THE HUMMING TOP'S HISTORY.
The Humming Top, who had begun to fear he should not be allowed a chance
of speaking at all, and who felt just a little put out at coming so late
in the list, gave himself a majestic twirl, and spun for a minute or two
before he condescended to speak. At last, when he had reached a
commanding position, he leaned gracefully back, and commenced his story
in a very grand manner and air:--
"As I perceive, my friends, that your curiosity is more directed to our
adventures in the world, than to our origin and construction, and as few
of you have discoursed upon your native places and earliest histories, I
will not trouble you with mine. Sufficient to the purpose is it that I
made my first appearance in the world on a large stall in the Soho
Bazaar, which was then in all its early glory. I was then, I may say,
splendid in appearance, for I was painted in many brilliant hues, and
there was no lack of gilding about me, so that when I was properly spun,
I appeared like a gorgeous flower, all one mass of dazzling hues.
Indeed, when the lady who superintended the stall took me out of the
folds of silver paper in which I was carefully wrapped, she laughed, and
said to her assistant, 'why surely this must be the King of the Humming
Tops!' I was placed in a very prominent position among all the gay toys
which adorned the counter, and I must say they were all exceedingly nice
in their behaviour, and paid a great deal of respect to me. Many
pleasant days I passed there with my companions, for I was of a rather
high price, and those were dear times for articles of luxury and
pleasure. We had no cheap twopenny and penny toys then, for it was long
before Christmas trees became generally known in England. I have always
regretted the inroads of those new comers, because they have introduced
so many cheap toys--penny toys, indeed; fancy a whole stall devoted to
penny toys!"
"I must beg entirely to disagree with you," interrupted the Ball; "I for
one most distinctly say, that I don't see why all these simple pleasures
should be kept for rich children only. I am sure our friend, the Teapot,
in the course of her story, gave us a very truthful description of the
value of toys to the poor children."
"If I may be allowed to speak again," said the Teapot, eagerly, "I would
say with all my strength that I am glad of the cheapness of common toys.
I am sure the Humming Top has never seen what I have; how should he,
mixing up, as he has done, with only the better class of playthings? But
if I were asked," continued the little motherly Teapot, getting quite
warm on the subject--"if I were asked 'What was the good of toys?' I
should reply, 'To please poor children.'"
"I quite agree with you," remarked the Toy Kitchen; "and though, as I
said before, I am not very clever at explaining my meaning, I should
like to say a few words too. I have spent most of my life among the
poor, as I have told you before, and I have often thought that whoever
invented toys must have meant them first of all for the poor, more
particularly the poor little children who live in great cities. Now,
there is an old proverb, I often heard my old master repeat, that 'All
work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,' and he said it was the truest
word ever spoken. And if the better-off children want a little play to
liven up their days, when they are fed with plenty of good food, and
live in pure air, their hardest work being book lessons, what must poor
children do, who very often earn their very scanty living from the
cradle almost? Our good friend, the Teapot, has told us how the sight of
a halfpenny toy will bring such delight to little dim eyes, and skinny
faces, as must be pleasant to see; so I for one say with all my might,
'Prosperity, and plenty of it, to the cheap toys!'"
The Humming Top was quite disgusted with this long discussion, and
pooh-poohed it all as very low; but the number of votes was against him,
so with an offended roll round, he took up the thread of his story.
"Well, there is no accounting for tastes, and so I will say no more,
only that I have been brought up so entirely among people of the better
classes, that I cannot say much on any other subject. I told you before
that I lay for some time unsold, on account of the highness of my price,
and during that time made acquaintance with many sets of
companions,--dolls, boxes of soldiers, and various others. At last, to
my great joy, I was selected by a lady for her little daughter, and
taken home to a very nice large house in Russell Square.
"Little Mary was an only child, and was therefore the idol of her
parents; but, although she was much indulged, she was not by any means a
spoiled child. Used as she had been from her cradle to the companionship
of much older persons, she was a quiet, well-behaved little damsel
enough. Her father and mother were not at all young, and having neither
brothers nor sisters to play with, Mary naturally knew and felt little
of the riotous gaiety of a child. The nursery was as tidy and as neatly
arranged as any room in that handsome but formal house, and the _litter_
of playthings was not much known there in those days. Mary had one or
two dolls, very smartly dressed, but the prim little damsel played with
them in a sort of grave, old-fashioned, motherly way that had no
childishness in it. Her books were kept on a small bookshelf hung up on
purpose, and her toys were put away in orderly fashion in a drawer.
