Kitabı oku: «The Land of Lost Toys», sayfa 3
"'When your wig comes off,' murmured Rosa, as she stole a pink kid arm tenderly round my neck, 'I'll make you a cap with blue and white rosettes, and pretend that you have had a fever.'
"I thanked her gratefully, and was glad to reflect that I was not yet in need of an attention which I distinctly remember having shown to her in the days of her dollhood. Presently she jumped up.
"'I think you shall go to bed now, dear,' she said, and, taking my hand once more, she led me to the big doll's bedstead, which, with its pretty bedclothes and white dimity furniture, looked tempting enough to a sleeper of suitable size. It could not have supported one quarter of my weight.
"'I have not made you a night-dress, my love,' Rosa continued; 'I am not fond of my needle you know. You were not fond of your needle, I think. I fear you must go to bed in your clothes, my dear.'
"'You are very kind,' I said, 'but I am not tired, and – it would not bear my weight.'
"'Pooh! pooh!' said Rosa. 'My love! I remember passing one Sunday in it with the rag-doll, and the Dowager, and the Punch and Judy (the amount of pillow their two noses took up I shall never forget!), and the old doll that had nothing on, because her clothes were in the dolls' wash and did not get ironed on Saturday night, and the Highlander, whose things wouldn't come off, and who slept in his kilt. Not bear you? Nonsense! You must go to bed, my dear. I've got other things to do, and I can't leave you lying about.'
"'The whole lot of you did not weigh one quarter of what I do,' I cried desperately. 'I cannot, and will not get into that bed; I should break it all to pieces, and hurt myself into the bargain.'
"'Well, if you will not go to bed, I must put you there,' said Rosa, and without more ado, she snatched me up in her kid arms, and laid me down.
"Of course it was just as I expected. I had hardly touched the two little pillows (they had a meal-baggy smell from being stuffed with bran), when the woodwork gave way with a crash, and I fell – fell – fell —
"Though I fully believed every bone in my body to be broken, it was really a relief to get to the ground. As soon as I could, I sat up, and felt myself all over. A little stiff, but, as it seemed, unhurt. Oddly enough, I found that I was back again under the tree; and more strange still, it was not the tree where I sat with Rosa, but the old oak-tree in the little wood. Was it all a dream? The toys had vanished, the lights were out, the mosses looked dull in the growing dusk, the evening was chilly, the hole no larger than it was thirty years ago, and when I felt in my pocket for my spectacles I found that they were on my nose.
"I have returned to the spot many times since, but I never could induce a beetle to enter into conversation on the subject, the hole remains obstinately impassable, and I have not been able to repeat my visit to the Land of Lost Toys.
"When I recall my many sins against the playthings of my childhood, I am constrained humbly to acknowledge that perhaps this is just as well."
SAM SETS UP SHOP
"I think you might help me, Dot," cried Sam in dismal and rather injured tones.
It was the morning following the day of the earthquake, and of Aunt Penelope's arrival. Sam had his back to Dot, and his face to the fire, over which indeed he had bent for so long that he appeared to be half roasted.
"What do you want?" asked Dot, who was working at a doll's night-dress that had for long been partly finished, and now seemed in a fair way to completion.
"It's the glue-pot," Sam continued. "It does take so long to boil. And I have been stirring at the glue with a stick for ever so long to get it to melt. It is very hot work. I wish you would take it for a bit. It's as much for your good as for mine."
"Is it?" said Dot.
"Yes it is, Miss," cried Sam. "You must know I've got a splendid idea."
"Not another earthquake, I hope?" said Dot, smiling.
"Now, Dot, that's truly unkind of you. I thought it was to be forgotten."
"So it is," said Dot, getting up. "I was only joking. What is the idea?"
"I don't think I shall tell you till I have finished my shop. I want to get to it now, and I wish you would take a turn at the glue-pot."
Sam was apt to want a change of occupation. Dot, on the other hand, was equally averse from leaving what she was about till it was finished, so they suited each other like Jack Sprat and his wife. It had been an effort to Dot to leave the night-dress which she had hoped to finish at a sitting; but when she was fairly set to work on the glue business she never moved till the glue was in working order, and her face as red as a ripe tomato.
By this time Sam had set up business in the window-seat, and was fastening a large paper inscription over his shop. It ran thus: —
MR. SAM,
Dolls Doctor and Toymender to Her Majesty the Queen, and all other Potentates
"Splendid!" shouted Dot, who was serving up the glue as if it had been a kettle of soup, and who looked herself very like an overtoasted cook.
Sam took the glue, and began to bustle about.
