Miss Inches meanwhile sat down in the corner of the room and drew a little table full of books near her. As soon as they were all served, she began,
"Now, dear children, while you eat, I will read aloud a little. I should like to think that each one of you carried away one thought at least from this entertainment, a thought which would stay by you, and be, as it were, seed-grain for other thoughts in years to come. First, I will read 'Abou Ben Adhem,' by Leigh Hunt, an English poet."
The children listened quietly to Abou Ben Adhem, but when Miss Inches opened another book and began to read sentences from Emerson, a deep gloom fell upon the party. Willy Parker kicked his neighbor and made a face. Lucy Hooper and Grace Sherwood whispered behind their napkins, and got to laughing till they both choked. Johnnie's cross feelings came back; she felt as if the party was being spoiled, and she wanted to cry. A low buzz of whispers, broken by titters, went round the table, and through it all Miss Inches' voice sounded solemn and distinct, as she slowly read one passage after another, pausing between each to let the meaning sink properly into the youthful mind.
Altogether the supper was a failure, in spite of peaches and cream and a delicious cake full of plums and citron. When it was over they went into the parlor to play. The game of "Twenty Questions" was the first one chosen. Miss Inches played too. The word she suggested was "iconoclast."
"We don't know what it means," objected the children.
"Oh, don't you, dears? It means a breaker of idols. However, if you are not familiar with it we will choose something else. How would 'Michael Angelo' do?"
"But we never heard any thing about him."
Miss Inches was shocked at this, and began a little art-lecture on the spot, in the midst of which Willy Parker broke in with, "I've thought of a word, 'hash'?"
"Oh, yes! Capital! Hash is a splendid word!" chorussed the others, and poor Miss Inches, who had only got as far as Michael Angelo's fourteenth year, found that no one was listening, and stopped abruptly. Hash seemed to her a vulgar word for the children to choose, but there was no help for it, and she resigned herself.
Johnnie thought hash an excellent word. It was so funny when Lucy asked whether the thing chosen was animal, vegetable, or mineral? and Willy replied, "All three," for he explained in a whisper, there was always salt in hash, and salt was a mineral. "Have you all seen it?" questioned Lucy. "Lots of times," shouted the children, and there was much laughing. After "Twenty Questions," they played "Sim says wiggle-waggle," and after that, "Hunt the Slipper." Poor, kind, puzzled Miss Inches was relieved when they went away, for it seemed to her that their games were all noisy and a fearful waste of time. She resolved that she would never give Johnnie any more parties; they upset the child completely, and demoralized her mind.
Johnnie was upset. After the party she was never so studious or so docile as she had been before. The little taste of play made her dislike work, and set her to longing after the home-life where play and work were mixed with each other as a matter of course. She began to think that it would be only pleasant to make up her bed, or dust a room again, and she pined for the old nursery, for Phil's whistle, for Elsie and the paper-dolls, and to feel Katy's arms round her once more. Her letters showed the growing home-sickness. Dr. Carr felt that the experiment had lasted long enough. So he discovered that he had business in Boston, and one fine September day, as Johnnie was forlornly poring over her lesson in moral philosophy, the door opened and in came Papa. Such a shriek as she gave! Miss Inches happened to be out, and they had the house to themselves for a while.
"So you are glad to see me?" said Papa, when Johnnie had dried her eyes after the violent fit of crying which was his welcome, and had raised her head from his shoulder. His own eyes were a little moist, but he spoke gaily.
"Oh, Papa, so glad! I was just longing for you to come. How did it happen?"
"I had business in this part of the world, and I thought you might be wanting your winter clothes."
Johnnie's face fell.
"Must I stay all winter?" she said in a trembling voice. "Aren't you going to take me home?"
"But I thought you wanted to be 'adopted,' and to go to Europe, and have all sorts of fine things happen to you."
"Oh, Papa, don't tease me. Mamma Marion is ever so kind, but I want to come back and be your little girl again. Please let me. If you don't, I shall die " and Johnnie wrung her hands.
"We'll see about it," said Dr. Carr. "Don't die, but kiss me and wash your face. It won't do for Miss Inches to come home and find you with those impolite red rims to your eyes."
"Come upstairs, too, and see my room, while I wash 'em," pleaded Johnnie.
All the time that Johnnie was bathing her eyes, Papa walked leisurely about looking at the pictures. His mouth wore a furtive smile.
"This is a sweet thing," he observed, "this one with the pickled asparagus and the donkey, or is it a cat?"
"Papa! it's a pig!"
Then they both laughed.
I think there was a little bit of relief mixed with Miss Inches' disappointment at hearing of Johnnie's decision. The child of theory was a delightful thing to have in the house, but this real child, with moods and tempers and a will of her own, who preferred chromos to Raphael, and pined after "tag," tried her considerably. They parted, however, most affectionately.
