LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY
Works of
Miss Mulock
[Illustration]
Little Sunshine’s Holiday
The Little Lame Prince
Adventures of a Brownie
His Little Mother
John Halifax, Gentleman
[Illustration]
L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
(Incorporated)
212 Summer St., Boston, Mass.
[Illustration: The German pictures.
(See page 139.)]
LITTLE SUNSHINE’S
HOLIDAY
A PICTURE FROM LIFE
BY
MISS MULOCK
Illustrated by
ETHELDRED B. BARRY
[Illustration]
BOSTON
L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
1900
_Copyright, 1900_
BY L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
_All rights reserved_
Colonial Press
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, Mass., U. S. A.
DEDICATED TO
Little Sunshine’s Little Friends
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
THE GERMAN PICTURES _Frontispiece_
SUNSHINE SAYS GOOD-BYE TO THE GARDENER AND HIS WIFE 15
SUNSHINE AND FRANKY 40
NELLY AND SUNNY ON THE STEPS 59
“HER LITTLE BARE FEET PATTERING ALONG THE FLOOR” 75
FOUR LITTLE HIGHLAND GIRLS 87
LITTLE SUNSHINE GOES FISHING 101
“ENGAGED IN SINGLE COMBAT” 118
TWO LITTLE CHURCHGOERS 163
CLIMBING THE “MOUNTAIN” 187
TAILPIECE 207
LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY.
CHAPTER I.
While writing this title, I paused, considering whether the little
girl to whom it refers would not say of it, as she sometimes does of
other things, “You make a mistake.” For she is such a very accurate
little person. She cannot bear the slightest alteration of a fact. In
herself and in other people she must have the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth. For instance, one day, overhearing her mamma
say, “I had my shawl with me,” she whispered, “No, mamma, not your
shawl; it was your waterproof.”
Therefore, I am sure she would wish me to explain at once that “Little
Sunshine” is not her real name, but a pet name, given because she
is such a sunshiny child; and that her “holiday” was not so much
hers--seeing she was then not three years old, and every day was a
holiday--as her papa’s and mamma’s, who are very busy people, and who
took her with them on one of their rare absences from home. They felt
they could not do without her merry laugh, her little pattering feet,
and her pretty curls,--even for a month. And so she got a “holiday”
too, though it was quite unearned: as she has never been to school, and
her education has gone no farther than a crooked _S_, a round _O_, an
_M_ for mamma, and a _D_ for--but this is telling.
Of course Little Sunshine has a Christian name and surname, like other
little girls, but I do not choose to give them. She has neither brother
nor sister, and says “she doesn’t want any,--she had rather play with
papa and mamma.” She is not exactly a pretty child, but she has very
pretty yellow curls, and is rather proud of “my curls.” She has only
lately begun to say “I” and “my,” generally speaking of herself,
baby-fashion, in the third person,--as “Sunny likes that,” “Sunny
did so-and-so,” etc. She always tells everything she has done, and
everything she is going to do. If she has come to any trouble--broken a
teacup, for instance--and her mamma says, “Oh, I am so sorry! Who did
that?” Little Sunshine will creep up, hanging her head and blushing,
“Sunny did it; she won’t ever do it again.” But the idea of denying it
would never come into her little head. Everybody has always told the
exact truth to her, and so she tells the truth to everybody, and has no
notion of there being such a thing as falsehood in the world.
Still, this little girl is not a perfect character. She sometimes flies
into a passion, and says, “I won’t,” in a very silly way,--it is always
so silly to be naughty. And sometimes she feels thoroughly naughty,--as
we all do occasionally,--and then she says, of her own accord, “Mamma,
Sunny had better go into the cupboard” (her mamma’s dressing-closet).
There she stays, with the door close shut, for a little while; and
then comes out again smiling, “Sunny is quite good now.” She kisses
mamma, and is all right. This is the only punishment she has ever
had--or needed, for she never sulks, or does anything underhand or
mean or mischievous; and her wildest storm of passion only lasts a few
minutes. To see mamma looking sad and grave, or hear her say, “I am so
sorry that my little girl is naughty,” will make the child good again
immediately.
So you have a faint idea of the little person who was to be taken on
this long holiday; first in a “puff-puff,” then in a boat,--which was
to her a most remarkable thing, as she lives in a riverless county,
and, except once crossing the Thames, had scarcely ever beheld water.
Her mamma had told her, however, of all the wonderful things she was
to see on her holiday, and for a week or two past she had been saying
to every visitor that came to the house, “Sunny is going to Scotland.
Sunny is going in a puff-puff to Scotland. And papa will take her in
a boat, and she will catch a big salmon. Would you like to see Sunny
catch a big salmon?” For it is the little girl’s firm conviction that
to see Sunny doing anything must be the greatest possible pleasure to
those about her,--as perhaps it is.
