“How the heart of childhood dances,
Upon a sunny day!
It has its own romances,
And a wide, wild world have they!”
“Hallo! Charlie boy. Come along, here’s all kinds of fun. Shall we have
blind-man’s-buff on the grass-plat, or will you play croquet with Daisy
and me?”
“No, no, Charlie,” sounded Rosie’s beseeching tones, “come and
help me gather mullein-leaves for dollies’ blankets, and these
cunning pot-cheeses to play store with. See, Celia has lent her
for-true scales. Only look! and Hugh has given us four cents and two
ginger-snaps that weigh a pound.”
“I want Charlie to come help me chase those darling little yellow
butterflies that’s ‘gathering honey from the opening flower’ to make
butter of,” screamed Jack.
“Oh, Artie, just listen to that child,” said Daisy. “His mind is all
askew. He’s talking about making butter of honey.”
“I guess the little chap remembers how the buckwheat cakes and honey
made the butterfly last winter,” replied the Keeper, as he gave a most
satisfactory send through the second wicket.
“Will you just listen to that, Charlotte?” said Nan, who, under the old
pear-tree’s shade, was helping take out grass-stains from the dainty
city linen.
“I tell you I never did see such sense in children in _my_ born days.
Just you wait till I run and tell Hugh and my mother ’fore it slips.”
Nan found ready listeners in the kitchen, for old Celia laid aside
her soap and sand--Hugh ceased his psalm-singing, with knife-scraping
accompaniment, and stood with knife and cork in either hand, and mouth
and eyes opened wide to take in the “uncommon sense of Mister John’s
wonderful children.”
“Well, now! only look at that, will ye?”
“Only jest to hear, if that ain’t Mister John his werry self--Oh, my!
It appears to me, Nan, them childerns will be the werry death of me
yet. What with peerin’ and listenin’ and laughin’, my work’s all in
the drags. The werry pots and kettles seem just turnin’ into boys and
girls. Oh, my! Oh, my! I say, you Nan, just go long, and if you come
this yer way tellin’ any more about them childerns’ perform, I’ll
harpoon you with the toasting fork,--so off with you.”
Nan hurried back to the grass-stains, only looking once over her
shoulder to find her mother and Hugh “peerin’” stealthily from behind
the porch, to catch, if possible, a few more crumbs from the children’s
table; but, dutiful daughter as she was, she didn’t look again, but
wider and wider stretched her mouth, brighter shone its ivory gems, and
louder sounded out her clear, rich notes, while she sang--
“Carry me back to old Virginny,
To old Virginny’s shore,”
as she renewed her zeal in the cause of grass-stain cleaning, which was
just now bringing wrinkles to Charlotte’s anxious brow, which was ever
like a page in a school-mistress’s report-book. There were wrinkles
small, which meant grass-stains, bumps, rents, and childish disputes;
there were wrinkles many, which told of mischief wrought; but _these_
were soon dispelled. There were deeper ones which told of graver
faults,--disobedience or falsehood, and others like them, which days
of anxious watching and fears of future ills had left, which could be
effaced only by His hand who can truly--
“Smooth the troubled brow,
And drive away our fears.”
Little Bear, in the meantime, was finding pleasant pastime in making
larkspur wreaths and dandelion curls for his little sister’s “store,”
whilst he kept an eye on Artie’s successful game, only wishing--
“It might have been,
His favorite Daisy’s lot to win,”
and pitying her, as her brother sent her balls flying to remotest parts
of the garden, to be hunted out from behind currant and gooseberry
bushes’ thick shade.
It was a great pleasure to this little feeble city boy, with the love
of the beautiful in Nature, which so often accompanies weakness of
limb, to lie back on the cushions spread by his careful nurses under
the old apple-tree’s shade, and drink in all the beauties of the scene.
