Produced by Doug Levy.
LITTLE LUCY'S WONDERFUL GLOBE
by Charlotte M. Yonge
"Young fingers idly roll
The mimic earth or trace
In picture bright of blue and gold
Each other circling chase"--KEBLE
CONTENTS.
Chapter I. Mother Bunch.
Chapter II. Visitors from the South Seas.
Chapter III. Italy.
Chapter IV. Greenland.
Chapter V. Tyrol.
Chapter VI. Africa.
Chapter VII. Laplanders.
Chapter VIII. China.
Chapter IX. Kamschatka.
Chapter X. The Turk.
Chapter XI. Switzerland.
Chapter XII. The Cossack.
Chapter XIII. Spain.
Chapter XIV. Germany.
Chapter XV. Paris in the Siege.
Chapter XVI. The American Guest.
Chapter XVII. The Dream of all Nations.
LITTLE LUCY'S WONDERFUL GLOBE
CHAPTER I.
MOTHER BUNCH.
There was once a wonderful fortnight in little Lucy's life. One
evening she went to bed very tired and cross and hot, and in the
morning when she looked at her arms and legs they were all covered
with red spots, rather pretty to look at, only they were dry and
prickly.
Nurse was frightened when she looked at them. She turned all the
little sisters out of the night nursery, covered Lucy up close, and
ordered her not to stir, certainly not to go into her bath. Then
there was a whispering and a running about, and Lucy was half
alarmed, but more pleased at being so important, for she did not
feel at all ill, and quite enjoyed the tea and toast that Nurse
brought up to her. Just as she was beginning to think it rather
tiresome to lie there with nothing to do, except to watch the flies
buzzing about, there was a step on the stairs and up came the
doctor. He was an old friend, very good-natured, and he made fun
with Lucy about having turned into a spotted leopard, just like
the cowry shell on Mrs. Bunker's mantel-piece. Indeed, he said
he thought she was such a curiosity that Mrs. Bunker would come
for her and set her up in the museum, and then he went away.
Suppose, oh, suppose she did!
Mrs. Bunker, or Mother Bunch, as Lucy and her brothers and sisters
called her, was housekeeper to their Uncle Joseph. He was really
their great uncle, and they thought him any age you can imagine.
They would not have been much surprised to hear that he sailed with
Christopher Columbus, though he was a strong, hale, active man, much
less easily tired than their own papa. He had been a ship's surgeon
in his younger days, and had sailed all over the world, and
collected all sorts of curious things, besides which he was a very
wise and learned man, and had made some great discovery. It was
_not_ America. Lucy knew that her elderly brother understood what
it was, but it was not worth troubling her head about, only somehow
it made ships go safer, and so he had had a pension given him as a
reward. He had come home and bought a house about a mile out of
town, and built up a high room from which to look at the stars with
his telescope, and to try his experiments in, and a long one besides
for his museum; yet, after all, he was not much there, for whenever
there was anything wonderful to be seen, he always went off to look
at it, and, whenever there was a meeting of learned men--scientific
men was the right word--they always wanted him to help them make
speeches and show wonders. He was away now. He had gone away to
wear a red cross on his arm, and help to take care of the wounded
in the sad war between the French and the Germans.
But he had left Mother Bunch behind him. Nobody knew exactly what
was Mrs. Bunker's nation; indeed she could hardly be said to have
any, for she had been born at sea, and had been a sailor's wife;
but whether she was mostly English, Dutch or Spanish, nobody knew
and nobody cared. Her husband had been lost at sea, and Uncle
Joseph had taken her to look after his house, and always said she
was the only woman who had sense and discretion enough ever to go
into his laboratory or dust his museum.
She was very kind and good natured, and there was nothing that the
children liked better than a walk to Uncle Joseph's, and, after a
play in the garden, tea with her. And such quantities of sugar
there were in her room! such curious cakes made in the fashion of
different countries! such funny preserves from all parts of the
world! And still more delightful, such cupboards and drawers full
of wonderful things, and such stories about them! The younger ones
liked Mrs. Bunker's room better than Uncle Joseph's museum, where
there were some big stuffed beasts with glaring eyes that frightened
them; and they had to walk round with hands behind, that they might
not touch anything, or else their uncle's voice was sure to call out
gruffly, "Paws off!"
Mrs. Bunker was not a bit like the smart house-keepers at other
houses. To be sure, on Sundays she came out in a black silk gown
with a little flounce at the bottom, a scarlet crape shawl with a
blue dragon on it--his wings over her back, and a claw over each
shoulder, so that whoever sat behind her in church was terribly
distracted by trying to see the rest of him--and a very big yellow
Tuscan bonnet, trimmed with sailor's blue ribbon.
But during the week and about the house she wore a green gown, with
a brown holland apron and bib over it, quite straight all the way
down, for she had no particular waist, and her hair, which was of
a funny kind of flaxen grey, she bundled up and tied round, without
any cap or anything else on her head. One of the little boys had
once called her Mother Bunch, because of her stories; and the name
fitted her so well that the whole family, and even Uncle Joseph,
took it up.
Lucy was very fond of her; but when about an hour after the doctor's
visit she was waked by a rustling and a lumbering on the stairs, and
presently the door opened, and the second best big bonnet--the
go-to-market bonnet with the turned ribbons--came into the room with
Mother Bunch's face under it, and the good-natured voice told her
she was to be carried to Uncle Joseph's and have oranges and
tamarinds, she did begin to feel like the spotted cowry-shell to
think about being set on the chimney-piece, to cry, and say she
wanted Mamma.
