Kitabı oku: «Little Mittens for The Little Darlings», sayfa 3

LITTLE SALLIE'S LONG WORDS

This evening the mother said: Here is a story Aunt Fanny wrote a long time ago, about Sarah, her daughter, and her niece Fanny. It is true, every word; and she says that she was reminded of it by an anecdote, which a lady told her of one of her own dear little daughters.

The lady said: "Not long ago my Mary was invited to a children's party. I made her a very pretty dress; and just before she went I kissed her and said, 'Now, my darling, you know what a little tear-coat you are – do try this time, if you can come home without a single rent in your pretty frock.'

"'Oh, yes, mamma!' she answered, 'I will take the most paticularest care of it;' and she smoothed it softly down, and walked out with such a funny, mincing step that I had to laugh.

"But the little monkey came home a sight to behold; the dress hung in tatters, as if some wild animal had torn it in pieces.

"'Why!' I exclaimed, 'here's the rag bag walking in.'

"Mary looked in my face with a sweet, sorrowful expression, and tripping close up to me, with a little, dancing step, on the tips of her toes, said, 'Oh, mamma, I met with such a unfortin – I tore my frock; please to excuse me.'

"I had to laugh – and seeing that, she concluded that her 'unfortin' was rather a good joke – and went laughing and singing off to bed.

"But," Aunt Fanny goes on to say, "you dear little darlings, please don't go to tearing your clothes for the fun of it – this winter at least – as we have no time to mend them, while we are working for the brave soldiers.

"After we are at peace, and all happy and comfortable, let's have a grand tearing time together – because we shall be so glad. I promise that you shall tear me into three-cornered pieces, or any other shape you like, when that happy time comes; but now, my darlings, we must wear our old clothes, and save our money to buy comforts for the defenders of the flag. That's my opinion. What's yours? Please let me know in your longest words, and see if I don't print them in a book some of these days. That's all."

LITTLE SALLIE'S LONG WORDS:

One day little Sallie's mother was very ill indeed; she was lying on the bed with a bandage dipped in ice water around her head, for her head was throbbing and aching as if it were made entirely of double rows of teeth, every one of them afflicted with a jumping, raging toothache, and her little daughter felt so sorry for her, that she begged permission to go to a shop and buy her a new head.

Sallie was an only child; she played little with other children, and she was so accustomed to being constantly with her father and mother, and other grown persons, that she talked in a very amusing and funny fashion, for she would use very long words, perfectly understanding their meaning, but with such comically strange jumblings and twistings, and alterings of syllables, as to make it very difficult to preserve a becoming gravity while listening to her. If you laughed, the fun was all over, for Sallie would turn as red as a whole box of wafers; all the dimples in her face would take French leave, and you could almost have declared there was a bonfire lighted up in each of her eyes; but this only lasted a moment, for she was a sweet-tempered, affectionate little creature, and got over being laughed at as quick as possible, which is a great deal quicker than you or I would have done.

"Dear mamma," said Sallie, her face perfectly beaming with tenderness and sympathy; "dear mamma, what a terrible pain you are in; it is really overpalling! It's very instraordinary that you should have such a head. I can feel the beating! I wish you could sell it to the drummer of a regimen, and buy a new one; I wish I could give you mine, mamma; mine is perfectly empty; not a speck of pain, or anything else, in it, and it would last just so, as long as you live, and ever so much longer. It is so destressing to have a head so brimful of sufferling;" and little Sallie looked as grieved as cock-robin's wife when he was killed by the sparrow, with his bow and arrow.

"My dear dove and darling," said her mother, "I know you would give your head and shoulders, and all your new shoes, to make me well, but you can do nothing but keep perfectly quiet, as still as a mouse with the lock-jaw. As the Frenchman says, you must 'take hold of your tongue, and put your toe on your mouth;' – he meant finger, I suppose. You need not leave the room, my little Sallie, only do not make any noise."

So Sallie sat down very quietly on the carpet with her kitten, only whispering once in a while, "Play softly, kitty, for your mamma is very undisposed."

Just at this moment another little girl came darting like a sunbeam into the room. It was Fanny. Fanny was Sallie's cousin; she was a dear little weeny woman of seven years, with a lily-white skin, hazel eyes, and a sweet, musical voice, and she ran up to Sallie with such a gentle, song-like salutation, you would have supposed it was a bob-o-link, saying, "How do you do?" Let me tell you, if you have never heard a bob-o-link, its few low notes are deliciously sweet, and are only surpassed by the sweet voice of a good little girl.

Fanny had come to spend the day with Sallie. She was about a year older than her cousin; she had the same amiable, affectionate ways, and used almost as many long words, so they got on together famously.

It was raining a little, and Fanny said the mud in the streets was very stickery, and she had hard work to keep her boots clean. "I declare," she continued, "such very dirty streets are only fit for esquarians."

"Esquarians!" said Sallie, "what kind of an animal is that? Pigs?"

"My patience!" said Fanny, "did you never hear of esquarian exercise? I take it every day at Mr. Disbrow's. It is riding on horseback."

"Oh!" said Sallie, rubbing her chin, "of course. I was a perfect goose not to know that. I wish, when the streets are muddy, we could fly like birds through the air: how pleasant it must be to be dangling in the air, with nothing to do but stare at the sun! I would not come down for a week. Just fancy! what perfect happiness!"

