MISS BIGGAR’S POSSESSIONS
Every afternoon the knocker clanged on Miss Calder’s door, calls for
her _protégée_ being plentifully sprinkled among the visits of older
ladies to her. Doctor Garde’s little girl enjoyed driving out to make
calls with Aunt Melissa. In a town the size of Sharon, in those days,
calling on your intimate neighbor with state and ceremony was a moral
duty. The afternoons dreamed. Slow embroidering and careful hand-sewing
were enlivened by rapid talk. It was delightful to be roused from a
drowsy state by a pageant of friends in great bravery whose manners
accorded with their clothes. The people of southern cities will have
their _Mardi gras_ mummery in spite of fever and famine: so, at that
period, the ladies of large villages found their principal diversion in
careful toilets and stately calling.
But the best thing after all at Aunt Melissa’s was the library.
Bluebell was overwhelmed by her riches in that. Her own _Cat Book_
paled by the side of _One Thousand Fairy Tales_ and the _Arabian
Nights_. There were books of travels, and piles of _Graham’s Magazine_,
_Sandford and Merton_, Abbott’s _Rollo Books_, _Robinson Crusoe_, whole
shelves of poets, immense cyclopædia volumes, and even a few gilt
annuals, books of beauty, etc. Walter Scott and Irving inhabited one
long shelf with Cooper. O world of books, what a great world thou art,
and how large a part of many people’s lives is projected into thee!
Miss Melissa herself was a gentle student. She felt her early relish
revived by the fervor with which this child seized on the library. She
directed Bluebell occasionally, but let her forage at will.
Doctor Garde’s little girl calculated that this feast of books would
last until she was quite old--almost twelve, in fact.
One pictured tome, called Shakspeare, hard to lift from the shelf, and
very queer and hard to understand in some parts, had yet a fascination.
She was delighted to find this the source from which came some of the
best _Fourth Reader_ pieces: Shylock at the trial; Prince Arthur and
Hubert. She toiled carefully through both plays, and would not for
anything have confessed to a grown person that she felt real sorry
for poor old Shylock, though he was bad. It seemed so naughty of his
daughter to carry off the ring he prized,--the one he had from his wife
Leah,--and so dreadful for him to lose all his prop:--prop, Bluebell
considered, must be short for property. But Portia and the caskets were
great fun, and Antonio a man almost as lovely as her own father. She
devoutly wished Hubert had taken Arthur away off into the country,--to
some place like the Rocky Fork,--and had never told the king he still
lived. Wasn’t it nice the old bad king got so scared at those moons! He
was as bad as the uncle in _Babes of the Wood_.
But the very loveliest of everything was Midsummer Night’s Dream. What
could be cuter than Puck, or more delicate than Titania! With a natural
instinct for pronouncing, the little girl got nearly all the names
right, though she branded Theseus as The-ze-us, unconscious of the
Greek diphthong’s shortness, and never in her life could she alter the
charmed sound.
_Plutarch’s Lives_ was delicious in spots, but rather tough.
Shakspeare, on the other hand, was never, never tough. She missed old
and deep meanings intended for adult senses. Titania’s infatuation with
the weaver was so funny that she chuckled heartily. But the finer aroma
of the plays was never missed once.
There were some copies of Dickens on the shelves too; but she happened
on them late, for Dickens did not appear an attractive name.
Libbie Biggar came flying in and found Bluebell with her head supported
by her hands and a fat volume propped open on the table.
“Come on!” exclaimed the shingled young lady; “Miss Calder said you
might go to my house and stay the afternoon.”
Doctor Garde’s little girl looked up, absent and half distressed.
“Sit down and take off your hat,” she murmured, with a glimmer of
polite solicitude.
“I sha’n’t stop a minute. What are you reading?”
“Oh, it is the nicest story! Oh, his mother was so sweet, and Mr.
Murdstone was so mean, and so was Miss Murdstone. But I could hug
Peggotty: she’s as good as Liza was. And I almost wish Davy would go
away off and visit his funny old aunt that flattened her nose against
the window.”
“Well, come on. I don’t care anything about that. You’re always
reading. Orpha Rose says you went and huddled down in a corner with a
book when she had you to her house to tea.”
