A Christmas Child Part 14

But not any number of "do's" would have made mother agree to so dangerous a proceeding.

"My dear little girl, you would certainly set yourselves on fire, and the tree too," she replied. "But never mind," she went on, seeing the corners of Cissy's mouth going down with the thought of Ted's disappointment, "I will go out with you and explain to Ted."

Mother put a shawl over her shoulders and went out with her little girl.

Some way off, Ted heard them coming.

"O Cis, have you got the dips?" he cried. "I forgot to tell you to bring some matches too. I've had such hard work to see, and a lot of people pa.s.sed. I _think_ there was a woman and two boys. I'll have to mark them down, when----"

"I've come with Cissy, Ted," replied his mother's voice, to his surprise, "to tell you that it would really be too much of a good thing to go on with your observations all night. And, in the first place, you would certainly set yourself and Cissy and the tree on fire, if I let you have candles up there. Come down now, that's a good boy, and show me your paper, and we'll pack it up to send to your uncle by post."

"Very well, mother," said Ted, with his usual cheery good-nature. "I'm coming. Here goes," and in another minute he was beside her. "You don't know what a beautiful long paperful I've got. I don't want you to pack it up _yet_, mother. Cissy and I are going to keep it on ever so much longer, aren't we, Cis?"

And chattering merrily the children went in with their mother. But as she said to their father, it really is to be doubted if they would not have stayed in the tree all night, if Ted had got his wish and arranged a "dip" illumination on the top of the wall.

After all, that day in the tree was the last of their "stick-sticks."

The weather changed, and there was nearly a week of rain, and by the time it was over, children-like, Ted and Cissy had grown tired of the rows of strokes representing old women and donkeys and horses, and all the rest of them; the "observations" had lost their attraction for them.

Still the pleasure was not quite over, for there was the packing of the big paper to send to Uncle Ted by post, and his letter of thanks in return. And Percy came home for the holidays, and greatly approved of the nest in the tree. And what the children did _not_ do up there--what games they played, how they were by turns Robinson Crusoe hiding from the savages, King Charles in the oak at Boscobel, or, quainter still, how they all sometimes suddenly turned into squirrels and manufactured for themselves the most wonderful tails of old brush handles, and goodness only knows what, which stuck straight up behind and made the climbing to the nest by no means an easy matter--yes indeed, what they did _not_ do up in the tree would be difficult to tell.

But it comes into my mind just now that I have never told you anything of Ted's indoor life. Hitherto it has seemed all summer days and gardens, has it not? And no doubt the boy's _greatest_ happiness was in outdoor interests and employments. But of course it was not always summer and sunshine for Ted, any more than for any one else--and, Christmas child though he was, there were wintry days when even _he_ had to stay in the house and find work and pleasures indoors. For winter does not mean nothing but bright frosty skies overhead, and crisp clean snow underfoot. There are dreary days of rain and mist and mud, when children are much better at home, and when mothers and nurses are more thankful than any one _not_ a mother or nurse can imagine, to have to do with cheerful contented little people, who are "good at amusing themselves," and unselfish enough not to worry every one about them because it is a rainy day.

CHAPTER IX.

A PEAc.o.c.k'S FEATHER AND A KISS.

"We tried to quarrel yesterday.

Ah!... kiss the memory away."

In Ted's pleasant home there was a queer little room used for nothing in particular. It was a very little room, hardly worthy indeed of the name, but it had, like some small men who have very big minds, a large window with a most charming view. I think it was partly this which made Ted take such a fancy to this queer little room in the first place--he used to stand at the window when they first came to the house and gaze out at the stretch of sloping fields, with peeps here and there of the blue river fringed with splendid trees, and farther off still the distant hills fading away into the mysterious cloudiness, the sight of which always gave him a strange feeling as if he would like to cry--Ted used to gaze out of this window for ever so long at a time, till somehow the little room came to be a.s.sociated with him, and the rest of the family got into the way of speaking of it as his. And gradually an idea took shape in his mind which he consulted his mother about, and which she was quite pleased to agree to. Might he have this little room for his museum? That was Ted's idea, and oh how eagerly his blue eyes looked up into his mother's face for her reply, and how the light danced in them with pleasure when she said "yes."

There were shelves in the little room--shelves not too high up, some of them at least, for Ted to arrange his curiosities on, without having to climb on to a chair, and even Cissy, when she was trusted as a great treat to dust some of the treasures, could manage nicely with just a footstool. It would be impossible to tell you half the pleasure Ted got out of his museum. It was to him a sort of visible history of his simple happy life, for nowhere did he go without bringing back with him some curious stone or sh.e.l.l, or bird's feather, or uncommon leaf even, to be placed in his collection, both as a remembrance of his visit and as a thing of interest in itself.

There were specimens of cotton in its different stages, of wool too, from a soft bit of fluff which Ted had picked off a Welsh bramble, to a square inch of an exquisitely knitted Shetland shawl, fine as a cobweb, which Ted had begged from Mabel when she was giving the remains of the shawl to Cissy for her doll. There were bits of different kinds of coal; there was "Blue John" from a Derbyshire cavern, and a tiny china doll which, much charred and disfigured, had yet survived the great fire of Chicago, where one of the children's uncles had pa.s.sed by not long after; there was a bit of black bread from the siege of Paris; there were all manner of things, all ticketed and numbered, and their description neatly entered in a catalogue which lay on a little table by the door, on which was also to be seen another book, in which Ted requested all visitors to the museum to write their names, and all the big people of the family so well understood the boy's pride and pleasure in his museum, that no one ever thought of making his way into his little room without his invitation.

