"NOW, Pocahontas Maria, sit still and don't disturb the little ones. Imogene, that lesson must If anybody had been walking in Madam Bird's old-fashioned garden that morning, and had heard these wise words coming from the other side of the rose thicket, he would certainly have supposed that some old dame with a school was hidden away there, or at the least an anxious Mamma with a family of unruly children. But if this somebody had gone into the thicket, bobbing his head to avoid the prickly, wreath-like branches, he would have found on the other side only one person, little Lota Bird, playing all alone with her dolls. "Lady Bird" Nursey called Lota, because when, six years before, But Lota did not pity herself in the least. Grandmamma's house was stiff and gloomy, shaded by high trees and thick vines which jealously shut out the sun whenever he tried to shine in at the window panes. Grandmamma's servants were old too, like the house. Most of them had gray hair. Nursey wore spectacles; the coachman indulged in rheumatism. Grandmamma herself was old and feeble. She rarely laughed or seemed to enjoy any thing, but sat in an easy chair all the year round, and read solemn books bound in black leather, which made her cry. Jennings her maid waited on her, fetched footstools and cushions, pushed the blinds down as soon as the cheerful noon got round to that side of the house. "Missus is uncommon poorly to-day," she announced every morning. "Miss, you Far up in the curved angle made by the rose-hedge was the little house where she and her dollies lived. Jacob the gardener built this house, of roots and willow-osiers curiously twisted. It was just big enough for Lady Bird and her family. The walls were pasted over with gay prints cut from the "Illustrated News" and other papers. There was a real window. The moss floor had a blue cotton rug laid over it. A small table and chair for Lota and one apiece for the dolls made up the furniture, beside a shelf on which the baby-house tea-set was displayed. The roof kept out the weather pretty well, except when it rained hard; then things got wet. Here Lota sat all the morning, after she had finished her lessons with Nursey,—short lessons always, and easy ones, by Papa's particular request, for the doctors had said that Lota must not study much till she was really big and strong. Pocahontas Maria and the other children had to work much harder than their Mamma, I assure you. Lota was very strict with them. As this story is all about Lota, I think I would better tell you just how she spent one week of her life, she and the dolls. The week began with Sunday, which was always a dull day, because Lota was forbidden to go into the garden. In the morning she went to church with Grandmamma, drawn thither by two fat old black horses, who seemed to think it almost too much trouble to switch the flies off with their tails. Church was warm and the sermon was drowsy, so poor Lady Bird fell asleep, and tumbled over suddenly on to Grandmamma's lap. This distressed the old lady a good deal, for she was very particular about behavior in church. By way of punishment, Lota had to learn four verses of a hymn after dinner. It was the hymn which begins,— "Awake, my soul, and with the sun Thy daily course of duty run," and learning it took all the time from dinner till four o'clock. The hymn learned and repeated, Lota read for awhile in one of her Sunday books. She was ashamed of her sleepiness in the morning, and had every intention of being very good till bedtime; but unluckily she looked across to where the dolls were sitting, and, as she explained to Nursey afterward, Pocahontas Maria was whispering to Imogene, and both of them were laughing so hard and looking so mischievous that she had to see what was the matter. Result;—at five, Jennings, coming to call Lota, found her with all the dolls in a row before her teaching them hymns. And, though this seems most proper, Jennings, who was a strict Methodist, did not think so; so Lota had another lecture from Grandmamma, and went to bed under a sense of disgrace. So much for Sunday. Monday opened with bright sunshine. It had rained all night; but by eleven o'clock the "Lady Green hasn't treated me quite properly," remarked Lota to her oldest child, Pocahontas. "She didn't leave her card at this house I don't know when. But we won't mind about that, because it's such a nice day, and we want the picnic. And we can't have the picnic without the Greens, you know, dear, because there aren't any other people to invite." So they had the picnic,—a delightful one. The young Greens behaved badly. They almost always did behave badly when they came to Clarissa was perhaps not so much to blame, for the rose-cakes were delicious. Would you like Lady Bird's recipe? Any little girl can make them. Take a good many rose-leaves; put some sugar with them,—as much sugar as you can get; tie them up in paper, or in a good thick grape-leaf; lay them on a bench, and sit down on them hard several times: then they are done. Some epicures pretend "You are such a big girl now," said Mamma Here is Pocahontas Maria's journal as it stood on Tuesday afternoon, after the children had done their