“It was Undine,” pleaded Doctor Garde’s little girl, turning red. “I
did want to know so badly what became of her.”
“I don’t think it’s nice to be reading all the time.”
That settled it. Libbie Biggar, who had been carefully brought up
from birth, ought to know what was nice. Still, Doctor Garde’s little
girl felt her individuality too strong for her in spots. She inwardly
decided that it was nice, too!
“But I don’t read all the time. I began Davy last week, and I’ve only
read a little piece, about little Em’ly and the boat-house and all,
and where Mr. Murdstone whipped him, and Davy bit him--oh, good!”
“Well, if you’re coming to my house to play little dinner, come on. I
don’t see any fun in just reading and reading and reading.”
Miss Biggar spoke with a tang of injury; and with a similar tang on her
part, Bluebell marked her place in Davy and hid the book lest somebody
else might appropriate it. To be hauled by the ears all the way from
a distant country called England, to play even such a fine play, was
sudden. But there was no appeal. Doctor Garde’s little girl must
always be under the dictation of some companion. She followed Libbie
as obediently as if the latter were Tildy, and the stage of action the
Rocky Fork. How far she would bear dictation the dictator never knew
until he experimented and her swift and complete rebellion apprised
him. But, after all, what little girl would not for the time prefer
Libbie Biggar’s playroom to all the libraries collected since and
including that of Ptolemy Philadelphus?
It looked like a toy-shop. There were animals standing on wheels to be
drawn by a string; animals which nodded their heads quite like life;
cats that mewed, dogs that barked; rabbits and squirrels sitting up in
plaster-of-Paris immobility; a whole Noah’s Ark with a cargo of wooden
survivors--Mrs. Noah, Mrs. Ham, and Mesdames Shem and Japhet in red or
blue or yellow or green dresses of bright paint, and Noah to the life,
looking so like the rest of his family that you could only distinguish
him by his broader hat. As for dolls, Georgiana, who had come in
Bluebell’s arms, sat down in despair and felt nobody at all! There was
a baby doll in a cradle, with real bald head and fat hands, wearing a
long dress and baby cap. A very much dressed mother-doll sat by it in
one chair of a satin and mahogany parlor-set. A negro doll dressed in
bright calico leaned against the head of the cradle to signify that
she was the most faithful of nurses. Various insignificant dolls with
mashed _papier-maché_ faces lounged about in faded finery, or sprawled
staring at the ceiling as if counting flies. A wax lady as large as
Libbie could handle--so immense in fact that she wore a little girl’s
shoes, and sat in an arm-chair.
Oh, Georgiana! when thy doting relative felt that mighty doll’s floss
and saw her walk across the floor, and heard her cry “mamma!” instead
of the inarticulate noise which was all thou couldst make in thy chest,
didst thou not slide down and roll up thine eyes and decide that life
was not, after all, worth living!
But what were the dolls beside the cooking furniture of that magic
room! In those days every little girl had not a complete toy household
at her command. Conveniences for cooking dolls’ meals were rare, and
many a doll sat down to a cracker on triangles of broken dishes, and
thought herself well served.
But under the black mantel on the brick hearth of Libbie Biggar’s
playroom stood the completest little iron stove, with Liliputian lids,
pots, pans, skillets, oven, tea-kettle. It was not to be looked at, but
cooked with. In the left-hand corner by the fireplace was a cupboard,
bearing a tea-set, and not the kind which will barely fit your finger
with thimbles of cups, but large enough to eat with. And a round table
was drawn cosily near it; a table just large enough to spread above
little girls’ laps when they sat up to it on low chairs.
What a kingdom to come into! They set about kindling a fire in the
stove with sticks prepared for that purpose, and very soon the little
monster was roaring away, the pipe sending up small clouds to the
chimney, the tea-kettle blowing out steam, and coals of actual fire
grinning between the steel bars!
Mrs. Biggar, the floss-haired grandmamma, came in, smiled indulgently
at their zest, and exhorted them not to set themselves on fire. She
was going out, and if they wanted anything they might get it from the
kitchen. After she was gone, the domestic, probably set to watch the
fire, looked in once or twice, and left some goody each time.