Like a picture-gallery seemed the quaint garden, as, looking upward,
between the opening in the leafy roof above, he caught glimpses of
the blue sky, and his eye followed the islets of fleecy clouds in
their fleeting passage. The thick, grassy carpet at his feet brought
out, in all their brightness, the colors of the golden lily and the
many-tinted ladyslippers which formed borders to the broad grass-plots.
Butterflies, golden and russet-brown, were flitting all around him,
whilst robins and bluebirds, from their air-swung perches, sang sweetly
their morning hymns, and from the earth beneath, locusts and tiny
crickets joined the glad chorus.
How true it is that our Father in Heaven has given a voice to every
thing in Nature to praise and tell of His great Love! Can you wonder
that this little feeble child, unable to join in the careless play of
the merry group, taught by a Christian mother that God was all about
and around him, should seem to hear His voice speaking in the beauty of
the scene, and gently folding his thin, white hands, should sing, in
low, sweet notes, the Morning Hymn?
“Now the dreary night is done,
Comes again the glorious Sun:
Crimson clouds and silver-white,
Wait upon his breaking light.
“Glistening in their garden beds,
Flowers lift up their dewy heads,
And the shrill cock claps his wings,
And the merry lark upsprings.
“Child of Mary! Thou dost know
What of danger, joy, or woe
Shall to-day my portion be,
Let me meet it all in Thee.
“Fretful feeling, passion, pride,
Never did with Thee abide:
Make me watch myself to-day,
That they lead me not astray.”
Lulled by the soft music of his own notes, little Bear closes his heavy
eyelids; the crickets lend their aid to sing his lullaby, while soft
zephyrs whisper in his ears themes for sweetest, purest dreams.
Daisy’s watchful ear missed the murmured song, and her quick eye saw
the little sleeper under his leafy canopy,--so she slips away from the
merry game of blind-man’s-buff, which had taken the place of croquet,
and hastes to mount guard over her precious charge, and wage war
against the persistent flies, whose chief delight seems to be tickling
the faces of summer sleepers.
Pretty soon Jack appears with rather a rueful face, for the merry game
of blind-man’s-buff has ended in his and Charlie’s tumbling headlong
over one of the garden-seats, in their haste to get away from the blind
man, and poor Jack’s head has made the acquaintance of a stone which
has proved anything but soft.
[Illustration: A Grave Ending to a Gay Game. Page 106.]
Daisy could not find it in her heart to laugh at the funny little
picture her wounded brother presented. His sailor straw hat had come
to grief in the fall, and from between the parted straws, hung out
tufts of fair, tangled hair, buttons had flown away, and a wide crack,
in the seat of his short pants, revealed a hanging of gauze drapery;
but oh, the face! It was a kind of Mosaic pattern of grass, fruit, and
dust-stains, all blended together by the few tears which would run
down in spite of the efforts of the little dusty hand to keep them back.
Jack’s sobs ceased as he caught sight of his sleeping brother, and
thoughts of aching head and scratched knees, left him, as a childish
fancy sprang to his mind.
“Oh, Daisy, isn’t he just like babes in the woods? Childerns, let’s
’spose we cover him up with leaves.”
Rosie and Charlie think it would be “lovely,” and off they scamper to
gather leaves and flowers, whilst Sister Daisy drops them over the
sleeping child, and weaves a little wreath to rest on his pale brow,
and Rosie runs to the kitchen to ask Celia and Hugh to come to see “The
butifullest picture that ever was,” and wonders why Hugh turns quickly
back, and Celia’s apron finds tears in the kindly eyes as she murmurs
out her--
“Blessings on the angel boy,”
then sobs aloud as Charley Leonard whispers, “But Celia, don’t you know
angels have wings?”
To the merry children, the picture of their sleeping brother, on the
flower-decked couch, has only beauty and brightness, as they check
their merry tones and gather around in silent admiration.
Presently Artie whispers:
“Oh, wouldn’t it be fun to spread out a little feast by his side, so
when he wakes up he may think the Fairies have truly visited him? I
say, Daisy Duck, let’s do it.”
