun that never sets! Merry sports you'll see between my
brothers and sisters!"
"But I should be dreadfully afraid of them," began Rosy, trembling. "I
have never met any bears outside of cages;" but the words were frozen on
her tongue, and some tears coming into her eyes rolled in little round
icicles into her lap.
Now they came to a world of ice and snow. Even the fir-trees were no
longer seen. Clinging to the rocks was a little rough moss, which served
for reindeers' food. All else was chill and glittering--the sky arched
with radiant pink that seemed to palpitate. Far below them was a polar
sea, locking in chill embrace a lonely ship, her shrouds sheathed in
ice, her ribs cracked against the huge silvery bulk of an iceberg, on
whose jagged side she leaned despairingly--no sign of life on board.
Rosy shuddered and shut her eyes, only opening them again when the
bear-skin set her down at the side of an odd little hut, built on a
barren point of land above the ice-bound water.
This hut was made of blocks of ice, the chinks filled in with moss, and
snow-caked over all. On top was a hole whence issued a faint curl of
smoke, and out of an opening, somewhere, crawled a funny Esquimaux lady,
apparently as broad as she was long. She welcomed Rosy politely, and
took her in to the fire, a civility Rosy thought she could have done
without. The whole family was collected there, with some guests invited
in Rosy's honor, who had come in sledges drawn by dogs over the snow.
The dogs also were within, and half a dozen children. It made Rosy think
of the worms in Clover's can the days when her brother went a-fishing,
so closely packed and squirming were her new-found friends. The place
was full of smoke, and smelled of fish oil. The feast consisted of
frozen whale's blubber, handed around to be gnawed by the company, and
of salt fish dried without cooking, with strips of reindeer meat. Rosy
tried to be very agreeable to everybody present, but when they brought
her the baby to kiss, she almost fainted! It was the greasiest little
thing, without a stitch of clothes on! By-and-by, sleep overpowered the
traveller, and Mrs. Esquimaux laid a skin before the fire, offering her,
for a pillow, what _do_ you think? that self-same greasy baby!
As this ceremony is an especial compliment to a stranger among the
Esquimaux, no one can refuse it; and Rosy, with much compunction, laid
her head down on the poor little thing, who took it all as cheerfully as
possible.
Scarcely had the weary traveller closed her eyes, when she opened them
again on the lounge in the drawing-room at home!
There, looking down on her with a friendly smile, was the little Breton
maiden in the chestnut wood.
"Come to my party," Rosy heard her whisper; and, charmed with such a
pretty new playmate, she stretched out her hands. The little French girl
dropped the goose from under her arm, and leaned out of her gold frame
to help Rosy, who, in two or three steps was safely beside her, treading
down the tall heather, and stirring the butterflies from their haunts
among the flowers. How green, and cool, and sweet it was, under the
arching boughs. Far as the eye could reach, on every side, were leaves
rustling in the fragrant air; and the trunks of the ancient trees were
gray and hoar as the beards of the old Druids who once haunted them.
Annette, for so the peasant maid was called, told Rosy many strange and
interesting tales about this forest as they walked on, followed by the
faithful dog dragging his cart of vegetables so carefully that he did
not need a word or look to guide him.
"Ours is one of the oldest inhabited parts of France," said the girl,
proudly; "I can tell you stories about every tree and rock and hill in
the country-side, and I will, if you like to hear them; but we must make
haste to reach the market now, before the sun rises high enough to drink
the dew from my vegetables. I was up before day to pick them, and my
father has promised me that, if I sell all, I shall have a party in the
glen. Only think! Not to work in the field all the afternoon--and to
have as many chestnuts as we choose, a whole loaf of brown bread, and
perhaps--if the step-mother is good humored--a slice of seed-cake!"
Rosy thought this a very poor sort of a party; but she found Annette
such good company that it seemed no hardship to trudge along the hot and
dusty road beside her, when they emerged from the shelter of the wood.
The two girls laughed and made merry until they reached the market town,
and there the good dog came to a halt, while Annette arranged her cress
and lettuces and beans and potatoes in tempting rows upon the
stall--standing beside them with such a patient smiling face, that many
passers-by were induced to buy of her. The fat goose went home in the
basket of a fat housekeeper, and left in his place a pile of silver
pieces. So, Annette and Rosy soon turned back to trudge again the dusty
high-road, talking of the party they were to have in the glen that
afternoon.
Annette's home, which the two tired little travellers reached at last,
was a quaint cottage, the steep moss-grown roof looking twice the height
of its walls. Over the door grew a twisted pear-tree, and all the ground
around it, excepting the garden patch in a sheltered spot behind, was
one waving mass of heather, strewn with gray boulders of mossy rock.