Well, the important day arrived. Her mamma was very busy, Little
Sunshine helping her,--to “help mamma” being always her grand idea.
The amount of work she did, in carrying her mamma’s clothes from the
drawers to the portmanteau, and carrying them back again; watching her
dresses being folded and laid in the trunk, then jumping in after them,
smoothing and patting them down, and, lastly, sitting upon them, cannot
be told. Every now and then she looked up, “Mamma, isn’t Sunny a busy
girl?”--which could not be denied.
[Illustration: Sunshine says good-bye to the gardener & his wife.]
The packing-up was such a great amusement--to herself, at least--that
it was with difficulty she could be torn from it, even to get her
dinner, and be dressed for her journey, part of which was to take
place that day. At last she was got ready, a good while before anybody
else, and then she stood and looked at herself from head to foot
in a large mirror, and was very much interested in the sight. Her
travelling-dress was a gray waterproof cloak, with a hood and pockets,
where she could carry all sorts of things,--her gloves, a biscuit,
the head of her dolly (its body had come off), and two or three
pebbles, which she daily picked up in the garden, and kept to wash
in her bath night and morning, “to make them clean,” for she has an
extraordinary delight in things being “quite clean.” She had on a pair
of new boots,--buttoned boots, the first she ever had,--and she was
exceedingly proud of them, as well as of her gray felt hat, underneath
which was the usual mass of curly yellow hair. She shook it from side
to side like a little lion’s mane, calling out, “Mamma, look at Sunny’s
curls! Such a lot of curls!”
When the carriage came to the door, she watched the luggage being put
in very gravely. Then all the servants came to say good-bye to her.
They were very kind servants, and very fond of Little Sunshine. Even
the gardener and his wife looked quite sorry to part with her, but in
her excitement and delight the little lady of course did not mind it at
all.
“Good-bye! good-bye! I’m going to Scotland,” she kept saying, and
kissing her hand. “Sunny’s going to Scotland in a puff-puff. But
she’ll come back again, she will.”
After which kind promise, meant to cheer them up a little, she insisted
on jumping into the carriage “all by her own self,”--she dearly likes
doing anything “all my own self,”--and, kissing her hand once more, was
driven away with her mamma and her nurse (whose name is Lizzie) to meet
her papa in London.
Having been several times in a “puff-puff,” and once in London, she was
not a bit frightened at the streets or the crowd. Only in the confusion
at Euston Square she held very tight to her mamma’s hand, and at last
whispered, “Mamma, take her! up in you arms, up in you own arms!”--her
phrase when she was almost a baby. And though she is now a big girl,
who can walk, and even run, she clung tightly to her mamma’s neck, and
would not be set down again until transferred to her papa, and taken by
him to look at the engine.
Papa and his little girl are both very fond of engines. This was such
a large one, newly painted, with its metal-work so clean and shiny,
that it was quite a picture. Though sometimes it gave a snort and a
puff like a live creature, Sunny was not afraid of it, but sat in her
papa’s arms watching it, and then walked gravely up and down with
him, holding his hand and making all sorts of remarks on the things
she saw, which amused him exceedingly. She also informed him of what
she was going to do,--how she should jump into the puff-puff, and then
jump out again, and sleep in a cottage, in a quite new bed, where Sunny
had never slept before. She chattered so fast, and was so delighted at
everything about her, that the time went rapidly by; and her papa, who
could not come to Scotland for a week yet, was obliged to leave her.
When he kissed her, poor Little Sunshine set up a great cry.
“I don’t want you to go away. Papa! papa!” Then, bursting into one of
her pathetic little furies, “I won’t let papa go away! I won’t!”
She clung to him so desperately that her little arms had fairly to be
untied from round his neck, and it was at least two minutes and a half
before she could be comforted.
But when the train began to move, and the carriageful of people
to settle down for the journey, Sunny recovered herself, and grew
interested in watching them. They were all gentlemen, and as each came
in, mamma had suggested that if he objected to a child, he had better
choose another carriage; but nobody did. One--who looked like the
father of a family--said: “Ma’am, he must be a very selfish kind of
man who does object to children,--that is, good children.” So mamma
earnestly hoped that hers would be a good child.
So she was,--for a long time. There were such interesting things to see
out of the window: puff-puffs without end, some moving on the rails,
some standing still,--some with a long train behind them, some without.
What perplexed and troubled Little Sunshine most was to see the men who
kept running across the rails and ducking under the engines. She got
quite excited about them.
