Читать книгу Nellie's Housekeeping. Little Sunbeams Series - Mathews Joanna Hooe - Страница 2

MR. RANSOM had said that the family were not to wait tea for him, as he might be late; but they were scarcely seated at the table when he came in and took his place with them.

"Elinor," he said immediately, looking across the table at his wife, "I met Mr. Bradford, and he told me he had seen you down on the beach with the children. I told him he must be mistaken, as you were not fit for such a walk, but he insisted he was right. It is not possible you were so imprudent, is it?"

"Well, yes, if you will call it imprudence," answered Mrs. Ransom, smiling. "I do not feel that it has hurt me."

"Your face tells whether it has hurt you or no," said her husband in a vexed tone; "you look quite tired out: how could you do so?"

"I wanted Carrie to have the walk, and I felt more able to go with her than to spare the nurse and take care of baby myself," answered Mrs. Ransom, trying to check farther questioning by a side glance at Nellie's downcast face.

But Mr. Ransom did not understand, or did not heed the look she gave him.

"And where was our steady little woman, Nellie?" he said. "I thought she was to be trusted to take care of the other children at any time or in any place."

"And so she is," said Mrs. Ransom, willing, if possible, to spare Nellie any farther mortification, "but she was occupied this afternoon."

"That's nonsense," exclaimed Mr. Ransom, with another vexed look at his wife's pale face; "Nellie could have had nothing to do of such importance that it must hinder her from helping you. Why did you not send her?"

"Papa," murmured poor Nellie, "I – mamma – I – please – it was all my fault. I – I was cross to Carrie. Please don't blame mamma."

Nellie's humble, honest confession did not much mollify her father, who was a quick-tempered man, rather apt to be sharp with his children if any thing went wrong; but another pleading look from his wife checked any very severe reproof, and in answer to her "I really think the walk did not hurt me," he contented himself with saying shortly, "I don't agree with you," and let the matter drop.

No sooner was Nellie released from the tea-table than she was busy again over her Bible and the slips of paper, quite lost to every thing else around her. The children chattered away without disturbing her; and she did not even notice that papa and mamma, as they talked in low tones on the other side of the room, were looking at her in a manner which would have made it plain to an observer that she was the subject of their conversation.

By and by Daisy came to kiss her for good-night. She raised her head slightly, and turned her cheek to her little sister, answering pleasantly enough, but with an absent air, showing plainly that her thoughts were busy with something else.

Daisy held strong and natural objections to this not over-civil mode of receiving her caress, and, drawing back her rosy lips from the upraised cheek, said, —

"No, I shan't kiss you that way. I want your mouf; it's not polite to stick up a cheek."

An expression of impatience flitted over Nellie's face; but it was gone in an instant, and, dropping her pencil, she put both arms about Daisy, and gave her a hearty and affectionate kiss upon her puckered little mouth.

Daisy was satisfied, and ran off, but, pausing as she reached the door, she looked back at her sister and said, —

"You're an awful busy girl these days, Nellie; the play is all gone out of you."

Nellie smiled faintly, hardly heeding the words; but other eyes which were watching her thought also that she did indeed look as if "all the play had gone out" of her. She returned to her work as Daisy left her side, but even as she did so she drew herself up with a sigh, and passed her hand wearily across her forehead.

"It is time a stop was put to this," whispered her father, and mamma assented with a rather melancholy nod of her head.

Not two minutes had passed when Daisy's little feet were heard pattering down the stairs again, and her glowing face appeared in the open door.

"Ruth says she can't put baby down to put me to bed," she proclaimed with an unmistakable air of satisfaction in the circumstances which made it necessary for mother or sister to perform that office for her. "Who wants to do it?" she added, looking from one to the other.

Mrs. Ransom looked over at Nellie, as if expecting she would offer to go with Daisy; but the little girl paid no attention, did not even seem to hear the child.

Mrs. Ransom rose and held out her hand to Daisy.

"Nellie," said Mr. Ransom sharply, "are you going to let your mother go upstairs with Daisy?"

Nellie started, and looked up confusedly.

"Oh! I didn't know. Do you want me to, mamma? Couldn't Ruth put her to bed?" she said, showing that she had, indeed, not heard one word of what had passed.

"Ruth cannot leave the baby," said her mother; "but I do not want you to go unwillingly, Nellie. I would rather do it myself."

"I am quite willing, mamma," and the tone of her voice showed no want of readiness. "I did not know you were going. Come, Daisy, dear."

But she could not refrain from a backward, longing look at her book and papers as she left the room.

She was not unkind or cross to her little sister while she was with her; far from it. She undressed her carefully and tenderly, – with rather more haste than Daisy thought well, perhaps, but doing for her all that was needful; and, if she were more silent than usual, that did not trouble Daisy, she could talk enough for both.

