Part 1

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed. New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

[Illustration: NANNIE.]

A DAY IN THE COUNTRY

AND OTHER STORIES

FROM

"THE PANSY"

[Illustration]

BOSTON D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY FRANKLIN AND HAWLEY STREETS

Copyright by D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 1885

CONTENTS.

A DAY IN THE COUNTRY.

WHY MADGE CHANGED HER MIND.

NANNIE'S LESSON.

FOOLISH CHILDREN.

SOME CURIOUS FISHES.

TIME ENOUGH.

A CUP OF COLD WATER.

ON NANTUCKET WHARF.

LILY DAY.

THE GREENLANDER.

SOME YOUNG HEROES.

THE SECRET OF IT.

THE TRUE WAY TO BE HAPPY.

THE KING OF THE WHITE LILY.

_A DAY IN THE COUNTRY_

_AND OTHER STORIES_

A DAY IN THE COUNTRY.

THEY were on their way to Sabbath-school that pleasant September morning. Maggie and Lottie Barnes, Delia and Sallie Shaw. They lived in the city of Boston.

Because they lived in a large city, do not go and make a picture in your mind of four little ladies with new fall suits of silk or velvet, or soft cashmere, and new hats with nodding plumes or flying ribbons, and trim boots, very high, and trim gloves very long, and many buttons everywhere, because that will not be at all a true picture.

Their dresses were all faded and worn. Maggie wore an old black shawl of her mother's, that trailed a little on the ground. Delia considered herself royally arrayed in a rusty old black velvet sack much too large for her, while Lottie had no protection front the cool autumn air but a soiled and faded blue silk handkerchief spread over her shoulders, her hat, in spite of being loaded down with purple ribbon and red roses, went sailing off her head with every gust of wind that came along, because it had no rubber on it. Then poor Sallie had on low shoes much too large for her. They would keep getting down at the heel and coming off as she clattered along, and she had often to stoop over and adjust them. With these hindrances of hat and shoes of course they could not, you see, go on in a very orderly manner.

They were discussing something in very loud tones. Nobody had ever told them it was rude to talk loud in the streets.

They were bemoaning the fact that all the girls they knew except themselves, had been to the country to spend a few days.

"I wanted to go so much," little Sallie said, tugging at her shoe as she spoke; "I wanted to see some flowers growing. I should think we might have gone as well as the rest," said Delia. "I think it's mean to skip us."

"The money give out," said Lottie, clutching at her hat to prevent its escape.

"Money is the matter with most everything," Maggie said, drawing her shawl closer about her with a grown-up air, and a grown-up sigh.

The money of which the children talked was "The Fresh Air Fund," a sum of money that good men and women raised to give poor children who live in the great city a chance to go into the country for a few days, and breathe the sweet air, run on the grass, pick flowers, and drink fresh milk, all about which they knew nothing. This Mission School was very large, but nearly all had been to the country; some for two whole weeks.

By some means these little girls had been overlooked.

Mrs. Eastman, their teacher, had been absent from her class for six weeks, and all were glad to see her pleasant face in the teacher's chair this morning.

"Now I suppose you must first tell me what a fine time you had in the country," she said "but as our class is so large, we shall not be able to hear a story from each one. Let all who had a good time in the country raise their hands."

The hands went up instantly—all except four.

They sat together, so Mrs. Eastman had no trouble in seeing their hands were not raised, and that they did not wear the bright look of the other children.

"What is the matter here?" she asked kindly. "No hands up this end of the class? Maggie, Lottie, how is it? Did you not like the country?"

"We never went to no country," the little girls responded in a chorus.

After Mrs. Eastman had inquired all about it, and heard how much they wished to go, and said how sorry she was that it had happened so, she wrote down very carefully their names, and just where they lived.

Then she asked them if they had ever told Jesus about it.

"No, we never did," they said.

"Well, my dear little girls," she said, "don't you know when you have trouble, there is where you must take it? You must tell Jesus to-night how much you want to go to the country, and ask him to send you. You know it would not be a good thing for you to go for a long visit, now that your schools have opened, but if you could go for one day, would you not like it?"

"Oh, yes, yes!" they all answered again.

"Well you ask him, and then wait and see what he will do."

It was almost as good as going to the country to have such loving eyes look into theirs, and say, "My dear little girls!" They all promised to do as she wished them to.

"I don't see how it'll be done," Maggie said, on the way home, "when the money is all gone; but teacher said Jesus could do hard things."

Monday was a long day, because these little girls were expecting something to happen. For had not teacher said, "Ask Jesus, and see what he will do for you?"

