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[Illustration]
[Illustration: CAPTAIN HORACE.]
[Illustration]
LITTLE PRUDY'S STORIES.
BY SOPHIE MAY
ILLUSTRATED
LITTLE PRUDY'S CAPTAIN HORACE.
LEE & SHEPARD BOSTON
LITTLE PRUDY SERIES.
CAPTAIN HORACE.
BY
SOPHIE MAY.
BOSTON 1893
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS
10 MILK STREET NEXT "THE OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE"
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, by
LEE & SHEPARD,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court
of the District of Massachusetts.
COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY REBECCA S. CLARKE.
LITTLE PRUDY'S CAPTAIN HORACE.
TO
MY LITTLE NEPHEW
WILLY WHEELER.
FROM HIS AFFECTIONATE
AUNT.
PREFACE.
You wide-awake little boys, who make whistles of willow, and go fishing
and training,--Horace is very much like you, I suppose. He is by no
means perfect, but he is brave and kind, and scorns a lie. I hope you
and he will shake hands and be friends.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. MAKING CANDY, 5
II. CAMPING OUT, 15
III. TAKING A JOURNEY, 33
IV. AT GRANDPA PARLIN'S, 49
V. CAPTAIN OF A COMPANY, 68
VI. SUSY AND PRUDY, 87
VII. IN THE WOODS, 99
VIII. CAPTAIN CLIFFORD, 117
IX. THE BLUE BOOK, 128
X. TRYING TO GET RICH, 141
XI. THE LITTLE INDIAN, 149
XII. A PLEASANT SURPRISE, 167
CAPTAIN HORACE.
CHAPTER I.
MAKING CANDY.
Grace and Horace Clifford lived in Indiana, and so were called
"Hoosiers."
Their home, with its charming grounds, was a little way out of town, and
from the front windows of the house you could look out on the broad
Ohio, a river which would be very beautiful, if its yellow waters were
only once settled. As far as the eye could see, the earth was one vast
plain, and, in order to touch it, the sky seemed to stoop very low;
whereas, in New England, the gray-headed mountains appear to go up part
way to meet the sky.
One fine evening in May, brown-eyed Horace and blue-eyed Grace stood on
the balcony, leaning against the iron railing, watching the stars, and
chatting together.
One thing is very sure: they never dreamed that from this evening their
sayings and doings--particularly Horace's--were to be printed in a book.
If any one had whispered such a thing, how dumb Horace would have grown,
his chin snuggling down into a hollow place in his neck! and how
nervously Grace would have laughed! walking about very fast, and
saying,--
"O, it's too bad, to put Horace and me in a book! I say it's too bad!
Tell them to wait till my hair is curled, and I have my new pink dress
on! And tell them to make Horace talk better! He plays so much with the
Dutch boys. O, Horace isn't fit to print!"
This is what she might have said if she had thought of being "put in a
book;" but as she knew nothing at all about it, she only stood very
quietly leaning against the balcony-railing, and looking up at the
evening sky, merry with stars.
"What a shiny night, Horace! What do the stars look like? Is it diamond
rings?"
"I'll tell you, Gracie; it's cigars they look like--just the ends of
cigars when somebody is smoking."
At that moment the cluster called the "Seven Sisters" was drowned in a
soft, white cloud.
"Look," said Grace; "there are some little twinkles gone to sleep, all
tucked up in a coverlet. I don't see what makes you think of dirty
cigars! They look to me like little specks of gold harps ever so far
off, so you can't hear the music. O, Horace, don't you want to be an
angel, and play on a beautiful harp?"
"I don't know," said her brother, knitting his brows, and thinking a
moment; "when I can't live any longer, you know, then I'd like to go up
to heaven; but now, I'd a heap sooner be a _soldier_!"
"O, Horace, you'd ought to rather be an angel! Besides, you're too
little for a soldier!"
"But I grow. Just look at my hands; they're bigger than yours, this
minute!"
"Why, Horace Clifford, what makes them so black?"
"O, _that's_ no account! I did it climbin' trees. Barby tried to scour
it off, but it sticks. I don't care--soldiers' hands ain't white, are
they, Pincher?"
