_CHAPTER X.—The Vase of Flowers._
None of the “gum-ums” supposed Mary Ellen would try coming up stairs
again. Her poor little bumped nose would be a warning. But Papa Dick
thought she would, and said someone ought to be in the nursery all the
time.
[Illustration: “MARY ELLEN MUSTN’T TOUCH!”]
“No, no,” said Mama Nan. “My little Mary Ellen must grow up able to do
right without being watched. If somebody sits by her and prevents her
from everything, how can I ever tell whether she is good or whether she
is bad?”
“Well,” said Papa Dick, “I hope you wont come to grief a-carrying out
your ideas about your little Mary Ellen.”
The next day after her adventure, Mary Ellen was left alone as usual with
her playthings. Her little nose was black-and-blue, and gave her a look
of not being a specially good child. Once or twice she put her little
hand up to her face. “Nosey ache, Dom P’e-do,” she said to the parrot.
Great-Grandmother Day’s tall old pier glass stood in the room. On its
low marble shelf Mama Nan generally kept a vase filled with flowers. It
was a glass vase, and very tall and slender. She had been warned about
leaving this vase in Mary Ellen’s reach. “She will pull it over some
day,” said Madam Esther, “and the vase’ll break and she’ll get cut with
the broken glass.”
Mama Nan said “no, she is to learn not to touch things.” But after the
parrot, the vase of flowers was the first object the baby took notice of.
Mama Nan would take a flower out and give to her, then set the vase back,
shake her head and say slowly, “Mary Ellen mustn’t touch!”
“Mary Ellen is a little human being,” she said, “and knows just as well
as I do that I mean she is not to touch the vase.”
“Yes,” said Papa Dick, “and because she is a little human being she will
some day investigate that vase for herself.”
[Illustration: MARY ELLEN DIDN’T LIKE WATER.]
And now that day had come. Mary Ellen sat for a time on the rug after her
mother went out, holding her rag doll by one leg. Suddenly she dropped
the doll and made vigorously for the mirror. She didn’t hesitate a second
after getting there. She reached for the biggest rose of the lot, grabbed
it by its head and pulled. Over came the vase, crash, splash, drench!
Mary Ellen gazed at the puddle. She didn’t like water. When it spread
out and wet her dress, she struck at it and drew herself away. “Notty
watty!” she said. This amused the parrot and he laughed. “Notty watty!”
she cried, looking up at him, and struck at it again. Mary Ellen had
never seen anything struck, but it was a very fierce little blow she
gave the puddle of drenched flowers. Then she set off with her big rose
for the open door into the hall, and up the stairs she went, and nearly
twice as quick as on the day before.
_Ella Farman Pratt._