"How happy I was! for I was used carefully and well, never flung
violently about or used roughly, and my little mistress had a dainty way
of spinning me that would have won the affection of the hardest and
sternest of Humming Tops. During all the years I lived with her, I never
saw her look untidy, or with a spot or soil on frock or pinafore, nor
did I ever know her to be anything but placid and gentle, very happy but
very grave. So it was no wonder her father and mother loved her so
dearly, and lavished on her every comfort and pleasure that money could
purchase. And she grew up to be a very sweet, quiet girl, the comfort of
her old parents, and beloved more in her own home than anywhere else.
She did not care for gaiety much, nor wish to go to many parties or
plays, and even when she did, she was so modest and retiring in her
manner that she was often passed over without much notice, and very few
would have known her for the rich heiress that she was. And this of
course, you know, was long after we had parted company. For, strange to
say, she seemed to grow younger in some things, as she grew older in
years, and when she was fifteen or sixteen, she looked more of a child
than she did when she was really little. She had a simple, earnest way
with her that was very pleasant, and she was fond of her old toys till
she grew up. I don't mean to say she played with us then, but she valued
us as the treasures of her childhood, her happy childhood, and put us
carefully away as old friends. Indeed, as far as I am concerned, I may
even date our intimate fellowship far later than this, for when she was
a woman grown, she would often take me out in a sort of musing way, and
say, 'Come, old Busy Bee, and give me a little of your humming?' She
called me 'old Busy Bee,' you must know, as a sort of pet nickname. And
you may be sure I put on my best waltzing powers, and hummed like twenty
Dumbledores in a churn! And as she grew up she had plenty of suitors,
and her parents wished her to go out sometimes to grand balls and
parties, so that she was much admired and followed. I have often known
her come home from one of these, and come into her room, and, throwing
off her rich dress and ornaments, she would sit down by a little table
and take me out and spin me in a sort of absent way.
"'Busy Bee, there are plenty come wooing to little plain, quiet Mary;
what shall she say, Busy Bee? Come, hum me an answer!'
"And then I hummed away loudly, and told her that she was so good and
sweet, that she was fit for any lord in the land. But she would always
wilfully misunderstand me, and she would reply:--
"'You are right, Busy Bee! I must never leave the dear father and
mother; if the king himself came a wooing, I would make him a low
curtsey, Busy Bee, like this, and say, 'No, I thank your Majesty!''
"But at last a day came when the kind, loving old father was taken ill,
and carried to his long home, and his faithful old wife did not very
long survive him, and so poor Mary was left all alone. I say poor Mary,
for though she had plenty of money, and houses, and dresses, and fine
jewels, not to speak of hosts of busybody relations who were always
looking her up, she had lost the tender love that had been her joy from
infancy. And hers was one of those loving natures that are shaken to the
very core of their hearts by these heavy sorrows, which break up all the
firm foundations of a young life, and that however bravely they may be
borne, as they were indeed in her case, poor dear, are long felt, and
suffered. Our merry evening gossips had ceased for a long time, and
indeed I had almost begun to fancy I was intended to be the inhabitant
of the drawer for the rest of my life. An old Fan who had slipped in
with us by accident, told me that Mary had been abroad for many months
with an aunt of hers, and that she might not return for some time. One
night, however, I heard an unusual bustle in the neighbourhood, and
presently our drawer was pulled open by a hand whose touch thrilled me
in a moment, for I knew it was that of my dear mistress.
"'Poor old Busy Bee,' said she, softly, 'you and I have not hummed
together for a long while, so come out of your hiding place, old friend,
and hum away as pleasantly as you used to do!'
"As you may suppose, I was not slow to obey the summons, and I was soon
spinning and humming on the table before her, and telling her in my way
how very glad I was to see her once more. But she did not listen to me
this night, and even let me roll off the table more than once, holding
me in one hand after she picked me up, and absently threading me without
the key.
"'Well, Busy Bee,' she said at last, softly, 'we are going a long, long
journey, and I daresay shall not see the old house again for many, many
years! I wonder if you will hum as well in India, Busy Bee, or whether
the hot, sultry air there will cause you to be drowsy. But it does not
matter whether it is hot or cold, so long as you are happy! Go back to
night to your place in the drawer, and to-morrow you shall be packed
carefully away in one of those grand new trunks Morris is so proud of
and so busy over. You will have a trip on the deep, deep sea, and when
you next come out you will perhaps see palm trees and black people! You
will have to learn Hindostanee, Busy Bee, and forget all your English
ways of humming.'