“That poor man must not go on the rails, else the puff-puff will run
over him and hurt him. Then Sunny must pick him up, and take him to her
nursery, and cuddle him.” (She always wants to cuddle everybody who is
ill or hurt.) “Mamma, tell that poor man he _mustn’t_ go on the rails.”
And even when mamma explained that the man knew what he was about, and
was not likely to let himself be run over by any puff-puff, the little
girl still looked anxious and unhappy, until the train swept right away
into the open country, with fields and trees, and cows and baa-lambs.
These last delighted her much. She kept nodding her head and counting
them. “There’s papa baa-lambs, and mamma baa-lambs, and little baby
baa-lambs, just like little Sunny; and they all run about together; and
they are so happy.”
Everything, indeed, looked as happy as the lambs and the child. It was
a bright September day, the trees just beginning to change colour, and
the rich midland counties of England--full of farms and pasture-lands,
with low hills sloping up to the horizon--looked specially beautiful.
But the people in the carriage did not seem to notice anything. They
were all gentlemen, as I said, and they had all got their afternoon
papers, and were reading hard. Not much wonder, as the newspapers were
terribly interesting that day,--the day after the capitulation of
Sedan, when the Emperor Louis Napoleon surrendered himself and his army
to King William of Prussia. When Little Sunshine has grown a woman,
she will understand all about it. But now she only sat looking at the
baa-lambs out of the window, and now and then pulling, rather crossly,
at the newspaper in her mamma’s hand. “I don’t want you to read!” In
her day, may there never be read such dreadful things as her mamma read
in those newspapers!
The gentlemen at last put down theirs, and began to talk together,
loudly and fast. Sunshine’s mamma listened, now to them, now to her
little girl, who asked all sorts of questions, as usual. “What’s
that? you tell me about that,” she is always saying, as she twists her
fingers tight in those of her mamma, who answers at once, and exactly,
so far as she knows. When she does not know,--and even mammas cannot
be expected to understand everything,--she says, plainly, “My little
girl, I don’t know.” And her little girl always believes her, and is
satisfied.
Sunshine was growing rather tired now; and the gentlemen kept on
talking, and did not take any notice of her, or attempt to amuse her,
as strangers generally do, she being such a lively and easily amused
child. Her mamma, fearful of her restlessness, struck out a brilliant
idea.
Little Sunshine has a cousin Georgy, whom she is very fond of, and who
a few days before had presented her with some pears. These pears had
but one fault,--they could not be eaten, being as hard as bullets, and
as sour as crabs. They tried the little girl’s patience exceedingly,
but she was very good. She went every morning to look at them as they
stood ranged in a row along mamma’s window-sill, and kissed them one
by one to make them ripe. At last they did ripen, and were gradually
eaten,--except one, the biggest and most beautiful of all. “Suppose,”
mamma suggested, “that we keep it two days more, then it will be quite
ripe; mamma will put it in her pocket, and we will eat it in the train
half-way to Scotland.” Little Sunshine looked disappointed, but she did
not cry, nor worry mamma,--who, she knows, never changes her mind when
once she says No,--and presently forgot all about it. Until, lo! just
as the poor little girl was getting dull and tired, with nothing to do,
and nobody to play with, mamma pulled out of her pocket--the identical
pear! Such a pear! so large and so pretty,--almost too pretty to eat.
The child screamed with delight, and immediately began to make public
her felicity.
“That’s mamma’s pear!” said she, touching the coat-sleeve of the old
gentleman next her,--a very grim old gentlemen,--an American, thin
and gaunt, with a face not unlike the wolf in Little Red Ridinghood.
“That’s mamma’s pear. Mamma ’membered (remembered) to bring Sunny that
pear!”
“Eh?” said the old gentleman, shaking the little fingers off, not
exactly in unkindness, but as if it were a fly that had settled on
him and fidgeted him. But Sunny, quite unaccustomed to be shaken off,
immediately drew back, shyly and half offended, and did not look at him
again.
He went on talking, in a cross and “cantankerous” way, to another
gentlemen, with a gray beard,--an Indian officer, just come from
Cashmere, which he declared to be the finest country in the world;
while the American said angrily “that it was nothing like Virginia.”
But as neither had been in the other country, they were about as able
to judge the matter as most people are when they dispute about a thing.
Nevertheless, they discussed the question so violently, that Little
Sunshine, who is not used to quarrelling, or seeing people quarrel,
opened her blue eyes wide with astonishment.
Fortunately, she was engrossed by her pear, which took a long time to
eat. First, it had to be pared,--in long parings, which twisted and
dangled like Sunshine’s curls. Then these parings had to be thrown out
of the window to the little birds, which were seen sitting here and
there on the telegraph wires. Lastly, the pear had to be eaten slowly
and deliberately. She fed mamma, herself, and Lizzie, too, turn and
turn about, in the most conscientious way; uttering at each mouthful
that ringing laugh which I wish I could put into paper and print; but I
can’t. By the time all was done, Sunshine had grown sleepy. She cuddled
down in her mamma’s arms, with a whispered request for “Maymie’s apron.”
