|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 21
"But look here!" said the Rector, affecting a great appearance of
severity, "you're my Brownie, not his. Supposing Tommy Trout had gone
and weeded Farmer Swede's garden, and brought back his weeds to go to
seed on the Tailor's flower-beds, how do you think he would have liked
it?"
Tiny looked rather crestfallen. When one has fairly carried through a
splendid benevolence of this kind, it is trying to find oneself in the
wrong. She crept up to the Rector, however, and put her golden head
upon his arm.
"But, Father dear," she pleaded, "I didn't mean not to be your Brownie;
only, you know, you had got five left at home, and it was only for a
short time, and the Doctor hasn't any Brownie at all. Don't you pity
him?"
And the Rector, who was old enough to remember that grave-stone story
we wot of, hugged his Brownie in his arms, and answered,
"My Darling, I do pity him!"
THE LAND OF LOST TOYS.
AN EARTHQUAKE IN THE NURSERY.
It was certainly an aggravated offence. It is generally understood in
families that "boys will be boys," but there is a limit to the
forbearance implied in the extenuating axiom. Master Sam was condemned
to the back nursery for the rest of the day.
He always had had the knack of breaking his own toys,--he not
unfrequently broke other people's; but accidents will happen, and his
twin-sister and factotum, Dot, was long-suffering.
Dot was fat, resolute, hasty, and devotedly unselfish. When Sam scalped
her new doll, and fastened the glossy black curls to a wigwam
improvised with the curtains of the four-post bed in the best bedroom,
Dot was sorely tried. As her eyes passed from the crown-less doll on
the floor to the floss-silk ringlets hanging from the bed-furniture,
her round rosy face grew rounder and rosier, and tears burst from her
eyes. But in a moment more she clenched her little fists, forced back
the tears, and gave vent to her favourite saying, "I don't care."
That sentence was Dot's bane and antidote; it was her vice and her
virtue. It was her standing consolation, and it brought her into all
her scrapes. It was her one panacea for all the ups and downs of her
life (and in the nursery where Sam developed his organ of
destructiveness there were ups and downs not a few); and it was the
form her naughtiness took when she was naughty.
"Don't care fell into a goose-pond, Miss Dot," said Nurse, on one
occasion of the kind.
"I don't care if he did," said Miss Dot; and as Nurse knew no further
feature of the goose-pond adventure which met this view of it, she
closed the subject by putting Dot into the corner.
In the strength of _Don't care_, and her love for Sam, Dot bore much and
long. Her dolls perished by ingenious but untimely deaths. Her toys were
put to purposes for which they were never intended, and suffered
accordingly. But Sam was penitent and Dot was heroic. Florinda's scalp was
mended with a hot knitting-needle and a perpetual bonnet, and Dot rescued
her paint-brushes from the glue-pot, and smelt her india-rubber as it
boiled down in Sam's waterproof manufactory, with long-suffering
forbearance.
There are, however, as we have said, limits to everything. An
earthquake celebrated with the whole contents of the toy cupboard is not
to be borne.
The matter was this. Early one morning Sam announced that he had a
glorious project on hand. He was going to give a grand show and
entertainment, far surpassing all the nursery imitations of circuses,
conjurors, lectures on chemistry, and so forth, with which they had
ever amused themselves. He refused to confide his plans to the faithful
Dot; but he begged her to lend him all the toys she possessed, in
return for which she was to be the sole spectator of the fun. He let
out that the idea had suggested itself to him after the sight of a
Diorama to which they had been taken, but he would not allow that it
was anything of the same kind; in proof of which she was at liberty to
keep back her paint-box. Dot tried hard to penetrate the secret, and to
reserve some of her things from the general conscription. But Sam was
obstinate. He would tell nothing, and he wanted everything. The dolls,
the bricks (especially the bricks), the tea-things, the German farm,
the Swiss cottages, the animals, and all the dolls' furniture. Dot gave
them with a doubtful mind, and consoled herself as she watched Sam
carrying pieces of board and a green table cover into the back nursery,
with the prospect of the show. At last, Sam threw open the door and
ushered her into the nursery rocking-chair.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|