Читать книгу The Haven Children; or, Frolics at the Funny Old House on Funny Street - Emilie Foster - Страница 5

Table of Contents

“Dippity dash, dippity dash,

Wash his face with a merry splash!

Polish it well with a towel fine,—

Oh, how his eyes and his cheeks will shine!

Dippity dash, dippity dash.”

Sunday morning’s sun peered long into the windows of the quaint house on Funny street; the milkmen,

“All dressed in their Sunday suits,”

completed their rounds, Grace Church chimes rang out “Jerusalem the Golden,” and the “Old Baptist” bell sent forth its loud, full tones, before the heavy eyelids of three little travellers had opened wide enough to take in any idea of their whereabouts.

Artie and Daisy, in snow-white suits, have breakfasted down stairs, and are now curled up in comfortable sofa-corners, reading the “Children’s Magazine.” Hugh’s voice is heard through the open window, as he sings—

“I am passing, passing, passing over Jordan,”

to the accompaniment of jingling spoons and clattering dishes, whilst Celia and Nan have stolen up to the nursery for a half-hour’s chat with Charlotte, and to aid at the morning bath.

Little Bear wakes languid and fretful, entirely unwilling that good old Celia should aid, or even touch him, whilst the two Monkeys chatter and splash in their bath, good-natured and merry, as if they had only travelled to the Park and back.

Splashed and bathed, rubbed and scrubbed, brushed and flushed, the little folk draw around the waiting table, and can scarcely eat for laughing at the prodigious joke that they,—

“Have real-for-fair beef-steak, like grown-up folk, and buttered toast.”

Suddenly, the door opens to admit Papa, and then the laugh has to be repeated with him, so funny it is that “little Monkeys and Bears should go to visit, and be fed on cooked beef-steak and buttered toast.”

“Papa is all drest

In his Sunday best,

so, carefully avoids the little buttered fingers, soon waving good-bye, for the bells are tolling Church-time, and Aunt Emma, Daisy, and Artie are waiting below.

“Do they have Sundays up here to my Aunt Emma’s house all the time, Nan, and week-days too?” anxiously asks little Jack, with mouth full of buttered toast.

“That we don’t, childy,” she replies; “we don’t have Sundays here more than common, and never on a week-day as I remember; but I am just going to stop home from Church to-day and help amuse you. Let me wipe your little fingers and then I’ll just get the very same Noah’s Ark your Papa used to have when he was a child, for Miss Emma keeps it precious as gold.”

“Nan, I guess it’s best not,” timidly interrupted Bear. “Mamma lets us have picture-books and stories and pencils, but she’d a little rather we wouldn’t have out our toys Sundays. Only Lily has hers.”

“But I don’t think,” said Nan, “your Mamma would object to a Noah’s Ark, it is such a very pious toy, and I could be telling you the Scripture-story, whilst the family and animals are being walked out.”

“Yes, do, Nan dear,” burst in Rosie, whilst Jack stood listening eagerly, convinced first by one party, and again by the other. “It would just do for a Bible lesson, you know, like Sunday-school.”

“But, Rosie,” remonstrated Bear, “when we are away from our Mamma, we ought to do what she likes, and you know how many times she tells us if we give up our toys on Sunday, it will be the same as a

“Little work of love and praise

That we may do for Jesus’ sake;”

but we might play Sunday-school, with chairs, if Charlotte would be teacher, and she can tell stories good as any book, except Mamma.”

The Sunday-school idea was eagerly seized upon, and the chairs were soon arranged in Sunday-school order. Then Nan and her class of little ones stood up in most proper order whilst they sang Charlotte’s favorite hymn—

“All hail the power of Jesus’ name,

Let angels prostrate fall,

Bring forth the royal diadem,

And crown Him Lord of all.”

Bear’s sweet treble blended nicely with the two women’s clear notes, whilst Rosie and Jack sang true to their own idea of time, and enjoyed the discord very much.

Then followed a mild amount of Catechism, and Bear chose, “Jerusalem the Golden,” for another “sing,” then Jack asked—

“Miss Sunday-school teacher, can’t we each another tell a true Bible story, and me begin?”

The teacher assented, and Jack began, at first, very confidently—

“Well, now, there was a little fellow, so big as me, and his name was Jofef, and his Papa made him a coat, very buful one, blue and red and buful brass buttons, like Fourth of July soldiers’ coats, only there wasn’t no pantaloons with stripes, and—and two little pockets like mine with hankshef, his Mamma put in, with his name Jack (I mean Jofef) in the corner, and he took and—and popped some corn and—er, and—er, I guess it’s your turn, Rosie.”

