CHAPTER III
A RAINBOW IN THE NURSERY
THE kitchen at Oaklands was a warm and cheery place to turn into on that frosty morning; at least so thought Robin, as, standing beside his friend Jonathan in the doorway, he watched the cook pour steaming bread and milk into the basins that were going up into the nursery. The scent of fragrant coffee, mingled with the savoury smell from the rashers of bacon sputtering and browning in the great frying-pan, made a most inviting combination.
"This is Widow Campbell's son," said the gardener, pushing Robin forward a little; "he has come to fetch the clothes for his mother."
"Then he must wait a while, if you please," said the housekeeper, who entered at that moment. "We are very busy this morning, and I am behindhand with several things. Cook, give the lad a cup of coffee and something to eat with it. It may be an hour before I can send him home again."
Robin, nothing loth, sat himself down as directed at a side table in the midst of this stirring scene, and the sharp morning air having given him a fine appetite, he lost no time in commencing an attack upon the plentifully heaped plate set before him. It was seldom indeed the poor boy got a chance of fried bacon and potatoes at home for breakfast. Before he had quite finished, he heard the sound of happy voices in the garden mingled with shouts of laughter; and presently two boys with their merry-looking sister chased each other past the kitchen window.
"Have you seen the Christmas tree?" shouted one.
"No; where is it?"
"Here! Old Jonathan has got it round by the kitchen door."
"Oh, what a beauty! Where is mamma? She must come and see It. Won't it look lovely with all the things hung upon it to-night? I wish they would make haste and finish breakfast in the dining room."
"Where did you get such a grand one, Jonathan? And what are you going to do with that branch stuck in a pot?" cried Clarice, laughing.
"That is a Christmas tree for a poor sick child, my little missie. She will never run about as you do, for her legs are no use whatever to her, and the doctor says she cannot get better."
"Oh, I am so sorry for her, Jonathan!"
"She has a kind brother, though," continued Jonathan, "who wants her to have as happy a Christmas as she can, so he has begged this bough from me, and I have found an old pot to put it in. Maybe, miss, among your things in the nursery you can find a broken toy or so and a bit or two of coloured ribbon, if I might make so bold. It will deck it up gay-like for the poor little creature."
"Oh yes, Jonathan, that I will! We have heaps of things that nurse calls rubbish in our toy drawers. I will ask mamma about it. But how shall we send them? You have not told me her name. Where does she live?"
"They call her Corrie, miss, though I believe her right name is Coralie. Widow Campbell named her after the youngest little girl she used to have charge of when she lived in this house as nurse many years ago. Corrie's brother is in the kitchen now, miss, if you would like to see him."
"Ask him to wait until we speak to mamma. She has sent us to get ivy for her now to decorate the rooms with, but we will be back very soon."
And away scampered the children.
Millicent, a little lady five years old, stood at the nursery window watching her brothers and sister as they ran races across the frosty lawn, trying who should be first to reach the wood. But the blinding shower of tears falling from her blue eyes soon hid them from view.
"They are very unkind indeed," she cried, stamping her foot, "when they know I cannot go with them. Papa and mamma are very cross not to let me. I want to go and get ivy too."
From low sobs, the crying swelled into a passionate roar, which reached even Robin's ears as he sat below in the kitchen.
"Miss Milly! Hush! Stop crying, dear," said nurse. "You will make your cough so bad. Look! Baby is quite frightened at the noise you are making."
"I don't care, nurse! Everybody is very unkind. I want to go out now and pick the ivy!" And the child's slight delicate frame trembled with the passion she was giving way to.
"Milly!"
It was her father's voice; and in one instant the screaming ceased.
"Milly!" he repeated, in a grave sorrowful tone. "Nurse, please take baby into the next room. I must talk to my little girl alone."
Gently he drew the naughty child into his arms, and placed her on his knee, beside the fire.
"Milly has made papa's heart very sore to-day; she has quite forgotten Sunday night."
"No, I haven't, papa."
"I see dark heavy clouds and streaming rain on my little girl's face, but no smiling sunshine. I hope it will come soon."
"I wanted to go out," she began; but a bad fit of coughing prevented the end of the sentence.
"Do you want to be in bed again, Milly, and have more biting mustard on your chest? Remember, the doctor said if you were not a great deal better, you could not go downstairs to see the Christmas tree to-night. I think I must tell nurse to undress you and put you to bed again."
"No, no, please not, papa!" pleaded the little invalid, with her arms clinging about his neck. "I have been very naughty; but I am good again now. I don't like being ill at all."
"Do you like being miserable, Milly?"
"No!"
"Oh, I thought you did. When people want to be very unhappy all day long, they have only to do one thing, and they will be sure to succeed. Can you tell me what that is?"
Milly's face was now quite hidden on her father's shoulder, but no answer came.
"They have only to think about themselves from morning to night, and cry me, me, for everything. That is a very ugly picture, is it not? Suppose we look at another: How to be happy all day long instead?"
"How?" whispered the little penitent, with a tighter clasp.
"Why, never to think about self at all, but try and see how many other people can be made happy. If everybody did that in the world, there would be much less sorrow. Suppose we try, Milly, you and I? I wonder who will succeed best? What does mamma say? Here she comes, and Clarice too; they look as if they had something to tell us."
Mamma smiled, while Clarice knelt down to whisper something in her sister's ear.
"But I want to hear too," said papa.
"Oh, very well, we will say it out loud!
"Papa, Robin Campbell, the washerwoman's son is here, and Jonathan has been telling me all about his poor little sister Corrie. She is quite lame, and never never can walk; and they are very poor. He wants to make a Christmas tree for her with a fir branch Jonathan has put into a pot and given to him. Mamma says Milly and I may have it up here in the nursery and dress it, and then Robin can come again to fetch it in the afternoon. Won't it be nice, Milly?"
Such a bright smile came over Milly's face on hearing this, that papa said, "Ah! There is the rainbow! I thought it would come; and here is nurse with the fir bough to be decked for Corrie. You will have a happy morning now, my little girls!" he added as he left the room.
And it was a happy morning, for its hours sped so swiftly away that neither of the children could believe it was over when dinner-time came. First there was a golden star to be cut out of some gilt paper that had adorned a cracker. This was fastened to the top of the bough.
"There are more dolls than we want in our dolls' house family," cried Clarice. "Let us take two of those, and put fresh sashes on them; and here is an old tin soldier, to keep them in order. Oh, I forgot this bag of sweeties! This will tie on here, and just fill up the bare space. What next, Milly?"
"My little sugar lamb, I think, Clarice. I do love my little lamb, and I have kept him so carefully. No; I really cannot let him go. But yes, yes I will. It will make poor little Corrie so happy. There! I have tied it on; and here is a pink rose to go next to it, and all these red and yellow crackers mamma sent up just now."
And so the miniature tree grew gay by degrees up in the nursery, while papa and mamma worked away at the big one in the dining room with locked doors.
Not even one peep could Alfred and Arthur obtain, though they hovered outside the windows all the morning!