But her thoughts were occupied with something quite different from the duty she had before her; she forgot one or two little things, and would even have hurried Daisy into bed without hearing her say her prayers, but for the child's astonished reminder. This done, and Daisy laid snugly in her crib, she kissed her once more, and gladly escaped downstairs. Daisy was never afraid to be left alone; besides, there was the nurse just in the next room.

"Are you going back to that horrid writing?" asked Carrie, as Nellie took her seat at the table again.

"I am going back to my writing," answered Nellie, dryly.

Carrie looked, as she felt, disgusted. Papa and mamma had gone out on the piazza; but mamma would not let her be in the evening air, and she wanted amusement within; and here was Nellie going back to that "horrid writing," which had occupied her so much for the last three days.

Nellie had plainly neither time nor thought to bestow upon her; and she wandered restlessly and discontentedly about the room, fretting for "something to do."

But a few minutes had passed when a loud thump sounded overhead; and a shriek followed, which rang through the house. There was no mistaking the cause: Daisy had fallen out of bed, as Daisy was apt to do unless she were carefully guarded against it; and the catastrophe was one of such frequent occurrence, and Daisy so seldom received injury therefrom, that none of the family were much alarmed, save her mother.

Mrs. Ransom ran upstairs, followed quickly by Nellie and Carrie, and more slowly by her husband, who hoped and believed that Daisy had had her usual good fortune, and accomplished her gymnastics without severe injury to herself.

It proved otherwise this time, however; for, although not seriously hurt, Daisy had a great bump on her forehead, which was fast swelling and turning black, and a scratch upon her arm; and she was disposed to make much of her wounds and bruises, and to consider herself a greatly afflicted martyr.

How did it happen? Daisy should have been fastened in her little bed, so that she could not fall out.

"Nellie," said Mrs. Ransom, as she held the sobbing child upon her lap and bathed the aching little head with warm water and arnica, – "Nellie, did you fasten up the side of the crib after you had put Daisy in bed?"

"No, mamma, I don't believe I did," said conscience-stricken Nellie. "I don't quite remember, but I am afraid I did not."

"And why didn't you? You know she always rolls out, if it is not done," said her mother.

"I – I suppose I did not remember, mamma. I was thinking about something else; and I was in such a hurry to go downstairs again. I am so sorry!"

And she laid her hand penitently on that of Daisy, who was regarding her with an injured air, as one who was the cause of her misfortunes.

"Yes, I am afraid that was it, Nellie," said Mrs. Ransom. "Your mind was so taken up with something else that you could not give proper attention to your little sister. I am sorry I did not come myself to put her to bed."

It was the second time that day that Nellie might have been helpful to her mother, but she had only brought trouble upon her.

She stood silent and mortified.

Mr. Ransom took Daisy from her mother and laid her back in her crib, taking care that she was perfectly secured this time; then went downstairs. But Daisy was not to be consoled, unless mamma sat beside her and held her hand till she went to sleep; so Mrs. Ransom remained with her, dismissing Carrie also to bed.

Nellie assisted her to undress, making very sure that nothing was forgotten this time, and then returned to see if her mother was ready to go downstairs. But Daisy was most persistently wide awake; her fall had roused her from her first sleep very thoroughly; and she found it so pleasant to have mamma sitting there beside her that she had no mind to let herself float off to the land of dreams, but kept constantly exciting herself with such remarks as —

"Mamma, the's a lot of tadpoles in the little pond." – "Mamma, the's lots of niggers in Newport; oh! I forgot, you told me not to say niggers; I mean colored, black people." – "Mamma, when I'm big I'll buy you a gold satin dress." Or suddenly rousing just as her mother thought she was dropping off to sleep, and putting the startling question, "Mamma, if I was a bear, would you be my mamma?" and mamma unhappily replying "No," she immediately set up a dismal howl, which took some time to quiet.

Finding this to be the state of affairs, and warned by her mother's uplifted finger not to come in the room, Nellie went downstairs again, meaning to return to her former occupation. But, to her surprise, the Bible, which she remembered leaving open, was closed and laid aside, her papers all gone.

"Why," she said, "who has meddled with my things, I wonder?"

"I put them all away, Nellie," said her father.

"I am going to write more, papa."

"Not to-night. Put on your hat and come out with me for a little walk," said Mr. Ransom.

Nellie might have felt vexed at this decided interference with her work; but the pleasure of a moonlight walk with papa quite made up for it, and she was speedily ready, and her hand in his.

Mr. Ransom led her down upon the beach, Nellie half expecting all the time some reproof for the neglect which had caused so much trouble; but her father uttered none, talking cheerfully and pleasantly on other subjects.