Ted had begun his museum some months before the great excitement of the nest in the tree, but the delights of the long summer days out of doors had a little put it out of his head. But the latter part, as well as the beginning of these holidays, happened to be very rainy, and the last fortnight was spent mostly by Percy and Ted in the tiny museum room, where Percy helped Ted to finish the ticketing and numbering that he had not long before begun. And Cissy, of course, was as busy as anybody, flopping about with an old pocket-handkerchief which she called her duster, and reproving the boys with great dignity for unsettling any of the trays she had made so "bootily clean."

"You must try to get some more feathers, Ted," said Percy. "They make such a pretty collection. There's a fellow at our school that has an awful lot. He fastens them on to cards--he's got a bird-of-Paradise plume, an awful beauty. Indeed he's got two, for he offered to sell me one for half-a-crown. Wouldn't you like it?"

"I should think I would," said Ted, "but I can't buy anything this half.

You know my money's owing to mother for that that I told you about."

He gave a little sigh; the bird of Paradise was a tempting idea.

"_Poor_ Ted," said Cissy, clambering down from her stool to give him a hug.

Ted accepted the hug, but not the pity.

"No, Cissy. I'm not poor Ted for that," he said merrily. "It was ever so kind of mother to put it all right, and ever so much kinder of her to do it that way. I shouldn't have liked not to pay it myself."

"I'll see if I can't get that fellow to swop his bird of Paradise for some of my stamps, when I go back to school," said Percy.

"Oh, thank you, Percy," said Ted, his eyes shining.

"Anyway you might have some peac.o.c.ks'," Percy went on. "They're not so hard to get, and they look so pretty."

"Mother's got some screens made of them on the drawing-room mantelpiece,"

said Ted, "and one of them's got a lot of loose feathers sticking out at the back that are no use. Perhaps she'd give me one or two. Then I could make a nice cardful, with the peac.o.c.ks' at the corners and the little ones in a sort of a wreath in the middle."

He looked at the sheet of white paper on to which, at present, his feathers were fastened. "Yes, it would be very pretty," he repeated. But just then the tea-bell rang, and the children left the museum for that day.

The boys were in it the next morning, when Ted's mother appeared with a rather graver face than usual. She did not come in, she knew that Ted was putting all in perfect order, and that he did not want her to see it till complete, so she only slightly opened the door and called him out.

"Ted," she said quietly, but Ted saw that she was sorry, "Ted, do you know anything of this?"

She held up as she spoke a pretty and valuable little china ornament which always stood on the drawing-room mantelpiece. It was broken--quite spoilt--it could never be the same again.

"Oh dear," exclaimed Ted, "what a pity! Your dear little flower-basket.

I am so sorry. How could it have got broken?"

"I don't know," said his mother. "I found it lying on the floor. It seemed as if some one had knocked it over without knowing. You are sure you were not trying to reach anything off the mantelpiece yesterday evening?"

"Sure," said Ted, looking sorry and puzzled.

"It stood just in front of my screen of peac.o.c.k feathers," his mother went on. She did not in the very very least doubt his a.s.surance, but his manner gave her the feeling that if she helped his memory a little, he might be able to throw some light on the mystery.

"In front of the peac.o.c.k-feather fan," he repeated absently.

"Yes," said his mother, "but do not say anything about it, Ted. We may find out how it happened, but I do not like questioning every one about it. It gives the servants a feeling that I don't trust them, for they always tell me if they break anything. So don't say anything more about it to _any one_."

"No," said Ted. His tone and manner were still a little puzzled, as if something was in his mind which he could not make clear to himself, and his mother, knowing that he sometimes was inclined to take things of the kind too much to heart, made up her mind to think no more about her poor little vase, and to treat its breakage as one of the accidents we have all to learn to bear philosophically in daily life. But though no more was said, Ted did not forget about it: it worried and puzzled him behind other thoughts, as it were, all day, and little did he or his mother think who was really the innocent culprit.

Late that night, just before going to bed herself, Ted's mother glanced into his room, as she often did, to see that the boy was sleeping peacefully. The light that she carried she shaded carefully, but a very wide-awake voice greeted her at once.

"Mother," it said, "I'm not asleep. Mother, I do so want to speak to you. I've not been able to go to sleep for thinking about the little broken vase."

"O Ted, dear," said his mother, "don't mind about it. It is no use vexing oneself so much about things when they are done and can't be put right."

"But, mother," he persisted, "it isn't quite that. Of course I'm _very_ sorry for it to be broken, however it happened. But what makes me so uncomfortable is that I've begun to wonder so if perhaps I _did_ do it.

I know we were all talking about your peac.o.c.k-feather screens yesterday.

I said to Percy and Cissy there were some loose ones in one of them, and perhaps you'd give me some for my card of feathers, and I've got a sort of wondering feeling whether perhaps I _did_ touch the screen and knocked down the china flower-basket without knowing, and it's making me so unhappy, but I _didn't_ mean to hide it from you if I did do it."

He looked up so wistfully that his mother's heart felt quite sore. She considered a minute before she replied, for she was afraid of seeming to make light of his trouble or of checking his perfect honesty, and yet, on the other hand, she was wise, and knew that even conscientiousness may be exaggerated and grow into a weakness, trying to others as well as hurtful to oneself.

"I am sure you did not mean to hide anything from me, dear Ted," she replied, "and I don't think it is the least likely that you did break the vase. But even if you did, it is better to think no more about it.

You answered me sincerely at the time, and that was all you could do.

We are only human beings, you know, dear Ted, always likely to make mistakes, even to say what is not true at the very moment we are most anxious to be truthful. We can only do our best, and ask G.o.d to help us.