lessons and had their dinners:— "Tuseday. I am going to keep a Diry like Mamma's. Studded as usel. Mamma said I was cairless, and didn't get my jography lesson propperly. Stella had hers better than me. I hurt my ellbow against the table. It won't bend any more. Mamma is going to get Doctor Jacob to put in a woulden pin. I hope it won't hurt." "Oh, Pocahontas! Pocahontas!" cried the scandalized Lady Bird as she read this effusion. "After all the pains I have taken, to think you should spell so horridly as this." Then she sat down and corrected all the words. "I don't wonder your cheeks are so red," she said severely. Pocahontas sat up straight and blushed, but made no excuses. It is not strange that Lota, On Tuesday night it rained again, and the sun got up in a cloud next morning, and seemed uncertain whether or not to shine. Grandmamma was going to drive out to make a call, and Jennings came early to the nursery to tell Nurse to dress Lady Bird nicely, so that she might go too. Accordingly Nursey put on Lota's freshest white cambric and her best blue sash, and laid a pair of white gloves and a little hat trimmed with blue ribbons and forget-me-nots on the bed, so that they might be ready when the carriage came to the door. "Now, Miss Lady Bird, you must sit still and keep yourself very nice," she said. This was hard, for the children had all been left in the garden-house the night before, and Lota wanted very much to see them. She stood at the window looking wistfully out. By and by the sun flashed gloriously from the clouds, and sent a bright ray right into her eyes. It touched the rain-drops which hung over the So down the garden walk she sped. The shrubs, shaken by her swift passage, scattered showers of bright drops upon the white frock and the pretty sash. But Lota didn't mind or notice. The air and sun, the clear, fresh feeling, the birds' songs, filled her with a kind of intoxication. Her head spun, her feet danced as she ran along. Suddenly a cold feeling at the toes of her bronze boots startled her. She looked down. Behold, she was in a pool of water, left by the rain in a hollow of the gravel-walk. Was she frightened? Not at all. The water felt delightfully fresh, her spirits flashed out like the sun himself, and in the joy of her "Well, Miss Charlotte, I am discouraged," she said, as she pulled off the wet things. "Waltzing in a mud-puddle! That's nice work for a young lady! I am discouraged, Miss Charlotte." Nursey never said "Miss Charlotte" except on the most solemn occasions, so Lota knew that she was very vexed. She should have been cast down by this, but somehow she was not. "But I'm not discouraged," she replied. "I'm not discouraged a bit! And the birds aren't discouraged! They sang all the while I was waltzing in the mud-puddle, Nursey; I heard 'em!" Nursey gave it up. She loved Lady Bird dearly, and could not hear to scold her or to The lady whom Grandmamma drove out to see, had a little granddaughter visiting her. Isabel Bernard was her name. She came from the city, and was so beautifully dressed and so well-mannered, that Grandmamma took quite a fancy to her, and invited her to spend a day with Lota. "Charlotte will enjoy a young companion," said Grandmamma. So the next day was fixed upon. This was a very exciting event for the Bird family, who rarely had any visitors except Lady Lota hoped that Isabel would come early, soon after breakfast, so as to have a longer day; but it was quite twelve o'clock before she made her appearance, all alone by herself in a huge barouche, which made her seem scarcely larger than a doll. She wore a fine frilled muslin frock over blue silk, a white hat, and dainty lemon-colored boots. When Lota, feeling shy at the spectacle of this magnificence, proposed going into the garden, she hung back. "Are you quite sure that it isn't damp?" she said, "because—you see—this is my best frock." "Oh, quite sure," pleaded Lota. "The grass was cut only day before yesterday, and Jacob rolled the gravel last night. Do come! The children want to see you so much." "The children!" said Isabel, surprised. But when she saw the doll-family sitting in a row with their best clothes on, and their four pairs of fixed blue eyes looking straight before them, she laughed scornfully. "Do you play with dolls?" she asked. "I gave them up long ago." Lady Bird's eyes grew large with distress. "Oh, don't call them that," she cried. "I never do. It hurts their feelings so. You can't think." Isabel laughed again. She wasn't at all a nice girl to play with. The rose-cakes she pronounced "nasty." When Lota explained about Lady Green, she stared and said it was ridiculous, and that there was no such person. She Pocahontas Maria wrote in her journal next day:— "The lady who came to see Mamma wasn't very nice, I think. She didn't even speak to us children, and she made fun at my diry. We didn't like her a bit. Stella says she's horrid, and Ning-Po hopes Mamma won't ever ask her any more." Lady Bird reproved Pocahontas very gravely for these sentiments, and reminded Saturday was an eventful day. There were no lessons to do for one thing, because Nursey's daughter had come to see her, and Grandmamma