Читать книгу The Story of the Mince Pie (Illustrated) - Josephine Scribner Gates - Страница 6

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Round and round they went, singing to an accompaniment of rollicking laughter, and at the words: “Hush, hush, hush, we all fall down,” they fell in a heap, the Clove Doll being the last to fall.

“Allow me,” cried the Stick Doll, as he gallantly set Miss Clove on her feet.

“We will now have the pleasure of listening to this spicy creature. She surely has a fine story to tell.”

Miss Clove had been slyly studying the dictionary, and longed to impress the audience with the wonderful story of her life. She smoothed her crimson sash, perked the butterfly bow on her hair till it seemed almost ready to fly away, and with cheeks as red as her ribbons began timidly.

“Ladies and Gentlemen: I am an undeveloped bud—”

“Ha! Ha!” cried one, who looked much like a vinegar cruet. “That is a joke!”

“Why?” demanded the Stick Doll.

“She said undeveloped.”

“So she did, what of it? You may tell us what the word means.”

The sour-looking one, much confused, stalked away as he murmured under his breath,

“We aren’t to learn anything here, I thought.”

“No, but if you knew the meaning of it, you would answer very promptly, so the joke is on you. The speaker can, of course, tell us.”

The Clove Doll’s cheeks flushed even redder than before, and wished with all her heart she had not used the large word of which she was so proud.

“I am sure I cannot tell what it means. It’s what I am, and it’s the way my story begins.”

“Who knows what the very large word used by the very small one means?” asked the Stick Doll, of the audience.

The Pepper and Salt Twins now stepped forward. They swayed from side to side and in sing-song tones cried:

“Un means not. Undeveloped means not developed; developed means finished.”

“Excellent memory you have,” said the Stick Doll.

“They’ve been peeking in that big book, too; I saw them,” cried the Vinegar Cruet. “Any one could do that.”

“Tell tale tit, your tongue shall be slit,” sang the whole crowd.

“Here! Here! This won’t do. Come, let us hear the rest of the story of this unfinished maid.”

“It isn’t true that I am not finished! As a clove I am complete and perfect. It is only that the buds are used before they are quite ready to turn into blossoms.

“If my buds were allowed to blossom there would never be a clove. What would the pickled peach do then, poor thing?”

“She’d stay in her jar,

And soon be sour,

And moulder away on the shelf, poor thing!”

promptly sang the audience.

At this Jack and Mother hid their heads in the blankets, shaking with laughter, and came forth with very red faces just in time to hear Miss Clove continue her spicy tale.

“The clove tree grows in the woods in hot countries, specially here and here, and here.”

“She’s on roller skates,” whispered Jack, as the Clove Lady sailed quickly and gracefully around the globe, touching with her wheeled feet Zanzibar, Brazil, and the West Indies.

“The audience need not note especially the countries pointed out,” said the Stick Doll, “but it is to me most interesting. You may continue.”

The Clove Doll had snatched the moment while she waited to again improve her mind through the big book, and now announced importantly:

“I am very pungent. That means aromatic.”

“Oh!” cried the Vinegar Cruet, “you had to shut the book too quick to find the meaning of that, but I happen to know it.

“Why are you like me?”

“Happy thought,” said the Stick Doll; “let’s turn this into a puzzle contest. Why is the clove like vinegar?”

“Give it up. Give it up. What’s the answer?” sang the audience.

“Because we are both sharp,” politely answered the Vinegar Cruet, strutting about like a peacock.

“Sharp! Ha! Ha!” cried Pepper and Salt. “S’pose you’ve been visiting the scissors’ grinder.”

“Vinegar is right,” said the Clove Doll. “We are both smart.”

“Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Let’s all carry a pocket dictionary and we can be smart and sharp, too,” laughed some one.

“Dear me!” cried the Clove Doll. “Did I really say smart? I mis-spoke. I am sharp. I mean stinging to the tongue.”

Before she could say another word she was surrounded and tested so vigorously by the many tongues, she shrieked indignantly:

“Stop! we don’t lick the ladder till the ice cream is done. Now let me finish.

“My buds turn green, then red and hard. Then we are laid near the smoke of a wood fire in the sun to dry. We don’t like that smudge and are glad enough when we turn brown, then we know we are finished. I might say developed,” she added, with a triumphant glance at her hearers.