Sun enough, great news was waiting them when they got home. Maggie and Lottie came running over to Mrs. Shaw's all out of breath.

"Look at that!" said Maggie, holding out a note written on rose tinted paper, in letters almost as plain as print.

"Look at that!" said Sallie, holding up the mate to it.

"Teacher's been to our house," said Maggie.

"And teacher's been to our house!" Sallie responded triumphantly.

These notes from "Teacher" were invitations for the little girls to spend the day with her at her country home on Saturday. They were to take the seven o'clock train at the Old Colony station, and ride about fifteen miles, and there Mrs. Eastman would be waiting with her carriage.

Think of that! A carriage waiting for them!

The day came at last. Great had been the preparations all the week; each Sunday dress had been made as nice as washing, ironing and mending could make it. And they were all at the-depot by half-past six, in a high state of excitement.

The day was perfect. They enjoyed every minute of the ride in the cars. The conductor had orders to leave them at a certain station. No sooner had they stepped from the cars, than they saw the smiling face of their teacher. They were soon seated in a handsome carriage and rolling over a smooth road. The air was sweet and pure, the birds sang, the squirrels skipped about in the trees, and the golden October sunshine made the world beautiful that morning.

"So you told Jesus about it, did you?" Mrs. Eastman asked.

"Yes'm, we did," said little Sallie. "We told him Sunday night, and he 'tended to it the first thing Monday morning."

[Illustration: MAKING WREATHS FOR THEIR HATS.]

WHY MADGE CHANGED HER MIND.

GRANDMA'S room was the very handsomest one in the house. Madge and Nellie thought it was the pleasantest at least.

A bay window overlooked the street, where busy people came and went; two other large windows, that were doors as well, opened on to a piazza, and that piazza was a delightfully cool place to sit, on warm days.

Grandma's large chair was out there most of the time in summer. Then she had to take but a few steps and she was in the flower garden. In winter the plants were in the conservatory, of course, and a glass door from grandma's room opened into that too.

Between her pretty bedroom and the large room were folding doors. There were soft carpets and lace curtains, pictures, great easy-chairs, and everything for use and comfort and prettiness that could be thought of, for everybody in the house thought nothing was too fine and nice for grandma, and that was just as it should be.

It was a bright September morning, but cool enough for grandma to have a fire snapping on her brass andirons in the fireplace.

Some people dread to grow old, because they are so foolish as to think that young folks have all the good looks; but that is a great mistake. Grandma made just as pretty a picture in her black dress, white cap, and soft mull handkerchief folded about her neck, with her red knitting work in her lap, and the fire shining on her silver hair, as Madge and Nellie did over in the window in blue dresses, though their heads were brown and curly, and their cheeks round, and smooth, and rosy.

They were busy with pencil and paper, making out a list of little girls who were to be invited to their birthday party.

It happened that both birthdays came in September, and so they could be celebrated together.

"Shall we invite Minnie Dale?" asked Nellie.

"No; of course not," Madge answered with a curl of her pretty lip.

"Why not?" said Nellie. "She's the best girl in school, and she's pretty too."

"Well, it won't do," Madge declared, with the air and tone of a much older young lady than ten. "She doesn't belong."

"Belong to what? She belongs to our day-school and our Sunday-school."

"Oh, what a little stupid you are," laughed Madge. "She doesn't belong to our set, of course. Do you know where she lives? She lives in that little bit of a brown house way down on Cedar street, just about as big as our smoke house."

"Does she?" said her sister. "Why, I thought she was as good as any of us. She always wears pretty dresses, and she acts—well, sort o' stylish."

"You mustn't say sort o'," said Madge. "You mean she has pretty manners; that's what they call it. Oh, yes; she's nice enough, but what do you suppose Elsie Melbourne, and Clara Haines, and Lina Vedder would say to meeting a girl here who lives in such a hut as that, no matter how she looks and acts?"

"Sure enough!" Nellie answered. "It would not do, would it?"

Grandma arose just then and went to the bureau. She brought out a small rosewood box, and sitting down again by the fire, unlocked it. This drew the children's attention. They always liked to get a peep into grandma's treasures. She had so many curious and pretty things, and told such nice stories about them. So they came over to her, and this was just what she wished them to do.

"Do you want to see my old home?" Grandma said as she brought out a drawing and handed it to them.

"Why, grandma, what do you mean?" they both said at once.

"Why, this is a log house!" Madge said.

"And it's such a little bit of a house!" said Nellie.

"Now, grandma, you truly didn't ever live there?"