"Then my mistress put me carefully back in the drawer, and I lost no
time in telling the fan what delightful things were in store for us, and
we both dropped asleep planning what we should do in India, though not
before we had had a vehement quarrel, for the Fan gave herself such
airs, and said we were going out entirely on her account, for that she
had many relations in that country, and the heads of the family were
called Punkahs, and were high in office there. But we were both doomed
to disappointment, for time passed on, and we never came out of our
drawer after all. We did not know any more until a long, long while
afterwards, when we were routed out of the drawer by accident, by the
old housekeeper. 'Bless my heart, Ann,' said she, 'dear Miss Mary, or,
as I should say, Mrs. Warren, never took her poor little old treasures
after all. I suppose Morris forgot to look in this drawer, for I know
she cleared all the rest. I'll be bound how sorry she was when she
unpacked at Calcutta, and missed them. If we get a chance, Maynard,
we'll send these over to her, when another box goes.'
"This was a terrible blow to us, to find that our dear young mistress
had married and gone away to India without us. The fan was inconsolable,
and led me such a life with her groans and sighs that I wished myself
anywhere else, and could only hope old Mrs. Jones would be as good as
her word and send us over. But she never did, and there we lay no doubt
for many years almost untouched. From what I could find out from stray
bits of news, the house was left in the charge of the old Aunt with whom
Mary had lived after the death of her parents, and who now had two
daughters living with her, both middle-aged women, and one of them a
widow. So there were no young children in the house, and we never heard
merry voices nor pattering feet, nor saw any little faces in the
deserted room. I was always of a more quiet nature, and so I bore my
long captivity better than the Fan did. She, poor frivolous, fluttering
thing, could only lament over the balls and parties she had once known,
and sigh over her imprisonment.
"But the longest day must come to an end at last, and so ours did, for
we were aroused from our lethargy by a little shrill voice, which cried,
'O Mamma, which is the drawer where the toys were kept?'
"'Here, my darling,' answered a soft, low voice, which vibrated through
every fibre of both the fan and myself, for we recognised the tones of
our dear mistress once more. And then we saw her too, for the
long-closed drawer was opened at last, and we beheld her, a slender,
sweet-looking woman, with her little daughter, Ellen, by her side. We
could have fancied from her size that our own little Mary was there
again, but when she looked round, her sallow complexion, bright,
restless eyes, and long dark hair, plainly bespoke the little
Indian-born child.
"'May I have all these for my very own, dear Mamma?' asked she, in her
little eager voice.
"'Yes, Nelly, you may if you like, on condition you take care of my poor
old playthings, especially this Humming Top, which I used to call my
Busy Bee, Nelly, when I was young. It was given to me when I was a
little child; but then _I_ was very careful of _my_ toys, and put them
away neatly when I had done with them, very unlike a little girl I know,
but we won't mention names, who destroys her toys sadly.'
"But Nelly was too busy over her fresh hoard to listen to any warnings,
and for a little while she kept her word, and put us away when she had
done playing with us. But this did not last long, for she was a careless
child, _very_ different to her dear mother. I had been secretly hoping
that my good mistress would take me under her especial charge again, and
that I should see a little more of her. But I suppose she was too busied
with her many cares and occupations now, and she had so long broken off
all her old habits and ways of thinking, that she hardly seemed like the
same. But you see she had been away all these years, and perhaps passed
through many changes, and had lost these old memories to which we clung
so fast.
"As for Nelly, Oh! what a child she was, as different to her mother as
night to day; noisy and active, restless and wild spirited, the old
house echoed as it had not done for many generations. There was more
untidiness, uproar, and trouble in one week now than had been seen in
three years before. As for the poor old nursery, how Mrs. Warren could
come in as calmly, and smile as she did, seeming pleased at all the
disorder and her little girl's high spirits--_rudeness_, _we_ called
it--we could never understand. The poor Fan used to wave mournfully at
me sometimes with the few sticks she had left, and really I almost
believe we half regretted our old quiet. Miss Nelly was more fond of the
Fan than anything, and gave it plenty of employment, almost wearing it
out in doing so; but she turned up her little pert nose at me, and
called me a prosy old drone! Yes, actually, you may well be surprised,
but after I had been spinning with all my might, and humming the best
air I knew, she would push me roughly from her, and go off to something
else. To be sure it was her way with everything, for she brought home a
number of pretty Indian toys, all made of wood, and painted in very gay
colours with beautiful varnish; but these she utterly despised and flung
about. They would have been quite tip-top society at a bazaar or in a
fancy fair, and the poor things felt their degradation keenly, only
being foreigners, they could not make themselves so easily understood.
But I could repeat such tales to you that they told me of their native
country, and their makers!"
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