picket soon after, she enjoyed it still more. Our head-quarters were
at a deserted plantation house, with one large parlor, a dining-room
and a few bedrooms. Baby's father and mother had a room up stairs,
with a stove whose pipe went straight out at the window. This was
quite comfortable, though half the windows were broken, and there was
no glass and no glazier to mend them. The windows of the large parlor
were in much the same condition, though we had an immense fireplace,
where we had a bright fire whenever it was cold, and always in the
evening. The walls of this room were very dirty, and it took our
ladies several days to cover all the unsightly places with wreaths and
hangings of evergreen. In this performance Baby took an active part.
Her duties consisted in sitting in a great nest of evergreen, pulling
and fingering the fragrant leaves, and occasionally giving a little
cry of glee when she had accomplished some piece of decided mischief.
There was less entertainment to be found in the camp itself at this
time; but the household at head-quarters was larger than Baby had been
accustomed to. We had a great deal of company, moreover, and she had
quite a gay life of it. She usually made her appearance in the large
parlor soon after breakfast; and to dance her for a few moments in our
arms was one of the first daily duties of each one. Then the morning
reports began to arrive from the different outposts,--a mounted
officer or courier coming in from each place, dismounting at the door,
and clattering in with jingling arms and spurs, each a new excitement
for Annie. She usually got some attention from any officer who came,
receiving with her wonted dignity any daring caress. When the
messengers had ceased to be interesting, there were always the horses
to look at, held or tethered under the trees beside the sunny piazza.
After the various couriers had been received, other messengers would
be despatched to the town, seven miles away, and Baby had all the
excitement of their mounting and departure. Her father was often one
of the riders, and would sometimes seize Annie for a good-by kiss,
place her on the saddle before him, gallop her round the house once or
twice, and then give her back to her nurse's arms again. She was
perfectly fearless, and such boisterous attentions never frightened
her, nor did they ever interfere with her sweet, infantine
self-possession.
After the riding-parties had gone, there was the piazza still for
entertainment, with a sentinel pacing up and down before it; but Annie
did not enjoy the sentinel, though his breastplate and buttons shone
like gold, so much as the hammock which always hung swinging between
the pillars. It was a pretty hammock, with great open meshes; and she
delighted to lie in it, and have the netting closed above her, so that
she could only be seen through the apertures. I can see her now, the
fresh little rosy thing, in her blue and scarlet wrappings, with one
round and dimpled arm thrust forth through the netting, and the other
grasping an armful of blushing roses and fragrant magnolias. She
looked like those pretty French bas-reliefs of Cupids imprisoned in
baskets, and peeping through. That hammock was a very useful
appendage; it was a couch for us, a cradle for Baby, a nest for the
kittens; and we had, moreover, a little hen, which tried to roost
there every night.
When the mornings were colder, and the stove up stairs smoked the
wrong way, Baby was brought down in a very incomplete state of toilet,
and finished her dressing by the great fire. We found her bare
shoulders very becoming, and she was very much interested in her own
little pink toes. After a very slow dressing, she had a still slower
breakfast out of a tin cup of warm milk, of which she generally spilt
a good deal, as she had much to do in watching everybody who came into
the room, and seeing that there was no mischief done. Then she would
be placed on the floor, on our only piece of carpet, and the kittens
would be brought in for her to play with.
We had, at different times, a variety of pets, of whom Annie did not
take much notice. Sometimes we had young partridges, caught by the
drummer-boys in trap-cages. The children called them "Bob and Chloe,"
because the first notes of the male and female sound like those names.
One day I brought home an opossum, with her blind bare little young
clinging to the droll pouch where their mothers keep them. Sometimes
we had pretty green lizards, their color darkening or deepening, like
that of chameleons, in light or shade. But the only pets that took
Baby's fancy were the kittens. They perfectly delighted her, from the
first moment she saw them; they were the only things younger than
herself that she had ever beheld, and the only things softer than
themselves that her small hands had grasped. It was astonishing to see
how much the kittens would endure from her. They could scarcely be
touched by any one else without mewing; but when Annie seized one by
the head and the other by the tail, and rubbed them violently
together, they did not make a sound. I suppose that a baby's grasp is
really soft, even if it seems ferocious, and so it gives less pain
than one would think. At any rate, the little animals had the best of
it very soon; for they entirely outstripped Annie in learning to walk,
and they could soon scramble away beyond her reach, while she sat in a
sort of dumb despair, unable to comprehend why anything so much
smaller than herself should be so much nimbler. Meanwhile, the kittens
would sit up and look at her with the most provoking indifference,
just out of arm's length, until some of us would take pity on the
young lady, and toss her furry playthings back to her again. "Little
baby," she learned to call them; and these were the very first words
she spoke.