“Well, then, I’ll finish it. He took the popped corns out to his brethren, ten nine or twelve of them, making hay in the field, and the wicked lots of brethren just ran and tossed the poor little fellow into a pit, and took the span new coat his Papa made him, and got some dreadful-for-fair blood and dipt it in, so as to make bl’eve to their father that his dear little son was dead, and killed by the wild animals that’s raging in the dark, wild wood.—Nan, I hope there’s no wild woods in Providence. No? Well, I’m glad of it.”

“Rosie, child, what are you about?” impatiently asked Bear; “don’t you know this is Sunday-school.”

“Oh, oh yes, I forgot. Well, then, where was I? Oh, I know; the father was very sad, there was nothing to eat in the pantries, nor in the barns, only there was something about a silver cup in a bag, but, and, well—a pin seems sticking in me, Charlotte, and I believe my new little bronze boot pinches a little right behind the heel. Isn’t it most Bear’s turn?”

Bear’s story was so well and truly told, that the children’s interest was fairly roused, and Celia stole in upon them quite unobserved, with something hid under her apron.

The little Monkeys were the first to spy out the suspicious little heap, and the promise of something, speaking in old Celia’s eyes, so grew very restless during the last hymn, and whether by accident or otherwise, we don’t feel able to say, Jack sang out Amen at the end of the second verse, and fairly put an end to the Sunday-school by tipping over one of the chairs, in his eagerness to reach Celia’s lap, and stealing in his little chubby thumb

“He drew out a plum,”

in the form of a fine, red-cheeked cherry, and Celia apologized for interrupting their exercises by saying—

“I thought may be you’d just like to finish up with a Sunday-school pic-nic, so I brought you a few cherries.”

The little folk were quite ready for any change. The cherries were ripe and very delicious, and found a ready market amongst the little scholars. Then Nan good-naturedly assented to Jack’s request, who doubtfully watched Bear’s countenance as he uttered it,—

“Please, Nan, to make each of us a Sunday tea-kettle out of a stem-cherry?”

A few moments later Daisy enters the room and inquires, in a very eldest-sisterish tone,—

“Well, what have you young folks been doing since I left you?”

“Been singing, and telling stories, and going to pic-nics, Miss Daisy,” quickly replied Rosie.

“Oh Rosie Havens, what a naughty child to be telling a story, on Sunday too!”

“Sister Daisy, is a story worser on Sundays nor on Tuesdays and Fridays?” quickly asked Jack.

Daisy pays no attention to the eager little face upturned to hers, but hurriedly passes out of the room, saying—

“I was just going to tell you about the beautiful church I went to, but I shan’t now, I will go down stairs and read instead.”

Rosie Havens is a proud little creature, and shrugs her saucy shoulders, saying,—

“Miss Daisy is so very stylish in her new Polyness dress, she can’t understand children.”

Jack, however, is unwilling to lose the chance of hearing about the beautiful church, so he runs to call over the bannisters,—

“Sister Daisy, do come and tell us all about it. Rosie was only squizzing you. It was only but a cherry pic-nic, and meant no harm, and here’s a Sunday stem-cherry tea-kettle you may have for your own self.”

Sister Daisy makes no reply, then the little voice over the bannisters takes a more pleading tone,—

“Won’t you only please just to come, sister? We will be so good as ever we can.”

Surely, if Daisy would only turn and see that little chubby face flattened against the stair-railing, looking so flushed and entreating, that very little face that always has such a merry good-natured look, and is always ready to smile assent when asked to run her many older sister errands, surely she could not still pursue her down-stairs journey.

When she left church, touched and softened by what she had there heard and seen, like many an older person, she resolved to be “so good to-day, so kindly affectioned,” and as the soft south wind gently brushed her ringlets, and sweet odors from summer flowers in the little door-yards she passed, greeted her, the impressions deepened, and she longed to be

“Good and holy, pure and true.”

Then came thoughts of home and the nursery group where she might do her “little deeds of kindness,” and Daisy said,—

“Soon as I have taken off my things, I will go and stay with the children and help amuse them.”

I think Daisy fairly meant to do this, but as she passed through the dining-room for a drink of ice-water, the cool sound of vine-leaves rustling called her attention to such a nice shaded window-ledge, where she might rest her book, enjoy her “Goldy” story, and watch the busy insects and the floating clouds, by turn. The nursery path of duty didn’t look very inviting now, besides, “wasn’t she very tired, scarcely rested indeed, after yesterday’s long journey?” Then Daisy uttered aloud these not very gracious words,—

“Well, I suppose I’ve got to go and be shut up with those three troublesome children; I wish they had been left at home.”

So Daisy slowly went up stairs. She thought she was conquering self, that troublesome little enemy, but that was her mistake. She had not calculated how powerful her little enemy was, nor all the weapons he could bring to defend himself. She had, it is true, made a slight thrust at him when she said,—

“I suppose I’ve got to,” and still another and a surer, when she turned her back and started to go up stairs, but still she had not wounded him mortally, so the little fellow limped up stairs after her, all unknown to the confident Daisy.