The pretty dog at Horace's feet shook his ears, meaning to say,--
"I should think not, little master; soldiers have very dirty hands, if
you say so."
"Come," said Grace, who was tired of gazing at the far-off star-land;
"let's go down and see if Barbara hasn't made that candy: she said she'd
be ready in half an hour."
They went into the library, which opened upon the balcony, through the
passage, down the front stairs, and into the kitchen, Pincher following
close at their heels.
It was a very tidy kitchen, whose white floor was scoured every day with
a scrubbing-brush. Bright tin pans were shining upon the walls, and in
one corner stood a highly polished cooking-stove, over which Barbara
Kinckle, a rosy-cheeked German girl, was stooping to watch a kettle of
boiling molasses. Every now and then she raised the spoon with which she
was stirring it, and let the half-made candy drip back into the kettle
in ropy streams. It looked very tempting, and gave out a delicious odor.
Perhaps it was not strange that the children thought they were kept
waiting a long while.
"Look here, Grace," muttered Horace, loud enough for Barbara to hear;
"don't you think she's just the slowest kind?"
"It'll sugar off," said Grace, calmly, as if she had made up her mind
for the worst; "don't you know how it sugared off once when ma was
making it, and let the fire go 'most out'?"
"Now just hear them childers," said good-natured Barbara; "where's the
little boy and girl that wasn't to speak to me one word, if I biled 'em
some candies?"
"There, now, Barby, I wasn't speaking to you," said Horace; "I mean I
wasn't talking to _her_, Grace. Look here: I've heard you spell, but
you didn't ask me my Joggerphy."
"_Geography_, you mean, Horace."
"Well, Ge-ography, then. Here's the book: we begin at the Mohammedans."
Horace could pronounce that long name very well, though he had no idea
what it meant. He knew there was a book called the Koran, and would have
told you Mr. Mohammed wrote it; but so had Mr. Colburn written an
Arithmetic, and whether both these gentlemen were alive, or both dead,
was more than he could say.
"Hold up your head," said Grace, with dignity, and looking as much as
possible like tall Miss Allen, her teacher. "Please repeat your verse."
The first sentence read, "They consider Moses and Christ as true
prophets, but Mohammed as the greatest and last."
"I'll tell you," said Horace: "they think that Christ and Moses was good
enough prophets, but Mohammed was a heap better."
"Why, Horace, it doesn't say any such think in the book! It begins,
'_They consider_.'"
"I don't care," said the boy, "Miss Jordan tells us to get the sense of
it. Ma, musn't I get the sense of it?" he added, as Mrs. Clifford
entered the kitchen.
"But, mamma," broke in Grace, eagerly, "our teacher wants us to commit
the verses: she says a great deal about committing the verses."
"If you would give me time to answer," said Mrs. Clifford, smiling, "I
should say both your teachers are quite right. You should 'get the sense
of it,' as Horace says, and after that commit the verses."
"But, ma, do you think Horace should say 'heap,' and 'no account,' and
such words?"
"It would certainly please me," said Mrs. Clifford, "if he would try to
speak more correctly. My little boy knows how much I dislike some of his
expressions."
"There, Horace," cried Grace, triumphantly, "I always said you talked
just like the Dutch boys; and it's very, very improper!"
But just then it became evident that the molasses was boiled enough, for
Barbara poured it into a large buttered platter, and set it out of doors
to cool. After this, the children could do nothing but watch the candy
till it was ready to pull.
Then there was quite a bustle to find an apron for Horace, and to make
sure that his little stained hands were "spandy clean," and "fluffed"
all over with flour, from his wrists to the tips of his fingers. Grace
said she wished it wasn't so much trouble to attend to boys; and, after
all, Horace only pulled a small piece of the candy, and dropped half of
that on the nice white floor.
Barbara did the most of the pulling. She was quite a sculptor when she
had plastic candy in her hands. Some of it she cut into sticks, and some
she twisted into curious images, supposed to be boys and girls, horses
and sheep.
After Grace and Horace had eaten several of the "boys and girls," to say
nothing of "handled baskets," and "gentlemen's slippers," Barbara
thought it high time they were "sound abed and asleep."
So now, as they go up stairs, we will wish them a good night and
pleasant dreams.