A RAINBOW IN THE NURSERY
THE kitchen at Oaklands was a warm and cheery place to turn into on
that frosty morning; at least so thought Robin, as, standing beside his
friend Jonathan in the doorway, he watched the cook pour steaming bread
and milk into the basins that were going up into the nursery. The scent
of fragrant coffee, mingled with the savoury smell from the rashers
of bacon sputtering and browning in the great frying-pan, made a most
inviting combination.
"This is Widow Campbell's son," said the gardener, pushing Robin
forward a little; "he has come to fetch the clothes for his mother."
"Then he must wait a while, if you please," said the housekeeper,
who entered at that moment. "We are very busy this morning, and I am
behindhand with several things. Cook, give the lad a cup of coffee and
something to eat with it. It may be an hour before I can send him home
again."
Robin, nothing loth, sat himself down as directed at a side table in
the midst of this stirring scene, and the sharp morning air having
given him a fine appetite, he lost no time in commencing an attack
upon the plentifully heaped plate set before him. It was seldom indeed
the poor boy got a chance of fried bacon and potatoes at home for
breakfast. Before he had quite finished, he heard the sound of happy
voices in the garden mingled with shouts of laughter; and presently two
boys with their merry-looking sister chased each other past the kitchen
window.
"Have you seen the Christmas tree?" shouted one.
"No; where is it?"
"Here! Old Jonathan has got it round by the kitchen door."
"Oh, what a beauty! Where is mamma? She must come and see It. Won't
it look lovely with all the things hung upon it to-night? I wish they
would make haste and finish breakfast in the dining room."
"Where did you get such a grand one, Jonathan? And what are you going
to do with that branch stuck in a pot?" cried Clarice, laughing.
"That is a Christmas tree for a poor sick child, my little missie. She
will never run about as you do, for her legs are no use whatever to
her, and the doctor says she cannot get better."
"Oh, I am so sorry for her, Jonathan!"
"She has a kind brother, though," continued Jonathan, "who wants her
to have as happy a Christmas as she can, so he has begged this bough
from me, and I have found an old pot to put it in. Maybe, miss, among
your things in the nursery you can find a broken toy or so and a bit
or two of coloured ribbon, if I might make so bold. It will deck it up
gay-like for the poor little creature."
"Oh yes, Jonathan, that I will! We have heaps of things that nurse
calls rubbish in our toy drawers. I will ask mamma about it. But how
shall we send them? You have not told me her name. Where does she live?"
"They call her Corrie, miss, though I believe her right name is
Coralie. Widow Campbell named her after the youngest little girl she
used to have charge of when she lived in this house as nurse many years
ago. Corrie's brother is in the kitchen now, miss, if you would like to
see him."
"Ask him to wait until we speak to mamma. She has sent us to get ivy
for her now to decorate the rooms with, but we will be back very soon."
And away scampered the children.
Millicent, a little lady five years old, stood at the nursery window
watching her brothers and sister as they ran races across the frosty
lawn, trying who should be first to reach the wood. But the blinding
shower of tears falling from her blue eyes soon hid them from view.
"They are very unkind indeed," she cried, stamping her foot, "when they
know I cannot go with them. Papa and mamma are very cross not to let
me. I want to go and get ivy too."
From low sobs, the crying swelled into a passionate roar, which reached
even Robin's ears as he sat below in the kitchen.
"Miss Milly! Hush! Stop crying, dear," said nurse. "You will make your
cough so bad. Look! Baby is quite frightened at the noise you are
making."
"I don't care, nurse! Everybody is very unkind. I want to go out now
and pick the ivy!" And the child's slight delicate frame trembled with
the passion she was giving way to.
"Milly!"
It was her father's voice; and in one instant the screaming ceased.
"Milly!" he repeated, in a grave sorrowful tone. "Nurse, please take
baby into the next room. I must talk to my little girl alone."
Gently he drew the naughty child into his arms, and placed her on his
knee, beside the fire.
"Milly has made papa's heart very sore to-day; she has quite forgotten
Sunday night."
"No, I haven't, papa."
"I see dark heavy clouds and streaming rain on my little girl's face,
but no smiling sunshine. I hope it will come soon."
"I wanted to go out," she began; but a bad fit of coughing prevented
the end of the sentence.
"Do you want to be in bed again, Milly, and have more biting mustard
on your chest? Remember, the doctor said if you were not a great deal
better, you could not go downstairs to see the Christmas tree to-night.
I think I must tell nurse to undress you and put you to bed again."
"No, no, please not, papa!" pleaded the little invalid, with her arms
clinging about his neck. "I have been very naughty; but I am good again
now. I don't like being ill at all."
"Do you like being miserable, Milly?"
"No!"
"Oh, I thought you did. When people want to be very unhappy all day
long, they have only to do one thing, and they will be sure to succeed.
Can you tell me what that is?"
Milly's face was now quite hidden on her father's shoulder, but no
answer came.
"They have only to think about themselves from morning to night, and
cry me, me, for everything. That is a very ugly picture, is it not?
Suppose we look at another: How to be happy all day long instead?"
"How?" whispered the little penitent, with a tighter clasp.
"Why, never to think about self at all, but try and see how many other
people can be made happy. If everybody did that in the world, there
would be much less sorrow. Suppose we try, Milly, you and I? I wonder
who will succeed best? What does mamma say? Here she comes, and Clarice
too; they look as if they had something to tell us."
Mamma smiled, while Clarice knelt down to whisper something in her
sister's ear.
"But I want to hear too," said papa.
"Oh, very well, we will say it out loud!
"Papa, Robin Campbell, the washerwoman's son is here, and Jonathan has
been telling me all about his poor little sister Corrie. She is quite
lame, and never never can walk; and they are very poor. He wants to
make a Christmas tree for her with a fir branch Jonathan has put into a
pot and given to him. Mamma says Milly and I may have it up here in the
nursery and dress it, and then Robin can come again to fetch it in the
afternoon. Won't it be nice, Milly?"
Such a bright smile came over Milly's face on hearing this, that papa
said, "Ah! There is the rainbow! I thought it would come; and here is
nurse with the fir bough to be decked for Corrie. You will have a happy
morning now, my little girls!" he added as he left the room.
And it was a happy morning, for its hours sped so swiftly away that
neither of the children could believe it was over when dinner-time
came. First there was a golden star to be cut out of some gilt paper
that had adorned a cracker. This was fastened to the top of the bough.
"There are more dolls than we want in our dolls' house family," cried
Clarice. "Let us take two of those, and put fresh sashes on them; and
here is an old tin soldier, to keep them in order. Oh, I forgot this
bag of sweeties! This will tie on here, and just fill up the bare
space. What next, Milly?"
"My little sugar lamb, I think, Clarice. I do love my little lamb, and
I have kept him so carefully. No; I really cannot let him go. But yes,
yes I will. It will make poor little Corrie so happy. There! I have
tied it on; and here is a pink rose to go next to it, and all these red
and yellow crackers mamma sent up just now."
And so the miniature tree grew gay by degrees up in the nursery, while
papa and mamma worked away at the big one in the dining room with
locked doors.
Not even one peep could Alfred and Arthur obtain, though they hovered
outside the windows all the morning!