Baby had evidently a natural turn for war, further cultivated by an
intimate knowledge of drills and parades. The nearer she came to
actual conflict the better she seemed to like it, peaceful as her own
little ways might be. Twice, at least, while she was with us on
picket, we had alarms from the Rebel troops, who would bring down
cannon to the opposite side of the Ferry, about two miles beyond us,
and throw shot and shell over upon our side. Then the officer at the
Ferry would think that there was to be an attack made, and couriers
would be sent, riding to and fro, and the men would all be called to
arms in a hurry, and the ladies at head-quarters would all put on
their best bonnets, and come down stairs, and the ambulance would be
made ready to carry them to a place of safety before the expected
fight. On such occasions Baby was in all her glory. She shouted with
delight at being suddenly uncribbed and thrust into her little scarlet
cloak, and brought down stairs, at an utterly unusual and improper
hour, to a piazza with lights and people and horses and general
excitement. She crowed and gurgled and made gestures with her little
fists, and screamed out what seemed to be her advice on the military
situation, as freely as if she had been a newspaper editor. Except
that it was rather difficult to understand her precise directions, I
do not know but the whole Rebel force might have been captured through
her plans. And, at any rate, I should much rather obey her orders than
those of some generals whom I have known; for she at least meant no
harm, and would lead one into no mischief.
However, at last the danger, such as it was, would be all over, and
the ladies would be induced to go peacefully to bed again; and Annie
would retreat with them to her ignoble cradle, very much disappointed,
and looking vainly back at the more martial scene below. The next
morning she would seem to have forgotten all about it, and would spill
her bread and milk by the fire as if nothing had happened.
I suppose we hardly knew, at the time, how large a part of the
sunshine of our daily lives was contributed by dear little Annie. Yet,
when I now look back on that pleasant Southern home, she seems as
essential a part of it as the mocking-birds or the magnolias, and I
cannot convince myself that, in returning to it, I should not find her
there. But Annie went back, with the spring, to her Northern
birthplace, and then passed away from this earth before her little
feet had fairly learned to tread its paths; and when I meet her next
it must be in some world where there is triumph without armies, and
where innocence is trained in scenes of peace. I know, however, that
her little life, short as it seemed, was a blessing to us all, giving
a perpetual image of serenity and sweetness, recalling the lovely
atmosphere of far-off homes, and holding us by unsuspected ties to
whatsoever things were pure.
_T. W. Higginson._
[Illustration]
PRUDY PARLIN.
Prudy Parlin and her sister Susy, three years older, lived in
Portland, in the State of Maine.
Susy was more than six years old, and Prudy was between three and
four. Susy could sew quite well for a girl of her age, and had a stint
every day. Prudy always thought it very fine to do just as Susy did,
so she teased her mother to let _her_ have some patchwork too, and
Mrs. Parlin gave her a few calico pieces, just to keep her little
fingers out of mischief.
But when the squares were basted together, she broke needles, pricked
her fingers, and made a great fuss; sometimes crying, and wishing
there were no such thing as patchwork.
One morning she sat in her rocking-chair, doing what she thought was a
_stint_. She kept running to her mother with every stitch, saying,
"Will that do?" Her mother was very busy, and said, "My little
daughter must not come to me." So Prudy sat down near the door, and
began to sew with all her might; but soon her little baby sister came
along looking so cunning that Prudy dropped her needle and went to
hugging her.
"O little sister," cried she, "I wouldn't have a horse come and eat
you up for anything in the world!"
After this, of course, her mother had to get her another needle, and
then thread it for her. She went to sewing again till she pricked her
finger, and the sight of the wee drop of blood made her cry.
"O dear! I wish somebody would pity me!" But her mother was so busy
frying doughnuts that she could not stop to talk much; and the next
thing she saw of Prudy she was at the farther end of the room, while
her patchwork lay on the spice-box.
"Prudy, Prudy, what are you up to now?"
"Up to the table," said Prudy. "O mother, I'm so sorry, but I've broke
a crack in the pitcher!"
"What will mamma do with you? You haven't finished your stint: what
made you get out of your chair?"