"Now, Dot, get me all the broken toys, and we'll see what we can do. And here's a second splendid idea. Do you see that box? Into that we shall put all the toys that are quite spoiled and cannot possibly be mended. It is to be called the Hospital for Incurables. I've got a placard for that. At least it's not written yet, but here's the paper, and perhaps you would write it, Dot, for I am tired of writing and I want to begin the mending."
"For the future," he presently resumed, "when I want a doll to scalp or behead, I shall apply to the Hospital for Incurables, and the same with any other toy that I want to destroy. And you will see, my dear Dot, that I shall be quite a blessing to the nursery; for I shall attend the dolls gratis, and keep all the furniture in repair."
Sam really kept his word. He had a natural turn for mechanical work, and, backed by Dot's more methodical genius, he prolonged the days of the broken toys by skillful mending, and so acquired an interest in them which was still more favorable to their preservation. When his birthday came round, which was some months after these events, Dot (assisted by Mamma and Aunt Penelope), had prepared for him a surprise that was more than equal to any of his own "splendid ideas." The whole force of the toy cupboard was assembled on the nursery table, to present Sam with a fine box of joiner's tools as a reward for his services, Papa kindly acting as spokesman on the occasion.
And certain gaps in the china tea-set, some scars on the dolls' faces, and a good many new legs, both amongst the furniture and the animals, are now the only remaining traces of Sam's earthquake.
THE BROWNIES
A little girl sat sewing and crying on a garden seat. She had fair floating hair, which the breeze blew into her eyes; and between the cloud of hair, and the mist of tears, she could not see her work very clearly. She neither tied up her locks, nor dried her eyes, however; for when one is miserable, one may as well be completely so.
"What is the matter?" said the Doctor, who was a friend of the Rector's, and came into the garden whenever he pleased.
The Doctor was a tall stout man, with hair as black as crows' feathers on the top, and gray underneath, and a bushy beard. When young, he had been slim and handsome, with wonderful eyes, which were wonderful still; but that was many years past. He had a great love for children, and this one was a particular friend of his.
"What is the matter?" said he.
"I'm in a row," murmured the young lady through her veil; and the needle went in damp, and came out with a jerk, which is apt to result in what ladies called "puckering."
"You are like London in a yellow fog," said the Doctor, throwing himself on to the grass, "and it is very depressing to my feelings. What is the row about, and how came you to get into it?"
"We're all in it," was the reply; and apparently the fog was thickening, for the voice grew less and less distinct – "the boys and everybody. It's all about forgetting, and not putting away, and leaving about, and borrowing, and breaking, and that sort of thing. I've had father's new pocket-handkerchiefs to hem, and I've been out climbing with the boys, and kept forgetting and forgetting, and mother says I always forget; and I can't help it. I forget to tidy his newspapers for him, and I forget to feed Puss, and I forgot these; besides, they're a great bore, and mother gave them to Nurse to do, and this one was lost, and we found it this morning tossing about in the toy-cupboard."
"It looks as if it had been taking violent exercise," said the Doctor. "But what have the boys to do with it?"
"Why, then there was a regular turn out of the toys," she explained, "and they're all in a regular mess. You know, we always go on till the last minute, and then things get crammed in anyhow. Mary and I did tidy them once or twice; but the boys never put anything away, you know, so what's the good?"
"What, indeed!" said the Doctor. "And so you have complained of them?"
"Oh! no!" answered she. "We don't get them into rows, unless they are very provoking; but some of the things were theirs, so everybody was sent for, and I was sent out to finish this, and they are all tidying. I don't know when it will be done, for I have all this side to hem: and the soldier's box is broken, and Noah is lost out of the Noah's Ark, and so is one of the elephants and a guinea-pig, and so is the rocking-horse's nose: and nobody knows what has become of Rutlandshire and the Wash, but they're so small, I don't wonder; only North America and Europe are gone too."
The Doctor started up in affected horror. "Europe gone, did you say? Bless me! what will become of us!"
"Don't!" said the young lady, kicking petulantly with her dangling feet, and trying not to laugh. "You know I mean the puzzles; and if they were yours, you wouldn't like it."
"I don't half like it as it is," said the Doctor. "I am seriously alarmed. An earthquake is one thing: you have a good shaking, and settle down again. But Europe gone – lost – Why, here comes Deordie, I declare, looking much more cheerful than we do; let us humbly hope that Europe has been found. At present I feel like Aladdin when his palace had been transported by the magician; I don't know where I am."
"You're here, Doctor; aren't you?" asked the slow curly-wigged brother, squatting himself on the grass.
"Is Europe found?" said the Doctor tragically.
"Yes," laughed Deordie. "I found it."
"You will be a great man," said the Doctor. "And – it is only common charity to ask – how about North America?"
"Found too," said Deordie. "But the Wash is completely lost."