Rosy gave a little cry of delight.
"Why, it is the _sweetest_ place," she cried. "It is like a bird's nest,
Annette. How happy you must be here."
Annette was about to answer, when out of the door came a cross
step-mother, who began scolding as soon as she saw the girls, snatched
the pouch of silver money from Annette's side, ordered her to the right
and left, and then, tired as the poor child was, harnessed her to the
cart beside the dog, and made her draw a heavy pile of linen to the
brook, where she was at once set to work to help her step-mother in the
family washing. Rosy, half-starved by her long fast, was glad to share
Annette's meagre dinner of brown bread and a handful of boiled
chestnuts, eaten under a tree by the brookside. Annette ventured to
remind her step-mother of the promised party, and, for answer, received
a smart box on the ear.
"Is it a princess I have got to do my work, perchance?" said the cross
old thing. "Thy father is far enough off in the field, not here to spoil
thee, by luck; so do thou and that idle girl yonder set to work and
finish washing the linen. That's party enough for trapesing girls, in
_my_ mind!"
So Rosy, too, was forced into service, and all through the long
afternoon she toiled with aching limbs. When night came, she and Annette
were glad to seek a straw bed in a tiny roof-chamber and cry themselves
to sleep.
"Never mind," said Annette, patiently; "to-morrow, perhaps, she may be
kinder, and after we have worked all the forenoon in the field, who
knows but we may have our party yet?"
Rosy remembered nothing more, except opening her eyes full upon the
hearth in her mother's drawing-room, where she was immediately addressed
by one of the old-fashioned brass andirons.
"I should just like to show you what a party was in _my_ time," it said,
in a cracked, high-pitched voice. "We, sister Peggy and I, belonged, as
you know, to your mother's grandmother--a good old Revolutionary
stock--and we lived in the old house up yonder in Salem, Massachusetts,
until your mother took it into her fanciful head to fetch us here. I
should like to know what we have in common with that little
fiddle-faddle Dresden china clock and shepherdesses upon the
mantel-piece! However, I won't talk about my grievances, for sister
Peggy always says that it is in very bad taste, and sister Peggy knows.
We lived in the room where your grandmother was born, my dear, and her
first cap was fitted upon sister Peggy's knob----"
"Will she never stop to take breath," Rosy wondered. "I am dying to ask
her a question. What's your name?" she suddenly called out, so abruptly
as to make the old andiron jump, and let fall a broken brand upon the
hearth.
"Dear me, child, how you fluttered me!" it said, reprovingly. "I am
sister Polly, of course, as you would have heard in due time. Sister
Peggy always says that little girls should be seen and not heard, and
sister Peggy knows--Where was I--Oh! when your grandmother grew old
enough to invite her little friends to share her hospitality, the boys
and girls would arrive at about three o'clock in the afternoon. The
girls wore plain print gowns, and muslin aprons edged with tambour work.
Instead of that insane mop of hair you sport, with a bow in the middle,
looking for the world and all like your terrier, Fluff, they had decent
mob caps. Their hands were covered with mittens, and each one earned a
bag with a piece of white seam (or plain stitching), or else a sampler
frame. How pretty it was to see them sitting down to their work for
awhile! Then the tea-table was spread, with flowered china cups and
plates, and shining silver, muffins, crumpets, sliced ham, home-made
preserves and cream, and waffles strewn with cinnamon and sugar----"
"You make my mouth water," said Rosy.
"All this took place by five o'clock," said sister Polly, "and
afterward the children had a good game of 'blind-man's-buff,' or
'hunt-the-slipper'--and a handful of nuts with a big red apple, to stuff
in each of their pockets upon going home. I remember a very little
party your mamma had once, when she was a child----"
"Do you? Tell me about it, please," said Rosy, eagerly, for nothing was
ever so enchanting to those children as stories about their mamma in her
youth.
"She was just getting over the measles, and had been very much petted
during her convalescence. Your grandmother promised her, in reward for
taking a rather nasty dose of medicine, that she should have her little
cousins from next door, to drink tea on a trunk. This was an especial
treat to your mamma. A large flat-topped trunk served as table for the
little girls and their dollies. On it were spread the china doll
tea-things, and when they did not suffice in size or numbers, leaves
from the grape-vine above the dining-room porch, were also heaped with
goodies. Those children were satisfied with broken bits of peppermint
stick, ginger-nuts, wee biscuit, lemonade for tea, and in the centre of
the table a dish of horse-cakes."