The Nurse and Mother Bunch began to comfort her, and explain that
the doctor thought she had the scarlatina; not at all badly; but
that if any of the others caught it, nobody could guess how bad they
would be; especially Mamma, who had just been ill; and so she was
to be rolled up in her blankets, and put into a carriage, and taken
to her uncle's; and there she would stay till she was not only well,
but could safely come home without carrying infection about with her.
Lucy was a good little girl, and knew that she must bear it; so,
though she could not help crying a little when she found she must
not kiss any one, nay not even see them, and that nobody might go
with her but Lonicera, her own china doll, she made up her mind
bravely; and she was a good deal cheered when Clare, the biggest
and best of all the dolls, was sent into her, with all her clothes,
by Maude, her eldest sister, to be her companion,--it was such an
honor and so very kind of Maude that it quite warmed the sad little
heart.
So Lucy had her little scarlet flannel dressing gown on, and her
shoes and stockings, and a wonderful old knitted hood with a tippet
to it, and then she was rolled round and round in all her
bed-clothes, and Mrs. Bunker took her up like a very big baby, not
letting any one else touch her. How Mrs. Bunker got safe down all
the stairs no one can tell, but she did, and into the carriage,
and there poor Lucy looked back and saw at the windows Mamma's face,
and Papa's, and Maude's and all the rest, all nodding and smiling
to her, but Maude was crying all the time, and perhaps Mamma was too.
The journey seemed very long; and Lucy was really tired when she
was put down at last in a big bed, nicely warmed for her, and with
a bright fire in the room. As soon as she had had some beef-tea,
she went off soundly to sleep and only woke to drink tea, give the
dolls their supper, and put them to sleep.
The next evening she was sitting up by the fire, and the fourth day
she was running about the house as if nothing had ever been the
matter with her, but she was not to go home for a fortnight; and
being wet, cold, dull weather, it was not always easy to amuse
herself. She had her dolls, to be sure, and the little dog Don,
to play with, and sometimes Mr. Bunker would let her make funny
things with the dough, or stone the raisins, or even help make a
pudding; but still there was a good deal of time on her hands.
She had only two books with her, and the rash had made her eyes
weak, so that she did not much like reading them. The notes that
every one wrote from home were quite enough for her. What she
liked best--that is, when Mrs. Bunker could not attend to her--was
to wander about the museum, explaining the things to the dolls:
"That is a crocodile, Lonicera; it eats people up, and has a little
bird to pick its teeth. Look, Clare, that bony thing is a
skeleton--the skeleton of a lizard. Paws off, my dear; mustn't touch.
That's amber, just like barley sugar, only not so nice; people
make necklaces of it. There's a poor little dead fly inside.
Those are the dear delightful humming-birds; look at their crests,
just like Mamma's jewels. See the shells; aren't they beauties?
People get pearls out of those great flat ones, and dive all down
to the bottom of the sea after them; mustn't touch, my dear, only
look; paws off."
One would think that Lonicera's curved fingers, all in one piece,
and Clare's blue leather hands had been very moveable and mischievous,
judging by the number of times this warning came; but of course it
was Lucy herself who wanted it most, for her own little plump, pinky
hands did almost tingle to handle and turn round those pretty shells.
She wanted to know whether the amber tasted like barley-sugar, as it
looked; and there was a little musk deer, no bigger than Don, whom
she longed to stroke, or still better to let Lonicera ride; but she
was a good little girl, and had real sense of honor, which never
betrays a trust; so she never laid a finger on anything but what
Uncle Joe had once given them leave to move.
This was a very big pair of globes--bigger than globes commonly are
now, and with more frames round them--one great flat one, with odd
names painted on it, and another brass one, nearly upright, going
half-way round from top to bottom, and with the globe hung upon it
by two pins, which Lucy's elder sisters called the poles, or the ends
of the axis. The huge round balls went very easily with a slight
touch, and there was something very charming in making them go whisk,
whisk, whisk; now faster, now slower, now spinning so quickly that
nothing on them could be seen, now turning slowly and gradually over
and showing all that was on them.
The mere twirling was quite enough for Lucy at first, but soon she
liked to look at what was on them. One she thought more entertaining
than the other. It was covered with wonderful creatures: one bear
was fastened by his long tail to the pole; another bigger one was
trotting round; a snake was coiling about anywhere; a lady stood
disconsolate against a rock; another sat in a chair; a giant sprawled
with a club in one hand and a lion's skin in the other; a big dog
and a little dog stood on their hind legs; a lion seemed just about
to spring on a young maiden's head; and all were thickly spotted
over, just as if they had Lucy's rash, with stars big and little:
and still more strange, her brothers declared these were the stars
in the sky, and this was the way people found their road at sea;
but if Lucy asked how, they always said she was not big enough to
understand, and it had occurred to Lucy to ask whether the truth
was not that they were not big enough to explain.
The other globe was all in pale green, with pink and yellow outlines
on it, and quantities of names. Lucy had had to learn some of these
names for her geography, and she rather kept out of the way of
looking at it first, till she had really grown tired of all the odd
men and women and creatures upon the celestial sphere; but by and
by she began to roll the other by way of variety.