said Lady Bird might be excused for once. This gave her the whole morning to attend to domestic matters, which was nice, or would have been, only unluckily little Stella took this opportunity to break out with measles. Of course Lady Bird was much distressed. She put Stella to bed at once, and sent the others to the farthest side of the room lest they should catch the disease also, "though," as she told Pocahontas, "You'll be sure to have it. It always runs straight through families; the doctor said so when "I shall certainly send you all away to boarding-school if you don't learn to behave better," she cried in despair, at which awful threat the children wept aloud and promised to be good. Then came dinner,—real dinner, I mean,—which Lady Bird could scarcely eat, so anxious was she about her sick child in the garden. The moment it was over back she flew, oblivious of the charms of raisins and almonds. Stella was asleep, but she evidently had fever, for her "I must have a doctor for her," cried poor Lady Bird. She tried to think what article would be best to choose for the doctor, and fixed on an old black muff of Nursey's which lived on the shelf of the nursery closet. To get it, however, it was needful to leave the children again. "You must all be good," she said, fussing about and tidying the room, "very good and very quiet, so as not to wake up Stella. Dear me, what a queer smell there is here! Let me think. What did Nursey do when I had measles? She burned some sort of paper and made it smell nice again. I must burn some paper too, else Stella'll suffocate, won't you, dear?" No sooner thought than done. Jacob had left his coat hanging near the tool-house while he went to dinner, and he always carried matches in his pipe-pocket. Lady Bird knew that. She put her hand in and drew one out, feeling guilty, "If Nursey knew about Stella's having the measles she'd say different," she soliloquized. There was a good-sized bit of brown paper in the garden-house. Lota rolled it up, laid it near the bedside, lit the edge, and carefully blew out the match. The paper did not flame, but smouldered slowly, sending up a curl of smoke. Lady Bird gazed at it with much satisfaction, then, with a last kiss to Stella, she went away to fetch the doctor, stopping at Lady Green's door as she passed, to tell her that she had better not let any of her children come over, because they might catch the measles and be sick too. It took some time to rummage out the muff, for Nursey had tucked it far back on the shelf behind other things. There was nobody in the nursery. Something unusual seemed to be going on downstairs, for doors were opening and shutting, and persons were talking and exclaiming. Did ever mother hesitate when her little ones were in danger? Lady Bird did not. With a shriek of affright she plunged boldly into the midst of the smoke. An awful sight met her eyes through the open door. The wall-paper was on fire, the cotton rug, the table-cover! Little red flames were creeping up the valance of the crib in which poor sick Stella lay! The other children She did not falter. In the twinkling of an eye she had dashed into the burning room, had caught Stella from her bed, the others from their chairs, and with all four hugged tight to her heart was making for the door. Ah! a spark fell on the white apron, on the holland frock! Her rapid movement fanned it. It flickered, blazed, the red flame rushed upward. What would have happened I dare not think, if just at that moment a gentleman, who was hastening down the garden walk, had not caught sight of the little figure, and, with a horrified exclamation, seized, held it fast, wrapped round it a great woollen shawl from his own shoulders, and in one moment put out the deadly fire which was snatching at the sweet young life. Who was I cannot pretend to describe all that followed on that bewildering day, the dismay of Grandmamma and Nursey, the wrath of Jennings over the match, the joy of everybody at Lady Bird's escape, or her own confusion of mind at the fire and the excitement and the new Papa, who was and was not the Papa of the letters. At first she hugged the rescued dolls and said nothing. But Papa gave her time to get used to him, and she soon did so. He was very kind and nice, and did not laugh at the children and call them names as Isabel had done, but felt Stella's pulse, recommended pomatum for the scorch on Imogene's forehead, and even produced a little out of his own dressing-case. Best of all, he led Lady Bird upstairs, unlocked a box and showed her a beautiful little Chinese lady in purple silk and lovely striped muslin trowsers, which he had brought for her. "Another child for you to take care of," said Papa. Pocahontas Maria wrote in her Diary the next day:— "My Grandpapa has come home from China. He is very nice. He brought me a little Chinese sister. Her name is Loo Choo, he says, but Mamma calls her Loo Loo, because it sounds prettier. Grandpapa treats us very kindly, and never says 'dolls,' as Isabel Berners did; and he went to call on Lady Green with Mamma. I'm so glad he is come." When Lady Bird read this she kissed Pocahontas and said,— "That's right, dear; so am I!" |