"O, I thought grandma might want me to get her _speckles_. I thought I
would go and find Zip too. See, mamma, he's so tickled to see me he
shakes all over--every bit of him!"
"Where's your patchwork?"
"I don't know. You've got a double name, haven't you, doggie? It's Zip
Coon; but it isn't a _very_ double name,--is it, mother?"
When Mrs. Parlin had finished her doughnuts, she said, "Pussy, you
can't keep still two minutes. Now, if you want to sew this patchwork
for grandma's quilt, I'll tell you what I shall do. There's an empty
hogshead in the back kitchen, and I'll lift you into that, and you
can't climb out. I'll lift you out when your stint is done."
"O, what a funny little house!" said Prudy, when she was inside; and
as she spoke her voice startled her,--it was so loud and hollow. "I'll
talk some more," thought she, "it makes such a queer noise. 'Old Mrs.
Hogshead, I thought I'd come and see you, and bring my work. I like
your house, ma'am, only I should think you'd want some windows. I
s'pose you know who I am, Mrs. Hogshead? My name is Prudy. My mother
didn't put me in here because I was a naughty girl, for I haven't done
nothing--nor nothing--nor nothing. Do you want to hear some singing?
"'O, come, come away,
From labor now reposin';
Let _busy Caro, wife of Barrow_,
Come, come away!'"
"Prudy, what's the matter?" said mamma, from the next room.
"Didn't you hear somebody singing?" said Prudy; "well, 't was me."
"O, I was afraid you were crying, my dear!"
"Then I'll stop," said the child. "Now, Mrs. Hogshead, you won't hear
me singing any more,--it _mortifies_ my mother very much."
So Prudy made her fingers fly, and soon said, "Now, mamma, I've got it
done, and I'm ready to be _took out_!"
Just then her father came into the house. "Prudy's in the hogshead,"
said Mrs. Parlin. "Won't you please lift her out, father? I've got
baby in my arms."
Mr. Parlin peeped into the hogshead. "How in this world did you ever
get in here, child?" said he. "I think I'll have to take you out with
a pair of tongs."
Prudy laughed.
"Give me your hands," said papa. "Up she comes! Now, come sit on my
knee," added he, when they had gone into the parlor, "and tell me how
you climbed into that hogshead."
"Mother dropped me in, and I'm going to stay there till I make a
bedquilt,--only I'm coming out to eat, you know."
Mr. Parlin laughed; but just then the dinner-bell rang, and when they
went to the table, Prudy was soon so busy with her roasted chicken and
custard pie that she forgot all about the patchwork.
Prudy soon tired of sewing, and her mother said, laughing, "If Grandma
Read has to wait for somebody's little fingers before she gets a
bedquilt, poor grandma will sleep very cold indeed."
The calico pieces went into the rag-bag, and that was the last of
Prudy's patchwork.
One day the children wanted to go and play in the "new house," which
was not quite done. Mrs. Parlin was almost afraid little Prudy might
get hurt, for there were a great many loose boards and tools lying
about, and the carpenters, who were at work on the house, had all gone
away to see some soldiers. But at last she said they might go if Susy
would be very careful of her little sister.
Susy meant to watch Prudy with great care, but after a while she got
to thinking of something else. The little one wanted to play "catch,"
but Susy saw a great deal more sport in building block houses.
"Now I know ever so much more than you do," said Susy. "I used to wash
dishes and scour knives when I was four years old, and that was the
time I learned you to walk, Prudy; so you ought to play with me, and
be goody."
"Then I will; but them blocks is too big, Susy. If I had _a axe_ I'd
chop 'em: I'll go get _a axe_." Little Prudy trotted off, and Susy
never looked up from her play, and did not notice that she was gone a
long while.
By and by Mrs. Parlin thought she would go and see what the children
were doing; so she put on her bonnet and went over to the "new house."
Susy was still busy with her blocks, but she looked up at the sound of
her mother's footsteps.
"Where is Prudy?" said Mrs. Parlin, glancing around.
"I'm 'most up to heaven," cried a little voice overhead.
They looked, and what did they see? Prudy herself standing on the
highest beam of the house! She had climbed three ladders to get there.
Her mother had heard her say the day before that "she didn't want to
shut up her eyes and die, and be all deaded up,--she meant to have her
hands and face clean, and go up to heaven on a ladder."
"O," thought the poor mother, "she is surely on the way to heaven, for
she can never get down alive. My darling, my darling!"