It was a beautiful evening. The gentle waves, shimmering and glancing in the moonlight, broke softly on the beach with a soothing, sleepy sound; and the cool salt breeze which swept over them came pleasantly to Nellie's flushed, hot cheeks and throbbing head. She and her father had the beach pretty much to themselves at this hour; and, finding a broad, flat stone which offered a good resting-place, they sat down upon it, and watched the waves as they curled and rippled playfully upon the white sands.

"Now," thought Nellie, when they were seated side by side, – "now, surely, papa is going to find fault with me; and no wonder if he does. Twice to-day I've made such trouble for mamma, when I never meant to do a thing! I don't see what ailed me to-day. It has been a horrid day, and every thing has gone wrong."

And Nellie really did not know, or perhaps I should say had not considered, what it was that had made every thing go wrong with her for the greater part of the day.

But no; again she was pleasantly disappointed. Papa talked on as before, and called her attention to the white sails of a ship gleaming far off in the silver moonlight, and told her an interesting story of a shipwreck he had once witnessed on this coast.

As they were on their way home, however, and when they had nearly reached the house, Mr. Ransom said, —

"Nellie, what is this you are so busy with, my daughter?"

"What, my writing do you mean, papa?" asked Nellie, looking up at him.

"Yes, some Bible lesson, is it not?"

"Not just a lesson, papa," answered Nellie. "Miss Ashton gave us three or four subjects to study over a little this summer, if we chose, and to find as many texts about as we could; but it is not a lesson, for we need not do it unless we like, and have plenty of time."

"Then it is not a task she set you?" said Mr. Ransom.

"Oh, no, papa! not at all. She said she thought it would be a good plan for us to read a little history every day, or to take any other lesson our mammas liked, but she did not even first speak of this of herself; for Gracie Howard asked her to give us some subjects to hunt up texts about, and then Miss Ashton said it would be a good plan for us to spend a little time at that if we liked, and she gave us four subjects. She said it would help to make us familiar with the Bible."

"Yes," said Mr. Ransom musingly, and as if he had not heeded, if indeed he had heard, the last sentence of her speech.

"And I have such a long list, papa," continued Nellie, "that is, on the first subject; and on the second I have a good many, too, but I am not through with that. I had very few the day before yesterday; but then, you know, Maggie Bradford came to see me, and she is doing it, too, and she had so many more than I had that I felt quite ashamed. Then the same afternoon I had a letter from Gracie Howard, and she told me she had more than a hundred on the first, and nearly a hundred on the second; so I felt I must hurry up, or maybe all the others would be ahead of me. I've been busy all day to-day finding texts, and copying them."

"Is that all you have done to-day?" asked Mr. Ransom.

Nellie cannot gather from his tone whether he approves or not; but it seems to her quite impossible that he should not consider her occupation most praiseworthy.

"Oh, no, papa!" she answered. "I have done several things besides. I read nearly twenty pages of my history twice over, and learned every one of the dates; then I studied a page of Speller and Definer, and a lesson in my French Phrase-book, and did four sums, and said '7 times' and '9 times' in the multiplication table, each four times over. 7's and 9's are the hardest to remember, so I say those the oftenest. I did all those lessons and half an hour's sewing before I went to my texts; but I've been busy with those almost ever since."

"And you have had no walk, no play, all day?" questioned Mr. Ransom.

Nellie was not satisfied with her father's tone now; it did not by any means express approbation.

"I have not played any, papa, but I had some exercise; for all the time I was learning my French phrases, I was rolling the baby's wagon around the gravel walk."

"And it was pretty much the same thing yesterday, was it not?" said Mr. Ransom.

"Well, yes, papa," rather faintly.

"Nellie," said her father, "did you ever hear the old couplet, 'All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy'?"

"Yes, papa," answered Nellie, half laughing, half reluctantly, as she began to fear that her father intended to interfere with her plans for study. "But am I 'a dull boy'?"

"Neither 'dull' nor a 'boy,'" answered her father, playfully shaking the little hand in his. "But I fear there is danger of the former, Nellie, if you go on taking so much 'work' and no 'play.' Miss Ashton did not desire all this, if I understand you, my dear."

"Oh, no, papa! I was just doing it of myself. Miss Ashton only said, if our papas and mammas did not object, she thought it would be wiser for us to have a little lesson or reading every day. But you see, papa" – Nellie hesitated, and then came to a full stop.

"Well?" said her father, encouragingly.

"Papa, I seem to be so far behind all the girls of my age in our class. It makes me feel ashamed, and as if I must do all I could to catch up with them."