"Oh, I know!" said Rosy, with much interest. "Mamma has often told us
about horse-cakes, and the funny little old shop where she used to buy
them for a cent apiece. They had currants for eyes, and the children
never knew whether to begin to eat at the head first or the tail----"
"Exactly," said sister Polly. "Well, as I was saying, four little girls
in clean white birds'-eye pinafores assembled around the trunk-party,
your mamma at the head, to pour out the lemonade tea. Each guest had a
dolly in her lap, and your mamma had twins on hers. I think the
difficulty began by her insisting that the twins should have a double
share of all the good things, which the guests, with some warmth,
disputed. At any rate, it is a sad tale to tell you, but a true one; a
quarrel set in, and what should the hostess do, but burst into tears,
declare that her company were mean horrid things, and then, dragging at
the table-cloth, whisk the entire contents of the tea-table upon the
floor!"
"Oh!" said Rosy, "did my mamma do that? I don't believe a word of it!
You are nothing but an old tattle-tale, sister Polly, and I don't
believe sister Peggy is any better!"
Scarcely had Rosy uttered these disrespectful words, when the enraged
sister Polly and sister Peggy flew out upon her from the fireplace.
Seizing her in their brassy claws, they shook the little girl fiercely,
bumping her head first on one side, then on the other, between their
knobs.
Rosy screamed for help, and heard in return a merry peal of laughter.
She felt a warm shower of kisses on her face; and, opening her eyes, saw
Clover and Violet, Jonquil and the baby, mamma and the nurses, standing
in a laughing circle around her couch, while Fluff nearly barked his
head off in the general excitement.
"Rosy, you had the funniest nightmare!" said Violet; "see here, what a
lovely bracelet was in the bran-pie for you, and we've all saved you
some of our bonbons."
"It was rather a bully Punch and Judy," remarked Clover, patronizingly.
"That is, for the little ones, you know; _I've_ seen such lots of 'em."
"Punch said, 'Doody, Doody, bing up de baby,'" squeaked happy little
Jonquil, capering about.
Baby Honeysuckle had gone to sleep, after her first party.
Rosy jumped up, and kissed everybody around twice.
"Dear knows I've had enough of parties," she declared joyfully; but
nobody knew what she meant!
BLONDINA; OR, THE TURKEY-QUEEN.
[Illustration: Queen Blondina Resting in her Garden.]
A certain king had two daughters, one of them lovely and accomplished,
and the other an ugly, cross-tempered personage, who early in life took
to meddling with the black arts, and learned a great deal more of magic
than she did of any thing else. Blondina, on the contrary--for so the
pretty princess was named--was the joy of all her nurses, and
governesses, and tutors, and music masters, from earliest infancy. Her
one fault was a tendency to laugh aloud on the slightest provocation. At
ten years old she could speak many languages, play on all known
instruments, write essays and sermons, dance like a sylph, sing like a
nightingale, and make chocolate caramel. Vixetta, the elder of the two
sisters, before she had reached the same age, had made short work of
_her_ instructors, wearing out the health and spirits of a governess in
a week, and driving twenty-four tutors into the lunatic asylum, while
her head-nurse was speedily reduced to skin and bone, and took a
permanent situation as the living skeleton in a dime-museum. The poor
king remonstrated in vain with his headstrong elder daughter. Ordinary
scolding had not the slightest effect upon her; black marks and crosses
against her name in the report-book only made her laugh scornfully; and
any attempt at bodily punishment ended in the Princess Vixetta throwing
herself flat upon the ground, turning purple in the face, and foaming at
the mouth with rage in a way to daunt the stoutest spirit. So, for this
reason, the unfortunate girl was allowed to follow her own fancies,
stealing off at dusk nobody knew whither, although it was suspected
that her favorite haunts were the black depths of a pine forest near the
palace--where the country folk never cared to ramble, even in broad
daylight--or a certain ruined tower, filled with bats and owls and
serpents. One night a peasant, who approached this tower in search of a
lost cow, saw green lights dancing madly around the broken walls, heard
wild shrieks of laughter issue from within, and, on venturing to insert
his inquisitive nose into a chink, had it tweaked by two red-hot
fingers; immediately afterward, he averred, he had seen the Princess
Vixetta, in true witch-dress, shoot by him on a broom-stick, leaving a
trail of brimstone in her wake. On reaching home he found his sheep
dead, his best cows gone dry, and his children ill of a fever. Such
tales as these, of which there were many current in the country-side,
came from time to time to the king's ears, and not being able to gainsay
them, _because of information he had got on his own private account_,
the unfortunate parent resigned himself to sink slowly to the tomb. In
fact he courted death rather than shunned it. Whenever he took cold, he
would sit all night long, in wet shoes, in the draft of two open
windows; and if that did not make him worse, would send away the
doctors, refuse medicine, and try to beat his brains out on the marble
floor of the palace bedroom. At last, one day, he choked, on too large a
mouthful of beefsteak, and when the physicians endeavored to relieve
him, waved them away, and cheerfully expired!