“It’s just the very thing. Oh, Artie boy! however could you have
thought of such a nice idea?”
A rustic table was soon made of a box nicely covered with a snow-white
towel. Then each child brought a contribution of currants, gooseberries,
or strawberries, for which Daisy made pretty, leafy baskets, then ran
to beg good Delia for a very little white sugar, for Fairies liked
their berries powdered nicely.
What a surprise for Daisy!
Out of the grim oven’s mouth, that same Celia was drawing a pan of the
weest cookies, dainty enough for any fairy cook-shop, with the “lovely
bit of citron on top” to take away the plainness and look like a real
tea-party dish.
Daisy couldn’t speak for very joy, as Celia stowed the inviting morsels
on a plate hidden by grape leaves, and filled a glass with powdered
sugar for “fairy snow,” while Hugh, who had disappeared a few moments
before, suddenly stood before the delighted child with a package of
fresh barley sticks and a paper of peppermint hearts, which he said,
in his judgment,--
“Wouldn’t hurt nobody nohow, and was just a set-off ’gainst that sour
fruit.”
Then Hugh took pity on Daisy, as the little maid stood “embarrassed by
her riches,” and offered to carry out the cakes, following soon after
with a little salver bearing a pitcher of golden milk and six tiny
glasses.
The excitement was now intense. Poor Jack, ignorant of the view in his
rear, attempted his heels-over-head antics, but was prudently pinioned
by the Keeper. Daisy holds tight hold of Charlie Leonard, whilst Rosie
ran and kissed the skirt of Hugh’s linen coat to relieve herself of
some of her pent-up feeling.
Then came the trying time. The fairies were all ready, but the little
guest still slept. The gentle zephyrs were teasing the leafy
decorations to fly away and sport with them. The summer flies seemed to
think the Fairy elves had placed the golden milk for their refreshment,
and who could guard the feast? The waking guest must see no trace of
human form, so the children have hidden behind the tall lilac’s leafy
screen.
[Illustration: The Children Hide Behind the Lilac Bush. Page 111.]
Was there ever such a five minutes?
Was there ever such a sleeper?
Jack, knowing his own weakness, is cramming his mouth with grass-tufts;
Rosie has clapped both hands over hers to keep back the ringing laugh.
What a little picture! The merriment oozes out of the corners of the
pent-up mouth, dances in the bright blue eyes, shimmers in the shaking
golden curls, and quivers in the chubby shoulders.
Charlie Leonard is repeating
“Old Mother Hubbard went to her cupboard,”
the only feather from his worn-out Mother Goose which “sticks” in
his memory, and poor Artie, yielding to the temptations of the idle
hour, is just about to tickle the sleeper’s nostrils with a grassy
“horsetail,” when the Family Owl, who sees by day as well as by night,
spies out his sly intent in time to check the roguish act.
Perhaps it was the good-natured little “scuffle” which ensued, or
perhaps the sportive zephyrs were too loudly coaxing the leafy covers,
or perhaps the greedy flies might have followed Artie’s bad example,
and having no good elder sister-fly to call them off, might have
tickled the little quivering nostrils, and made a play-ground of the
fair, dewy brow; whichever or whatever the cause, we cannot tell.
Elf-land secrets are not written on printed page, and we have no
time to seek them from tiny flower petals, murmuring brooklets, or
transparent dewdrops.
Slowly, but surely, Bear at last came out of Dreamland, to the
children’s great delight, and, oh, how they enjoyed his bewilderment,
the questioning look, the pleasure his face showed as, little by
little, the true state of things dawned upon his waking mind, as the
little Fairies took the forms of loving brothers, sisters, and friend!
How he laughed out as he caught sight of Rosie’s pink skirt shining
among the green branches of the old lilac bush! The little human
fairies joined hands and danced a wild, elfin dance around the tardy
guest, then seated themselves to enjoy with him the fairy feast.