"I truly did!" grandma answered. "And a prettier home, or a happier one you never saw.

"When I was married, I went with your grandfather to live in this little house. It stood among the trees, and there was a brook not far away that went racketing over the stones. We used to take long walks in summer, after tea; in summer evenings following up that little brook. Sometimes it ran through green meadows, and then it wound and twisted itself around the hills and on into the dark, cool woods. There were moss-covered stones in it, and ferns and violets grew on its banks: such a pretty place as you never saw, my dears!"

"But how could you live in such a very little house?"

"Oh! Plenty of room," said grandma. "You wouldn't believe it to look at it, but in that house we had a parlor, bedroom, dining-room and kitchen. When we bought it, it had but one large room with a shed at the back. So we set to work to make a nice place of it.

"First of all your grandfather made the old shed into the neatest little kitchen with a corner cupboard. He whitewashed it and set up our stove, and I put our new dishes in the cupboard, and it was as pretty as a little girl's playhouse. The large room was a bare rough place, but we made it white and pure with lime, and I made a curtain out of some pretty chintz calico, and pat it across one side of the room, and that was my bedroom; you see your grandma invented curtains between rooms, which are now so fashionable, long ago. Well, when we had our carpet down, and our pictures up, our books on the shelf, and our round table with a sage-green cloth over it, a bright fire snapping in the great old fireplace, an old armchair one side of the fire and my sewing rocker on the other, I say, there was no neater, prettier place in the whole world."

"But grandma, where were your parlor and dining-room?"

"My child, the parlor and dining-room were all in one. The end of the room next the kitchen was the dining-room: when meal time came it was a dining-room, and when meals were over we just cleared off the table, turned down the leaves, set it back against the wall and put a spread on it, and the room was a parlor again; don't you see?"

"Were you just as happy as you are in this handsome house?" asked Madge, casting her eyes over the beautiful room.

"Some of the happiest years of my life were spent in this dear humble home," grandma said as she replaced the picture in the box with a last loving look at it.

"Just think," said wise Nellie, looking thoughtfully into the fire, "if grandma was a little girl now she couldn't come to our party because she lived in a log house."

"There is somebody greater than grandma you would shut out if He were here," grandma said; "the Lord Jesus himself had no fine house. He said the foxes and the birds had houses, but he had none."

They went back to their work of making out a list.

"Madge," Nellie said pretty soon, "I guess Jesus won't be pleased with such a party as we are getting up. If you don't care, I mean to ask mamma to let me have my party by myself some day, and I'll invite Minnie Dale and that lame girl, and that Jessie Moore in our class that wears calico dresses."

"Nellie Bryant," said Madge, "don't you suppose I want to please Jesus too, instead of Elsie Melbourne, or Clara Vedder, or any of them? I never thought how it would seem to him; we'll ask Minnie Dale and everybody else mamma thinks best. If grandma lived in a poor little house once, who knows but Minnie Dale will live in a grander house than any of us some day?"

"Yes; and just think," Nellie answered, "if papa should lose his money like Mr. Strong, and we have to go into a little bit of a house, wouldn't it seem dreadful to have the girls leave us out when they made parties, and we would be the very same girls we always were, too?"

NANNIE'S LESSON.

LITTLE Nannie Greyson was sitting on her front piazza one bright June morning, when everything around was fresh and bright, but Nannie herself was blind to all this beauty by which she was surrounded, for she had just received a new book, and was already deep in its pages.

Nannie was a very pretty little girl about nine years old. She had a fair skin, large blue eyes and golden hair, not long, but falling to her neck in short, pretty curls. Any one looking at her that June morning would immediately pronounce her very nice and lovable indeed.

The front door behind her is standing open, and presently a lady comes through the wide hall, and stands behind the little girl. She looks down at her without speaking, and the little girl finally becoming aware of her presence looks up into her face with a smile which makes her if anything, more sweet and lovable.

"O! Mamma," she exclaims, "my book is so nice."

And drawing a deep sigh of satisfaction she prepares to return to it. But her mamma is speaking, and she stops to listen, although very reluctantly, I am sorry to say.

"Nannie," her mamma says, "I want you to come and amuse Herbie while I am busy in the kitchen."

Herbie was Nannie's two-year-old brother, and a lively little fellow to take care of.

Minnie threw down her book, and when she looked up, you would scarcely have recognized her as the same sweet little girl who looked so happy a few moments before. An angry frown had settled on the smooth forehead over the blue eyes; there was a fretful expression on her lips, and she was entirely transformed from the bright, pretty little girl whose mouth had been all smiles, to a peevish child with a pout on her lips which was not at all becoming.