[Illustration: Vixetta]
[Illustration: _Blondina_.]
The Princess Blondina was immediately proclaimed queen in her father's
stead. Nothing was heard but praises of the charming new sovereign, who,
after the period of mourning had passed away, ascended the throne with
much pomp and ceremony. All of this was gall and worm-wood to the
envious Vixetta, who, but for the kindness of her sister, would have
been sent, by a vote of all the people, into exile in a distant land.
Blondina announced that the Princess Vixetta should remain in her
palace, and be offered an opportunity to reform her bad ways. Vixetta,
thereupon, pretending to weep, promised to do better, and to give up
associating with her evil favorites, the witches, warlocks, and
magicians; but, in secret, her time was spent in conjuring a method to
get rid of her beautiful sister, and to mount the throne in her stead.
One warm summer day, Queen Blondina had just come in from rowing in her
silver barge along the windings of the little river which watered the
palace grounds. She rested for a while in the garden upon a bank of
roses, myrtles, jasmine, and lilies-of-the-valley, while allowing her
maids-of-honor to fan her with huge fans of white ostrich plumes, and
listening to the drip of fountains of orange-flower water, and
eau-de-cologne. Suddenly, she espied a poor old tattered crone, carrying
a basket of luscious fruit, such as none of the queen's own gardens or
green-houses could produce. Pomegranates there were, dropping sweetest
juices when cleft in twain, purple figs that melted upon the tongue,
rosy nectarines, crimson plums frosted with silvery dew, and bunches of
grapes glowing like jewels where the sunbeams touched their clusters.
Queen Blondina sat up, and exclaimed with delight, "Oh! Goody, pray set
your basket down. My servants will pay you handsomely for your lovely
fruit."
"Willingly, your Majesty," said the old woman. "You are welcome to the
contents of my basket, if you will but leave me the single hazel-nut at
the very bottom of it."
The queen consented, with a laugh at the absurdity of her wanting that
one insignificant little hazel-nut, when such a delightful treat was at
her service. Her servants unpacked the basket, and there, sure enough,
at the bottom, was a tiny brown nut.
"Queer, that she should desire to keep back that one little nut,"
thought the queen. "I wonder why? Can it be so very delicious to the
taste, or what? I wish I could see its inside."
And so she went on, wondering, and exciting her own imagination, till,
pretty soon, Blondina would have given all the rest of the basketful for
the possession of that single mysterious nut! She began by offering one
gold piece, then another, till a glittering pile lay at the crone's
feet, but still the old woman held out against parting with her
treasure.
At last, Blondina burst into tears, when the crone appeared to be melted
by her sorrow, and, advancing, whispered in her ear.
"If I give you this nut," she said, "it shall be on one condition, only,
your Majesty; and that is, that you crack it in the presence of your
prime minister alone, in some remote corner of your palace."
Blondina gladly consented, and sending away her attendants, took
possession of the nut, and summoned her prime minister to her side. This
functionary was a very stern and important officer of State, who had
been foremost in the movement to banish the Princess Vixetta from the
court. He arrived all breathless, at the queen's behest, and in the
meantime the old crone had disappeared as mysteriously as she came.
Blondina ordered the prime minister to follow her to a secluded
summer-house, where, eagerly cracking the nut with her royal high-heeled
shoe, she found inside only a few pinches of white powder, and a scroll
containing some fine writing in an unknown tongue.
"Thanks to my love of study, your Majesty," modestly suggested the prime
minister, "I have mastered the only language you have left unacquired,
which happens to be Arabic. On this bit of paper, I can decipher certain
instructions to the finder."
"Tell me them, quickly, my dear lord," said the enchanted princess, "and
I will apply myself to the study of Arabic to-morrow. So much for a
neglected education," she added, with a sigh that she had left anything
so important undone; for, as I have said before, this princess had a
passion for acquiring languages.
"If the finder of this treasure desires to acquaint himself with the
language of the animal world, and to take the form of any other living
thing, he has only to snuff up a pinch of the enclosed powder, bow to
the earth three times, and cry the name of the creature he desires to
become, followed by these exact words:--
'Kurri-kuree,
Changed would I be.'