When Rosie triumphantly announced the good time “pic-nicking and story-telling,” and Daisy saw no prospect of cherries saved for her, her good resolutions grew fainter; then—then was the time for “self” to assert himself, and that time he conquered fully, and so uproarious did the little fellow grow, as Daisy turned her back upon the nursery path of duty, that Jack’s voice was nearly drowned, as little “self” hurled back his tiny cannon-balls of “good reasons” why in reply.

Somehow, the window-ledge with the story-book on it isn’t quite satisfying, after all. Goldy’s girlish face seems to turn, ever and anon, into that of a pleading little boy, and Daisy herself seems, in some strange manner, to be accountable for Goldy’s tribulations. A golden butterfly lights on her book, and as her eyes follow its upward course, they rest on the pure blue of the sky, and follow the floating summer clouds in their God-directed way. Then comes to the little Christian child, a remembrance of Him who can read our every thoughts, and then self seems to shrink lower and lower, and the upward glance becomes a little prayer for

“Grace to conquer and to help us to the end,”

and the still, small voice of conscience repeats the verse of the lesson heard in Church that very morning—

“Not rendering evil for evil, but contrariwise, blessing,” and Daisy listens to the voice; she thrusts aside the book, and a moment later enters the nursery with bright, kindly face, saying,—

“Charlotte, wouldn’t you like to go down stairs and rest with Celia and Nan? I’ll amuse the children.”

Daisy’s kindly spirit seems to affect all the little folk. Artie takes “slippery Jack,” as he likes to call him, upon his knee, little Bear leans against his sister’s shoulder, and Rosie takes a cushion at her feet.

First, she tells them of the sound of many voices singing their favorite hymn—

“Jerusalem the Golden,”

which sounded far away at first, and then became louder, as a procession of men and boys came in the church, some of whom were no bigger than Artie, and yet sang the hymn very nicely.

“Then there were such lovely windows! One, where St. Stephen stood holding stones. It seemed to me just as if he must love them, he was holding them so close to his heart, and when I told Aunt Emma so, she said in these very words—

“‘Perhaps you are right, Daisy. Our greatest trials, if borne meekly for the dear Lord’s sake, may become our greatest blessings. In every pain or trouble we may hear God telling us of His love for us.’”

“Say that again, Sister Daisy,” whispered little Bear; “that about pain and trouble, and sit a little closer, please.”

“There was a picture of St. Lawrence, side by side with St. Stephen. They were such great friends, and he was burned to death on hot irons because he loved the Lord so dearly. There were pictures of St. Peter and Moses, and David too. I liked so much to look at them, and Aunt Emma said Hugh should take you all up there to see them after the service.”

“Oh, goody, goody,” began little Jack, but Artie clapped his hands over his mouth, and caught his flying feet, that his sister’s story might not be interrupted.

“There was one window in the church where a woman was giving clothes and bread to poor people. It was in memory of a dear, good lady, whom everybody loved, for she spent her whole life in visiting the sick and poor, and doing kind deeds and saying comforting words. The tears stood in Aunt Emma’s eyes as she looked at that window, for she had known and loved the gentle lady, and she told me that some of those very poor people would still walk miles to visit her grave, and then she said, ‘God grant, little daughter, that you may grow to be such a lovely, Christian woman. You must begin by faithfully doing, with God’s help, the little every-day duties nearest you.’ Then, oh! there were lovely windows of little children, and one you must surely look at, for a dear little girl, no bigger than Rosie, is kneeling at Christ’s feet. She has lain down her cross there, which means some trouble or pain she had patiently borne, and the dear Lord was holding out for reward a lovely crown for her head. Then there was a city, and the moon was rising over it, and a white angel was going up into the moonlit sky, carrying, so tenderly, a little child.”

“Daisy, do you suppose,” interrupted little Bear, “that little child that bore the cross, ever felt fretful, and spoke cross to her sisters, and brothers, and didn’t mean to?”

“Yes, little brother; don’t you remember Mamma told us we were young Christian soldiers, and would have our little battles with our sinful nature to fight every day and hour till our life’s end? But there’s the dinner-bell, and I must go down stairs; and I forgot to tell you, Auntie wants you all to come down to dessert to-day.”

“Wait, sister darling,” pleaded Rosie, for Daisy’s kindly spirit had broken down the little wall of pride which had risen between the sisters. “I wanted to give you a sailor kiss. You are a darling dear, and beautiful as a—as a—”

“Baboon’s sister,” mischievous Artie interposed. Daisy’s gentleness took no offence at the rather impolite quotation, and Rosie, knowing only the very few animals included in the Family Menagerie, supposed the phrase to be very complimentary, and added,—

“You are not looking one bit stylish in your new Pollyness dress, and I was only funnin’ to say so, darling pet.”