_CHAPTER IV.—Mary Ellen’s Midnight Adventure._
What it was Mary Ellen had in her soft little pink hand when she came
back from the New-Year’s calls and still had in it when she was laid in
her “cribsie-nest” New-Year’s night, nobody knew.
[Illustration: “DON’T YOU SMELL PEPPERMINT?”]
It was small and round and flat and smooth. Mary Ellen hardly felt it,
and as the hand of a little baby mostly keeps itself shut very tight it
did not drop out, and by and by it grew just the least bit sticky and
staid fast.
To be sure, when Mama Nan was undressing her and putting on her nightgown
she suddenly began to sniff. “I seem to smell peppermint,” she said, and
dipped her nose down among Mary Ellen’s ruffles. Then she lifted her head
and sniffed all about in the air in the funniest way. “If she were not
mine,” she said, “I should certainly say somebody had been giving this
child peppermint! Come here, Dick! Don’t you smell peppermint? Put your
head down here!”
Papa Dick put his nose down in Mary Ellen’s ruffles and sniffed. He said
it did seem as if he got a whiff of peppermint, but perhaps babies always
smelt of peppermint.
“Of course she _hasn’t_ had any,” Mama Nan said at last, and they went
out and left the baby to her dreams, and the baby said nothing. The
little hand staid shut, and she went to sleep.
[Illustration: HE FLASHED UP THE NIGHT LAMP.]
That night, suddenly, just as the nursery clock began striking twelve,
there was an outcry from the crib, so sharp, so painful, that it brought
Mama Nan to her feet in the millionth part of a second. Papa Dick, too!
He flashed up the night lamp and then there was a second scream, from
Mama Nan, and she dropped in a heap by the crib. As for Papa Dick, his
hair stood on end. He dashed at the crib and snatched a small mouse,
a live mouse but ever so little, from Mary Ellen’s fingers that were
clutching it tight. In his horror he flung it into the water-pitcher.
Then he flung the water, some of it, and the mouse with it, into Mama
Nan’s face, for she had fainted; and the mouse leaped from Mama Nan’s wet
cheek and ran for his life.
The next minute both were bending over Mary Ellen. Her big blue eyes,
full of tears, were just shutting to sleep again. A tiny pink peppermint
lay on the crib quilt. Mama Nan pounced on it. “What did I tell you!” she
cried.
Papa Dick was examining the warm little hand. It was very sticky and
sugary. There was a tiny red spot, like a pin-prick, on one side of the
palm. “The mouse was after the candy,” said he, “and she just shut her
fingers on him when he bit—hurrah for our baby, Nan!”
“_Bit!_” screamed Nan, and for a moment she looked as if she might faint
again. “Old Lady Lois must have given it to her when we were upstairs
to-day—she is forever eating peppermints! I should think she would have
known better!”
But dear Old Lady Lois, who truly was as fond of sweets as a child, had
not given her the peppermint. She had dropped it on her lap and little
Mary Ellen’s hand had chanced to close over it, and had brought it home.
_Ella Farman Pratt._
[Illustration]
London Bridge is falling down—
Hurry through!
London Bridge has fallen down—
And—caught—you!