"O, mamma, must I leave my book to take care of that tiresome baby? It seems to me I never sit down to read but you want me to do something for you."

She knew she must go, though, and she got up slowly, going through the hall, up the staircase, and into the nursery at the head of the stairs, pouting and cross. She knew that her mamma was deeply grieved, and she knew also that she never would have called her from her book had it not been necessary.

[Illustration: HERBIE.]

But still she pouted, while Herbie tried in his baby fashion to comfort her, for he saw something was wrong. She could not resist his baby coaxing very long, and her ill-humor soon vanished, and they had a merry game of romps.

Two or three hours afterward while playing with a little friend on the back piazza, she tore a bad hole in her dress. Running up-stairs to find mamma, she found her after a little search in the nursery seated by the window, in her rocking-chair with a book in her hand, a very unusual thing for Nannie's mamma, and Herbie at her feet, busily engaged with his toys. Nannie hastened up to her, saying:

"O, mamma, just see what I have done; won't you please mend it 'quick.'"

Her mamma, instead of looking up with her bright smile and ready consent, threw down her book impatiently, exclaiming, as she did so:

"Oh dear, Nannie, must I leave my nice book just to mend that tear? It seems to me I never sit down to read, but you want me to do something for you."

Nannie's eyes filled with tears, for she recognized her own words, and knew that mamma meant to rebuke her in this way. She raised her eyes to her mamma's face, as if asking for pardon, and as her mamma stretched out her arms, she sprang into them, sobbing her confession there.

Nannie had learned a lesson, and one that she never forgot.

FOOLISH CHILDREN.

MRS. TOPKNOT is having trouble in her family to-night. Two weeks ago she was very happy when twelve soft, downy darlings gathered under her wings.

She is not so happy now, because some of them have been naughty.

It was just after dinner, when mamma Topknot was taking a nap, that they took it into their heads.

Whitey began it. She was a proud little thing, all white, with not a black feather about her. She thought she was the prettiest and smartest of the whole brood.

"Our feathers are all out now," Whitey said. "We're growing up. Let's take a little walk by ourselves."

"That's so," said Blackey, "we'll do just that thing. Come on, right off, while mother's asleep; we'll get back before ever she wakes."

"Won't it be fun?" whispered Speckle. "Come on, all of you, and don't make a bit of noise."

"I'm not going to stir a single step," little Dove declared. "I'm going to stay close by my mother."

Then every little chick looked up in astonishment, to think that gentle little Dovie would dare to speak her mind so plainly.

"She's afraid!" said Spot. "She's afraid a big grasshopper will carry her off."

"I am afraid to disobey my mother," Dovie chirped out sweetly. "She said we were never to go anywhere without her till she gave us leave."

"Come on, right off, everybody who wants to go," said Blackey, marching off, calling out as he looked behind him:

"I know where there are some big strawberries!"

"I know where there's a great black dog," piped little Gray. "I'm not going."

"Nor I," said Brownie.

So away went the naughty nine chickens, and the three little good ones stayed at home.

They had a splendid time, for Bobby brought his apron full of chickweed and threw it on the barn floor. They could get little bits of it, even with their small bills.

[Illustration: MAMMA TOPKNOT AND HER FAMILY.]

When mamma Topknot awoke, she looked about for her children.

Only three to be found! Where could the others be? She looked all about and called, but they did not come. Supper time came, and still they had not arrived.

"Cluck! Cluck! Cluck!" went mother Topknot about the barnyard, as if she would go wild.

Where could they be? If she could only squeeze herself through the hole under the fence by which they got out, she would go in search of them.

The supper was nearly all eaten up by the other old hens before she knew what they were about. She managed to save only enough for the three little chicks who had stayed at home.

Just as it began to grow dark, when their mother had given them up, and had settled down with a sad heart to take care of what children she had left, they came.

They hopped through the fence one after another, till they all stood before her, a guilty little huddle.

Just a minute before, mamma Topknot had thought she would give all her feathers if she could only see them alive once more, and now just as soon as she had them, she fell to scolding them.

Oh, how she scolded! And such a hubbub as there was. Speckle stood off by herself and actually talked back. Two or three of the others tried to tell how it wasn't their fault, they never would have thought of such a thing. Then they all talked at once and told how hungry they were and said they never would run away again.

Gray and Brownie stuck their heads from under their mother's feathers to see how things were going, while little Dove got up on her mother's back and tried to help scold.

Blackey scud around behind his mother as soon as he came in and poked his head up under her wing as if he thought he could make her believe he never had been away.