"I do not know," said Mr. Ransom. "It seems to me that a little girl who keeps the head of her spelling, history, and geography classes for at least a fair share of the time, and who has taken more than one prize for composition and steady, orderly conduct, has no need to feel ashamed before her school-fellows."

"Well, no, papa – but – but – somehow I am not so quick as the others. I generally know my lessons, and do keep my place in the classes about as well as any one; but it takes me a great deal longer than it does most of the others. Gracie Howard can learn in half the time that I can; so can Laura Middleton, Maggie Bradford, and 'most all the girls as old as I am, whom I know."

"And probably they know them and remember them no better than my Nellie," said her father.

Mr. Ransom was not afraid of making his little daughter conceited or careless by over-praise; she had not sufficient confidence in herself or her own powers, and needed all the encouragement that could be given to her. Too much humility, rather than too little, was Nellie's snare.

"Yes, papa," she answered. "I suppose I do remember as well as any of the rest, and I seldom miss in my lessons; but I don't see why it is that often when Miss Ashton asks us some question about a lesson that has gone before, or about something that I know quite well, the words do not seem to come to me very quick, and one of the others will answer before I can. Miss Ashton is very good about that, papa, and sometimes it seems as if she knew I was going to answer; for she will say, 'Nellie, you know that, do you not, my dear?' and make the others wait till I can speak. But, papa, even then it makes me feel horridly, for it seems as if I was stupid not to be quick as the others, and I can't bear to have them waiting for me to find my words. So I want to study all I can, even out of school and in vacation."

Nellie's voice shook, and her father saw in the moonlight that the eyes she raised to him were full of tears.

"And you think that all this extra study is going to help you, my little girl?" he said.

"Why, yes, I thought it would, papa. I want to learn a great deal, for, oh, I would so like to be quick and clever, to study as fast and answer as well as Maggie, Gracie, or Lily! Please don't think I am vexed if the other children go above me in my classes, or that I am jealous, papa; I don't mean to be, but I would like to be very wise, and to know a great deal."

"I certainly shall not think you are envious of your schoolmates and playfellows, my daughter, however far they may outstrip you, and papa can feel for you in your want of readiness and quickness of speech, for he is troubled sometimes in the same way himself; but, Nellie, this is a misfortune rather than a fault, and, though you would do well to correct it as far as you can, I do not know that you are taking the right way; and I am sure, my dear, that you have plainer and nearer duties just now."

"You say that, papa, because I was disobliging to Carrie this afternoon, and careless with dear little Daisy to-night, and I know it serves me right; but do you think it is not a very great duty for me to improve myself all I can?"

"Certainly, Nellie, I think it your duty to make the most of your advantages, and that you should try to improve yourself as much as you can at proper times and in proper places; but I do not think it wise or right that my little girl should spend the time that she needs for rest or play in what is to her hard work and study. My child, you are doing now four times as much as you should do, while at the same time you are forgetting or neglecting the little every-day duties that fall to you. Is it not so?"

"I dare say you think so, papa, after to-day," answered Nellie, with quivering voice; "but I can try not to let myself be so taken up again with my lessons, and then there will be no harm in it, will there?"

"Have you felt very well, quite like yourself, during the last few days, Nellie?"

"Well, no, sir," said Nellie, reluctantly. "Not quite. I feel rather tired every morning when I wake up, and my head aches a good deal 'most all the time. And – and – I don't feel quite like myself, for I feel cross and hateful, and I don't think I usually am very cross, papa."

"And the harder you work, the worse you feel; is it not so?"

"Well, I don't know, papa; but you do not think study makes my head ache, or makes me cross, do you?"

"Certainly I do, dear; too much study, too much work, which may make Nell a dull girl, if she does not take care. Your little mind has become over-tired, Nellie; so has your little body; and health and even temper must suffer."

"I'll try not to be cross or careless again, papa," said Nellie, humbly. "And there is no need for me to play if I do not choose, is there?"

"Who gave you your health and good spirits, Nellie?"

"Why, God, papa!"

"And do you think it right, then, for you to do any thing which destroys or injures either?"

"No, papa," more slowly still, as she saw his meaning.

They had been standing for the last few moments at the foot of the piazza steps, where mamma sat awaiting them; and now, stooping to kiss his thoughtful, sensible little daughter, Mr. Ransom said, —

"We have had talk enough for to-night, Nellie; and it is past your bed-time. Think over what we have said, and to-morrow I will talk to you again. Put texts and lessons quite out of your head for the present, and go to sleep as soon as you can. Good-night, my child."

Nellie bade him good-night, and, kissing her mother also, obeyed, going quietly and thoughtfully upstairs. That was nothing new for Nellie; but her mother's anxious ear did not fail to notice that, spite of the walk and talk with papa, her foot had not its usual spring and lightness.