"Good-by, dear Mamma Marion," whispered Johnnie. "You've been just as good as good to me, and I love you so much, but you know I am used to the girls and Papa."
"Yes, dear, I know. You're to come back often, Papa says, and I shall call you my girl always." So, with kisses, they separated, and Miss Inches went back to her old life, feeling that it was rather comfortable not to be any longer responsible for a "young intelligence," and that she should never envy mammas with big families of children again, as once she had done.
"So we've got our Curly Locks back," said Katy, fondly stroking Johnnie's hair, the night after the travellers' return. "And you'll never go away from us any more, will you?"
"Never, never, never!" protested Johnnie, emphasizing each word by a kiss.
"Not even to be adopted, travel in Europe, or speak Litchfield Co. French?" put in naughty Clover.
"No. I've been adopted once, and that's enough. Now I'm going to be Papa's little girl always, and when the rest of you get married I shall stay at home and keep house for him."
"That's right," said Dr. Carr.
GOOSEY, GOOSEY GANDER
"BUT why must I go to bed? It isn't time, and I'm not sleepy yet," pleaded Dickie, holding fast by the side of the door.
"Now, Dickie, don't be naughty. It's time because I say that it's time."
"Papa never tells me it's time when it's light like this," argued Dickie. "He doesn't ever send me to bed till seven o'clock. I'm not going till it's a great deal darker than this. So there, Mally Spence."
"Oh, yes, you are, Dickie darling," replied Mally coaxingly. "The reason it's light is because the days are so long now. It's quite late really, almost seven o'clock, that is," she added hastily, "it's past six (two minutes past!), and sister wants to put Dickie to bed, because she's going to take tea with Jane Foster, and unless Dick is safe and sound she can't go. Dickie would be sorry to make sister lose her pleasure, wouldn't he?"
"I wiss you didn't want me to go," urged Dick, but he was a sweet-tempered little soul, so he yielded to Mally's gentle pull, and suffered her to lead him in-doors. Upstairs they went, past Mally's room, Papa's, up another flight of stairs, and into the attic chamber where Dick slept alone. It was a tiny chamber. The ceiling was low, and the walls sloped inward like the sides of a tent. It would have been too small to hold a grown person comfortably, but there was room in plenty for Dickie's bed, one chair, and the chest of drawers which held his clothes and toys. One narrow window lighted it, opening toward the West. On the white plastered wall beside it, lay a window-shaped patch of warm pink light. The light was reflected from the sunset. Dickie had seen this light come and go very often. He liked to have it there; it was so pretty, he thought.
"I wiss you didn't want me to go," urged Dick, but he was a sweet-tempered little soul, so he yielded to Mally's gentle pull, and suffered her to lead him in-doors. Upstairs they went, past Mally's room, Papa's, up another flight of stairs, and into the attic chamber where Dick slept alone. It was a tiny chamber. The ceiling was low, and the walls sloped inward like the sides of a tent. It would have been too small to hold a grown person comfortably, but there was room in plenty for Dickie's bed, one chair, and the chest of drawers which held his clothes and toys. One narrow window lighted it, opening toward the West. On the white plastered wall beside it, lay a window-shaped patch of warm pink light. The light was reflected from the sunset. Dickie had seen this light come and go very often. He liked to have it there; it was so pretty, he thought.
Malvina undressed him. She did not talk as much as usual, for her head was full of the tea-party, and she was in a hurry to get through and be off. Dickie, however, was not the least in a hurry. Slowly he raised one foot, then the other, to have his shoes untied, slowly turned himself that Mally might unfasten his apron. All the time he talked. Mally thought she had never known him ask so many questions, or take so much time about every thing.
"What makes the wall pink?" he said. "It never is 'cept just at bedtime."
"It's the sun."
"Why doesn't the sun make it that color always?"
"The sun is setting now. He is not setting always."
"That's an improper word. You mustn't say it."
"What's an improper word?"
"Papa said, when I said 'setting on the door-steps,' that it wasn't proper to say that. He said I must say sitting on the door steps."
"That isn't the same thing, Goosey Gander," cried Mally laughing. "The sun sets and little boys sit."
"I'm not a goosey gander," responded Dickie. "And Papa said it wasn't proper."
"Never mind," said Mally, whipping on his night-gown: "you're a darling, if you are a goosey. Now say your prayers nicely."
"Yes," replied Dick, dreamily. He knelt down and began his usual prayer. "Please, God, bless Papa and Mally and Gwandmamma and " "make Dick a good boy" should have come next, but his thoughts wandered. "Why don't the sun sit as well as little boys?" he asked.
"Oh, Dickie, Dickie!" cried the scandalized Malvina. "You're saying your prayers, you know. Good children don't stop to ask questions when they're saying their prayers."