"And my six shirts in it!" said the Doctor. "I sent them last Saturday as ever was. What a world we live in! Any more news? Poor Tiny here has been crying her eyes out."
"I'm so sorry, Tiny," said the brother. "But don't bother about it. It's all square now, and we're going to have a new shelf put up."
"Have you found everything?" asked Tiny.
"Well, not the Wash, you know. And the elephant and the guinea-pig are gone for good; so the other elephant and the other guinea-pig must walk together as a pair now. Noah was among the soldiers, and we have put the cavalry into a night-light box. Europe and North America were behind the book-case; and, would you believe it? the rocking-horse's nose has turned up in the nursery oven."
"I can't believe it," said the Doctor. "The rocking-horse's nose couldn't turn up, it was the purest Grecian, modelled from the Elgin marbles. Perhaps it was the heat that did it, though. However, you seem to have got through your troubles very well, Master Deordie. I wish poor Tiny were at the end of her task."
"So do I," said Deordie ruefully. "But I tell you what I've been thinking, Doctor. Nurse is always knagging at us, and we're always in rows of one sort or another, for doing this, and not doing that, and leaving our things about. But, you know, it's a horrid shame, for there are plenty of servants, and I don't see why we should be always bothering to do little things, and – "
"Oh! come to the point, please," said the Doctor; "you do go round the square so, in telling your stories, Deordie. What have you been thinking of?"
"Well," said Deordie, who was as good tempered as he was slow, "the other day Nurse shut me up in the back nursery for borrowing her scissors and losing them; but I'd got 'Grimm' inside one of my knickerbockers, so when she locked the door, I sat down to read. And I read the story of the Shoemaker and the little Elves who came and did his work for him before he got up; and I thought it would be so jolly if we had some little Elves to do things instead of us."
"That's what Tommy Trout said," observed the Doctor.
"Who's Tommy Trout?" asked Deordie.
"Don't you know, Deor?" said Tiny. "It's the good boy who pulled the cat out of the what's-his-name.
'Who pulled her out?
Little Tommy Trout.'
"Is it the same Tommy Trout, Doctor? I never heard anything else about him except his pulling the cat out; and I can't think how he did that."
"Let down the bucket for her, of course," said the Doctor. "But listen to me. If you will get that handkerchief done, and take it to your mother with a kiss, and not keep me waiting, I'll have you all to tea, and tell you the story of Tommy Trout."
"This very night?" shouted Deordie.
"This very night."
"Every one of us?" inquired the young gentleman with rapturous incredulity.
"Every one of you. – Now Tiny, how about that work?"
"It's just done," said Tiny. – "Oh! Deordie, climb up behind, and hold back my hair, there's a darling, while I fasten off. Oh! Deor, you're pulling my hair out. Don't."
"I want to make a pig-tail," said Deor.
"You can't," said Tiny, with feminine contempt. "You can't plait. What's the good of asking boys to do anything? There! it's done at last. Now go and ask mother if we may go. – Will you let me come, doctor," she inquired, "if I do as you said?"
"To be sure I will," he answered. "Let me look at you. Your eyes are swollen with crying. How can you be such a silly little goose?"
"Did you never cry?" asked Tiny.
"When I was your age? Well, perhaps so."
"You've never cried since, surely," said Tiny.
The Doctor absolutely blushed.
"What do you think?" said he.
"Oh, of course not," she answered. "You've nothing to cry about. You're grown up, and you live all alone in a beautiful house, and you do as you like, and never get into rows, or have anybody but yourself to think about; and no nasty pocket-handkerchiefs to hem."
"Very nice; eh, Deordie?" said the Doctor.
"Awfully jolly," said Deordie.
"Nothing else to wish for, eh?"
"I should keep harriers, and not a poodle, if I were a man," said Deordie; "but I suppose you could, if you wanted to."
"Nothing to cry about, at any rate?"
"I should think not!" said Deordie. – "There's mother, though; let's go and ask her about the tea;" and off they ran.
The Doctor stretched his six feet of length upon the sward, dropped his gray head on a little heap of newly-mown grass, and looked up into the sky.
"Awfully jolly – no nasty pocket-handkerchiefs to hem," said he, laughing to himself. "Nothing else to wish for; nothing to cry about."
Nevertheless, he lay still, staring at the sky, till the smile died away, and tears came into his eyes. Fortunately, no one was there to see.
What could this "awfully jolly" Doctor be thinking of to make him cry? He was thinking of a grave-stone in the churchyard close by, and of a story connected with this grave-stone which was known to everybody in the place who was old enough to remember it. This story has nothing to do with the present story, so it ought not to be told.
And yet it has to do with the Doctor, and is very short, so it shall be put in, after all.