Now here a confession must be made. The one consolation of life to this
little person is the flannel apron upon which her first nurse used to
wash her when she was a baby. She takes the two corners of it to stroke
her face with one hand, while she sucks the thumb of the other,--and
so she lies, meditating with open eyes, till at last she goes to
sleep. She is never allowed to have the apron in public, so to-day her
mamma was obliged to invent a little “Maymie’s apron”--a small square
of flannel--to comfort her on the long railway journey. This being
produced, though she was a little ashamed, and blushed in her pretty
childish way, she turned her back on the gentlemen in the carriage and
settled down in deep content, her eyes fixed on mamma’s face. Gradually
they closed--and the lively little woman lay fast asleep, warm and
heavy, in her mamma’s arms.
There she might have slept till the journey’s end, but for those horrid
gentlemen, who began to quarrel so fiercely about French and Prussians,
and which had the right of it in this terrible war,--a question which
you little folks even when you are great big folks fifty years hence
may hardly be able to decide,--that they disturbed the poor child in
her happy sleep, and at last she started up, looking round her with
frightened eyes, and began to scream violently. She had been so good
all the way, so little trouble to anybody, that mamma could not help
thinking it served the gentlemen right, and told them, severely, that
“if gentlemen did differ, they need not do it so angrily as to waken a
child.” At which they all looked rather ashamed, and were quiet for the
rest of the journey.
It did not last much longer; and again the little girl had the fun
of jumping out of a puff-puff and into a carriage. The bright day
closed; it was already dusk, and pouring rain, and they had to drive
a long way, stop at several places, and see several new people whom
Little Sunshine had never seen before. She was getting tired and
hungry, but still kept good and did not cry; and when at last she
came to the cottage which her mamma had told her about, where lived
an old gentleman and lady who had been very kind to mamma, and dear
grandmamma, too, for many years, and would be very kind to the little
girl, Sunny ran in at once, as merry as possible.
After awhile mamma followed, and lo! there was Little Sunshine,
quite at home already, sitting in the middle of the white sheep-skin
hearth-rug, having taken half her “things” off, chattering in the most
friendly manner, and asking to be lifted up to see “a dear little baby
and a mamma,” which was a portrait of the old lady’s eldest sister as
an infant in her mother’s arms, about seventy years ago.
And what do you think happened next? Sunny actually sat up to
supper, which she had never done in all her life before,--supper
by candle-light: a mouthful of fowl, and a good many mouthfuls of
delicious cream, poured, with a tiny bit of jam in the middle of it,
into her saucer. And she made a large piece of dry toast into “fishes,”
and swam them in her mamma’s tea, and then fished them out with a
teaspoon, and ate them up. Altogether it was a wonderful meal and left
her almost too wide awake to go to bed, if she had not had the delight
of sleeping in her mamma’s room instead of a nursery, and being bathed,
instead of in her own proper bath, in a washing-tub!
This washing-tub was charming. She eyed it doubtfully, she walked
around it, she peered over it; at last she slowly got into it.
“Come and see me in my bath; come and see Sunny in her bath,” cried
she, inviting all the family, half of whom accepted the invitation.
Mamma heard such shouts of laughing, with her little girl’s laugh
clearer than all, that she was obliged to go up-stairs to see what was
the matter. There was Sunshine frolicking about and splashing like
a large fish in the tub, the maids and mistresses standing round,
exceedingly amused at their new plaything, the little “water baby.”
But at last the day’s excitement was over, and Sunny lay in her white
nightgown, cuddled up like a round ball in her mamma’s lap, sucking
her Maymie’s apron, and listening to the adventures of Tommy Tinker.
Tommy Tinker is a young gentleman about whom a story, “a quite new
story, which Sunny never heard before,” has to be told every night.
Mamma had done this for two months, till Tommy, his donkey, his father,
John Tinker, who went about the country crying “Pots and kettles to
mend,” his schoolfellow, Jack, and his playfellow, Mary, were familiar
characters, and had gone through so much that mamma was often puzzled
as to what should happen to them next; this night especially, when she
herself was rather tired, but fortunately the little girl grew sleepy
very soon.
So she said her short prayers, ending with “God make Sunny a good
little girl” (to which she sometimes deprecatingly adds, “but Sunny is
a good girl”), curled down in the beautiful large strange bed,--such a
change from her little crib at home,--and was fast asleep in no time.
Thus ended the first day of Little Sunshine’s Holiday.