Dickie felt rebuked. He finished the little prayer quickly. Mally lifted him into bed. "It's so warm that you won't want this," she said, folding back the blanket. Then she stooped to kiss him.
"Tell me a story before you go," pleaded Dickie, holding her tight.
"Oh, not to-night, darling, because I shall be late to Jane's if I do." She kissed him hastily.
"I don't think it's nice at all to go to bed when the sun hasn't sit, and I'm not sleepy a bit, and there isn't nothing to play with," remarked Dick, plaintively.
"You'll fall asleep in a minute or two, Goosey, then you won't want any thing to play with," said Mally, hurrying away.
"I'm not a goosey," shouted Dick after her. Ten minutes later, as she was tying her bonnet strings, she heard him calling from the top of the stairs.
"What is it, Dickie?"
"I'm not a goose. Goosies has feathers. They say 'quack.'"
"You're the kind that hasn't feathers and doesn't say quack," replied Mally from below. "No, darling, you're not a goose; you're Mally's good boy. Now, run back to bed."
"Yes, I will," replied Dick, satisfied by this concession. He climbed into bed again, and lay watching the pink patch on the wall. Yellow bars began to appear and to dance in the midst of the pink.
"Like teeny-weeney little ladders," thought Dick. There was a ladder outside his door, at top of which was a scuttle opening on to the roof. Dickie turned his head to look at the ladder. The scuttle-door stood open; from above, the pink light streamed in and lay on the rungs of the ladder.
"I did go up that ladder once," soliloquized Dick. "Papa took me. It was velly nice up there. I wiss Papa would take me again. Mally, she said it was dangewous. I wonder why she said it was dangewous? Mally's a very funny girl, I think. She didn't ought to put me to bed so early. I can't go to sleep at all. Perhaps I sha'n't ever go to sleep, not till morning, then she'd feel sorry.
"If I was a bird I could climb little bits of ladders like that," was his next reflection. "Or a fly. I'd like to be a fly, and eat sugar, and say b-u-z-z-z all day long. Only then perhaps some little boy would get me into the corner of the window and squeeze me all up tight with his fum." Dickie cast a rueful look at his own guilty thumb as he thought this. "I wouldn't like that! But I'd like very much indeed to buzz and tickle Mally's nose when she was twying to sew. She'd slap and slap, and not hit me, and I'd buzz and tickle. How I'd laugh! But perhaps flies don't know how to laugh, only just to buzz.
"'Pretty, curious, buzzy fly.'That's what my book says."
The pink glow was all gone now, and Dick shifted his position.
"I wiss I could go to sleep," he thought. "It isn't nice at all to be up here and not have any playthings. Mally's gone, else she'd get me something to amoose myself with. I'd like my dwum best. It's under the hall table, I guess. P'waps if I went down I could get it."
As this idea crossed his mind, Dickie popped quickly out of bed. The floor felt cool and pleasant to his bare little feet as he crossed to the door. He had almost reached the head of the stairs when, looking up, something so pretty met his eyes that he stopped to admire. It was a star, shining against the pure sky like a twinkling silver lamp. It seemed to beckon, and the ladder to lead straight up to it. Almost without stopping to think, Dickie put his foot on the first rung and climbed nimbly to the top of the ladder. The star was just as much out of reach when he got there as it had been before, but there were other beautiful sights close at hand which were well worth the trouble of climbing after.
Miles and miles and miles of sky for one thing. It rose above Dickie's head like a great blue dome pierced with pin-pricks of holes, through which little points of bright light quivered and danced. Far away against the sky appeared a church spire, like a long sharp finger pointing to Heaven. One little star exactly above, seemed stuck on the end of the spire. Dickie wondered if it hurt the star to be there. He stepped out on to the roof and wandered about. The evening was warm and soft. No dew fell. The shingles still kept the heat of the sun, and felt pleasant and comfortable under his feet. By-and-by a splendid rocker-shaped moon came from behind the sky's edge where she had been hiding away, and sailed slowly upward. She was a great deal bigger than the stars, but they didn't seem afraid of her in the least. Dickie reflected that if he were a star he should hurry to get out of her way; but the stars didn't mind the moon's being there at all, they kept their places, and shone calmly on as they had done before she came.
He was standing, when the moon appeared, by the low railing which guarded the edge of the roof. The railing was of a very desirable height. Dickie could just rest his chin on top of it, which was nice. Suddenly a loud "Maau-w!" resounded from above. Dickie jumped, and gave his poor chin a knock against the railing. It couldn't be the moon, could it? Moons didn't make noises like that.
He looked up. There, on the ridge pole of the next roof, sat a black cat, big and terrible against the sky. "Ma-a-uw," said the cat again, louder than before.