Poor Susy's first thought was to call out to Prudy, but her mother gave
her one warning glance, and that was enough: Susy neither spoke nor
stirred.
Mrs. Parlin stood looking up at her,--stood as white and still as if she
had been frozen! Her trembling lips moved a little, but it was in
prayer; she knew that only God could save the precious one.
While she was begging him to tell her what to do, a sudden thought
flashed across her mind. She dared not speak, lest the sound of her
voice should startle the child; but she had a bunch of keys in her
pocket, and she jingled the keys, holding them up as high as possible,
that Prudy might see what they were.
When the little one heard the jingling, she looked down and smiled. "You
goin' to let me have some cake and 'serves in the china-closet,--me and
Susy?"
Mrs. Parlin smiled,--such a smile! It was a great deal sadder than
tears, though Prudy did not know that,--she only knew that it meant
"yes."
"O, then I'm coming right down, 'cause I like cake and 'serves. I
won't go up to heaven till _bime-by_!"
Then she walked along the beam, and turned about to come down the
ladders. Mrs. Parlin held her breath, and shut her eyes. She dared not
look up, for she knew that if Prudy should take one false step, she
must fall and be dashed in pieces!
But Prudy was not wise enough to fear anything. O no. She was only
thinking very eagerly about crimson jellies and fruit-cake. She crept
down the ladders without a thought of danger,--no more afraid than a
fly that creeps down the window-pane.
The air was so still that the sound of every step was plainly heard,
as her little feet went pat,--pat,--on the ladder rounds. God was
taking care of her,--yes, at length the last round was reached,--she
had got down,--she was safe!
"Thank God!" cried Mrs. Parlin, as she held little Prudy close to her
heart; while Susy jumped for joy, exclaiming, "We've got her! we've
got her! O, ain't you so happy, mamma?"
"O mamma, what you crying for?" said little Prudy, clinging about her
neck. "Ain't I your little comfort?--there, now, you know what you
_speaked_ about! You said you'd get some cake and verserves for me and
Susy."
"_Sophie May._"
MRS. WALKER'S BETSEY.
It is now ten years since I spent a summer in the little village of
Cliff Spring, as teacher in one of the public schools.
The village itself had no pretensions to beauty, natural or
architectural; but all its surroundings were romantic and lovely. On
one side was a winding river, bordered with beautiful willows; and on
the other a lofty hill, thickly wooded. These woods, in spring and
summer, were full of flowers and wild vines; and a clear, cold stream,
that had its birth in a cavernous recess among the ledges, dashed over
the rocks, and after many windings and plungings found its way to the
river.
At the foot of the hill wound the railroad track, at some points
nearly filling the space between the brook and the rocks, in others
almost overhung by the latter. Some of the most delightful walks I
ever knew were in this vicinity, and here the whole school would often
come in the warm weather, for the Saturday's ramble.
It was on one of these summer rambles I first made the acquaintance of
Mrs. Walker's Betsey. Not that her unenviable reputation had been
concealed from my knowledge, by any means; but as she was not a member
of my department, and was a very irregular attendant of any class, she
had never yet come under my observation. I gathered that her parents
had but lately come to live in Cliff Spring; that they were both
ignorant and vicious; and that the girl was a sort of goblin
sprite,--such a compound of mischief and malice as was never known
before since the days of witchcraft. Was there an ugly profile drawn
upon the anteroom wall, a green pumpkin found in the principal's hat,
or an ink-bottle upset in the water-bucket? Mrs. Walker's Betsey was
the first and constant object of suspicion. Did a teacher find a pair
of tongs astride her chair, her shawl extra-bordered with burdocks,
her gloves filled with some ill-scented weed, or her india-rubbers
cunningly nailed to the floor? half a hundred juvenile tongues were
ready to proclaim poor Betsey as the undoubted delinquent; and this in
spite of the fact that very few of these misdemeanors were actually
proved against her. But whether proved or not, she accepted their
sponsorship all the same, and laughed at or defied her accusers, as
her mood might be.
That the girl was a character in her way, shrewd and sensible, though
wholly uncultured, I was well satisfied, from all I heard; that she
was sly, intractable, and revengeful I believed, I am sorry to say,
upon very insufficient evidence.