"And no lessons to learn," said Fanny. "Now, there's grammar – I hate it like pepper, and the hard words in the dictionary nearly discolates my jaw. You ought to be thankful, Sallie, that you don't go to school; for my part, I am always glad when 'chatterday' comes, as you call it."

Sallie knew better than that, but she called Saturday chatterday, because Fanny almost always spent that day with her, and they chattered so much you would hardly believe but what they had breakfasted on two or three dictionaries apiece, and each word was undergoing digestion.

"I think I should like to go to Mr. Abbott's school," said Sallie; "mamma says that they have an intermittent of five minutes in every hour. Only think! you can talk to everybody, or walk with anybody, or put your head in your desk, or eat candy, or drink water all the time, or never stop laughing, or anything else you please till the five minutes are over. That's the school for me. I should think he would have a million of scholars. I am sure if I studied all the time, my head would be cracked in a week. Why, Fanny, I tried to say the alphabet backward the other evening, and it fatwigged me so I had to go to bed."

Here Sallie's mother gave a little laugh, which was instantly changed into a smothered groan, for the laughing hurt her head, that it seemed as if a whole regiment of dragoons was galloping through her brain; but the long words and the wrong words sounded so funny, and the children acted and talked so much like two old ladies over a cup of tea, it was not human nature to keep from being amused; and, in fact, their comical prattle acted like a fairy talisman or distant music; it soothed her, and made her in a measure forget her pain.

Sallie heard only the groan, and coming softly to the bed, she whispered: "Dear mamma, did we talk too loud? I meant to be as moute as a muce. I mean as mute as a mouse."

Her mother laughed again at this funny mistake; she could not help it, and Sallie laughed too, and said, "That was a mistake, you know; I had a kink in my tongue; I do believe it must have been twisted like a corkscrew. It is all right now, isn't it, mamma?" and Sallie ran her tongue out till you could nearly see the roots, and it seemed quite wonderful where she kept it all, and that it did not get worn out with all the hard work and exercise she gave it; but I suppose some people's tongues are like dogs' tails, they like to show how happy they are by keeping up a continual wagging.

"Shall we go into the next room and play there?" asked Sallie; "we will be so still you will think the very chairs and tables are taking a nap; we will be like the mummies in the cats' combs, and I should like very much to know what a cats' comb is, and how a mummy can be buried in it."

"You mean cacatombs," laughed little Fanny. "Papa says they are either taverns or caverns – I forget which he said – in Egypt, where they bury the mummies."

"You must call it catacombs, my dear little girls; they are large caverns, not taverns: a mummy in a tavern would frighten all the idlers and ragamuffins out of it. I don't know but what it would be a good plan, but you two dear little twisters and turners of the king's English would frighten that cranky old fellow, Dr. Johnson, into a long sickness, if he was only alive and could hear you. I love to hear you talk; it does me good. Don't go out of the room, but take that pack of cards I gave you to play with, and sit down on the floor and build card houses."

The children thought this a capital idea. Down they sat in great glee, and immediately commenced the business of building houses, their eyes nearly starting out of their heads, in their anxiety to make houses three stories high; but, spite of all their efforts, the moment they attempted the third story, down would come all the cards with a flop, leaving the builders with a long-sounding O – h, to stare at the ruins.

"The fact is," said Sallie, looking so wise and solemn you would have thought she was an owl's granddaughter, at least, "the fact is, there is one peculiarrarity about card houses."

"What's that?" asked Fanny, pursing up her mouth and trying to look as if she knew already.

"Why, I'll tell you," answered Sallie, taking a long breath for the prodigious long word that was coming, "if you ever expect to build card houses, or cocked hats, or steamboats, you must go to work systimystiattically."

"That's not the word," said Fanny, looking as dignified as ten judges; "that's not the word at all, Sallie."

"What is it, then?" said Sallie, shutting one eye, and looking very hard at Fanny with the other.

"Sister Mister Macalley! There! don't I know?"

"My dear child," answered Sallie, with a patronizing air, and her head on one side, "you are right. It is Sister Mister Macalley; I only said systimystiattically for fun, you know – just for fun and fancy, old Aunt Nancy." And the little girls laughed merrily, and thought it a capital joke.

Sallie's mother had to laugh too, until she was almost killed, at this last sally. She did not wonder that the long word "systematically" had proved one too many for the children; she expected, the next thing, to hear of "indivisibility," or "incompatibility," or something twice as long, if possible; but, at any rate, the laughing or something else did her so much good that she felt well enough to get up and drink a cup of tea and eat a piece of dry toast, while the little girls were having their luncheon, and desperate were the efforts she was obliged to make, to keep from laughing at the speeches they made over the meal. They were twenty times more amusing than the heavy, long-winded jokes with which aldermen, and other big bugs entertain each other for hours at the great public dinners, where they are obliged to give each other the wink to let every one know where the laugh ought to come in. No! it was just one little, rollicking, chuckling laugh all lunch time; and how they managed to make so much bread and butter and raspberry jam disappear, I am sure I cannot tell.

Sallie lived in the city of New York, in Eleventh street, very near Broadway. Directly round the corner was Mrs. Wagner's ice cream saloon, or, as Sallie called it, "Mrs. Waggles."