One warm afternoon in July, the sun, which at morning had been
clouded, blazed out fiercely at the hour of dismissal. Shrinking from
the prospect of an unsheltered walk, I looked around the shelves of
the anteroom for my sunshade, but it was nowhere to be found. I did
not recollect having it with me in the morning, and believed it had
been left at the school-house over night. The girls of my class
constituted themselves a committee of search and inquiry, but to no
purpose. The article was not in the house or yard, and then my
committee resolved themselves into a jury, and, without a dissenting
voice, pronounced Mrs. Walker's Betsey guilty of cribbing my little,
old-fashioned, but vastly useful sunshade. She had been seen loitering
in the anteroom, and afterward running away in great haste. The charge
seemed reasonable enough, but as I could not learn that Betsey had
ever been caught in a theft, or convicted of one, I requested the
girls to keep the matter quiet, for a few days at least: to which they
unwillingly consented.
"Remember, Miss Burke," said Alice Way, as we parted at her father's
gate, "you promised us a nice walk after tea, to the place in the wood
where you found the beautiful phlox yesterday. We want you to guide us
straight to the spot, please."
"Yes," added Mary Graham, "and we will take our Botanies in our
baskets, and be prepared to analyze the flowers, you know."
My assent was not reluctantly given; and when the sun was low in the
west we set forth, walking nearly the whole distance in the shade of
the hill. We climbed the ridge, rested a few moments, and then started
in search of the beautiful patch of Lichnidia--white, pink, and
purple--that I had found the afternoon previous in taking a "short
cut" over the hill to the house of a friend I was wont to visit.
"Stop, Miss Burke!" came in suppressed tones from half my little
group, as, emerging from a thicket, we came in sight of a queer object
perched upon a little mound, among dead stick and leaves. It was a
diminutive child, who, judging from her face alone, might be ten or
eleven years of age. A little brown, weird face it was, with keen eyes
peering out from a stringy mass of hair, that straggled about
distractedly from the confinement of an old comb.
"_There_," whispered Matty Holmes, "there's Mrs. Walker's Betsey, I do
declare! She often goes home from school this way, which is shorter;
and now she is playing truant. She'll get a whipping if her mother
finds it out."
"Miss Burke, Miss Burke!" cried Alice, "see what she has in her hand!"
I looked, and there, to be sure, was my lost parasol.
"There, now! Didn't we say so!" "Don't she look guilty?" "Weren't we
right?" "Impudent thing!" were the whispered ejaculations of my
vigilance committee; but in truth the girl's appearance was
unconcerned and innocent enough. She sat there, swaying herself about,
opening and shutting the wonderful "instrument," holding it between
her eyes and the light to ascertain the quality of the silk, and
sticking a pin in the handle to try if it were real ivory or mere
painted wood.
"Let's dash in upon her and see her scamper," was the next benevolent
suggestion whispered in my ear.
"No," I said. "I wish to speak to her alone, first. All of you stay
here, out of sight, and I will return presently." They fell back,
dissatisfied, and contented themselves with peeping and listening,
while I advanced toward the forlorn child. She started a little as I
approached, thrust the parasol behind her, and then pleasantly made
room for me on the little hillock where she sat.
"Well, this _is_ a nice place for a lounge," said I, dropping down
beside her; "just large enough for two, and softer than any
_tête-à-tête_ in Mrs. Graham's parlor. Now I should like to know your
name?"--for I thought it best to feign ignorance of her antecedents.
"Bets," was the ready reply.
"Betsey what?"
"Bets Walker, mother says, but I say Hamlin. That was father's name.
'T ain't no difference, though; it's Bets any way."
"Well, Betsey, what do you suppose made this little mound we are
sitting upon?" I asked, merely to gain time to think how best to
approach the other topic.
"I don' know," she answered, looking up at me keenly. "Maybe a rock
got covered up and growed over, ever so far down. Maybe an Injun's
buried there."
I told her I had seen larger mounds that contained Indian remains, but
none so small as this.
"It might 'a' ben a baby, though," she returned, digging her brown
toes among the leaves and winking her eyelids roguishly. "A papoose,
you know; a real little Injun! I wish it had 'a' ben me, and I'd 'a'
ben buried here; I'd 'a' liked it first-rate! Only I wouldn't 'a'
wanted the girls should come and set over me. If I didn't want so bad
to get to read the books father left, I'd never go to school another
day." And her brow darkened again with evil passions.
"Did your own father leave you books?"
"Yes, real good ones; only they're old, and tore some. Mother couldn't
sell 'em for nothin', so she lets me keep 'em. She sold everything
else." Then suddenly changing her tone, she asked, slyly, "You hain't
lost anything,--have you?"
"Yes," I answered; "I see you have my sunshade."