A Christmas Posy Part 5

"Him has one, zank you." P. 55]

Auntie went on speaking, and did not see that Baby did not eat his biscuit, but held it tight in his little hand. And in a minute or two mother looked round and said, "I must find something my little boys will like." Then she drew the cocoa-nut biscuits to her and chose two, a pink one and a white one--you must know there is nothing we children think such a treat as cocoa-nut biscuits--and handed them to them.

"Budder" took his and said, "Thank you, mother;" but what do you think dear Baby did? Instead of taking it, as he might easily have done, without any one's ever knowing of the other--and, indeed, if they had known, they couldn't have said it was naughty of him--he held out his hand with the biscuit already in it, and said quite simply, not the least as if he thought he was doing anything very good, "Him has one, zank you."

"Honest little man," said mother, and then Baby's face got red, and he did look pleased. For mother does not praise us often, but when she does it is for something to be a little proud of, you see, and even Baby understands that.

And Auntie turned and gave him a kiss.

"You dear little fellow," she said; and then in a minute, she added, "that reminds me of something I came across the other day."

"What was it? Oh, do tell us, Auntie," we all cried.

Auntie smiled--we are always on the look-out for stories, and she knows that.

"It was nothing much, dears," she said, "nothing I could make a story of, but it was pretty, and it touched me."

"Was it a bear," said Baby, "or a woof that touched you?"

"Silly boy," said "Budder"; "how could it be a bear or a woof? Auntie said it was something pretty."

And when she had left off laughing, she told us.

"It was the other day," she said, "I was walking along one of the princ.i.p.al streets of Edinburgh, thinking to myself how bitterly cold it was for May. Spring has been late everywhere this year, but down here in the south, though you may think you have had something to complain of, you can have no idea how cold we have had it; and the long light days seem to make it worse somehow! Well, I was walking along quietly, when I caught sight of a poor little boy hopping across the road. I say 'hopping,' because it gives you the best idea of the queer way he got along, for he was terribly crippled, and his only way of moving was by something between a jerk and a hop on his crutches. And yet he managed to come so quickly! You would really have been amused to see the kind of fly he came with, and how cleverly he dodged and darted in and out of the cabs and carriages, for it was the busiest time of the day. And fancy, children, his poor little legs and feet from his knees were quite bare. That is not a very unusual sight in Edinburgh, and not by any means at all times one to call forth pity. Indeed, I know one merry family of boys and girls who all make a point of 'casting' shoes and stockings when they get to the country in summer, and declare they are much happier without. Their father and mother should be so, any way, considering the saving in hosiers' and shoemakers' bills. But in the case of my poor little cripple it was pitiful; for the weather was so cold, and the thin legs and feet so red, and the poor twisted-up one looked so specially unhappy.

"'Poor little boy,' I exclaimed to the lady I was with; 'just look at him. Why he has hopped all across the street merely for the pleasure of looking at the nice things in that window!'

"For by this time the boy was staring in with all his eyes at a confectioner's close to where we were pa.s.sing.

"'Give him a penny, do,' said my friend, 'or go into the shop and buy him something.'

"We went close up to the boy, and I touched him on the shoulder. He looked up--such a pretty, happy face he had--and I said to him--

"'Well, my man, which shall I give you, a penny or a cookie?'

"He smiled brightly, but you would never guess what he answered. Like our 'honest little man' here," and Auntie patted Baby's head as she spoke, "he held out his hand--not a dirty hand 'considering'--and said cheerfully--

"'Plenty to buy some wi', thank ye, mem;' and spying into his hand I saw, children, one halfpenny."

Auntie stopped. I think there were tears in her eyes.

"And what did you do, Auntie?" we all cried.

"What could I have done but what I did?" she said. "I don't know if it would have been better not--better to let his simple honesty be its own reward. I could not resist it; of course I gave him another penny! He thanked me again quite simply; I am sure it never struck him that he had done anything to be praised for, and I didn't praise him, I just gave him the penny. And oh, how his bright eyes gleamed! He looked now as if he thought he had wealth enough at his command to buy all the cookies in the shop."

"So he hadn't only been pertending to buy," said "Budder." "Poor little boy, he had been toosing--toosing what he would buy. I'm so glad you gave him anoder penny, Auntie."

"He's so gad him got anoder penny," echoed Baby; though, to tell the truth, I am not sure that he had been listening to the story. He had been making up for lost time by crunching away at his biscuit. And when the boys said "Good night," Auntie gave them each another biscuit, and mother smiled and said it was because it was Auntie's first night. But "Budder" told Baby afterwards, by some funny reasoning of his own, that they had got another biscuit each, "'cos of that poor little boy who wasn't greedy."

And Baby, of course, was quite satisfied, as "Budder" said so.

I think I shall always remember that little cripple boy when I see cocoa-nut cakes, and it will make me like them, if possible, better than ever.

THE SIX POOR LITTLE PRINCESSES

"And all the Christ Child's other gifts . . .

. . . but still--but still-- The doll seem'd all my waking thoughts to fill. . . ."

_The Doll that ne'er was Mine._

THERE were six of them, beginning with Helen and ending with Baby, and as Helen was only twelve and Baby already five, it is easy to understand that they were all pretty near of a size. But they weren't really princesses. That was all Jinny's planning. Indeed most things which were nice or amusing or at all "out-of-the-way" were Jinny's planning.

Jinny's long name was Ginevra. She came third. Helen and Agatha were in front of her, and below her came Elspeth and Belinda and Baby. Baby had a proper name, I suppose, but I never heard it, and so I can't tell you what it was. And as no one ever did hear it, I don't see that it much matters. Nor would it have mattered much if Belinda had had no proper name either, for she was never called anything but b.u.t.ter-ball. The story was that it was because she was so fat; and as, like many fat people, she was very good-natured, she did not mind.

They were all together in the nursery, together but alone, as was rather often the case; for they had no kind, comfortable old nurse to spoil and scold them by turns, poor children, only a girl that Miss Burton, the lady whom they lived with, kept "to do the nursery work," which does not sound like being a nice nurse at all, though I suppose Miss Burton did not understand the difference. There were a good many things she did not understand. She liked the children to be neatly dressed, and to have good plain food in plenty; she was very particular that they should do their lessons and go for a walk every day when it was fine enough, but that was about all she thought of. She did not think they needed any fun except what they could make for themselves, and even then it must not be too noisy; she could not understand that they could possibly be "dull,"

caged up in their nursery. "Dull," when there were six of them to play together! She would have laughed at the idea.

They had few story-books and fewer toys. So they had to invent stories for themselves, and as for the toys, to make believe very much indeed.

But how they would have succeeded in either had it not been for Jinny I should be afraid to say.

"It's a shame--a regular shame," said Ginevra. She was sitting on the table in the middle of the room with Elspeth beside her. The two little ones were cross-legged on the floor, very disconsolately nursing the battered remains of two very hideous old dolls, who in their best days could never have been anything but coa.r.s.e and common, and Helen and Agatha sat together on a chair with a book in their hands, which, however, they were not reading. "It's a shame," Ginevra repeated; "even the little princes in the tower had toys to play with."

"Had they?" said Helen. "Is that in the history, Jinny?"

"It's in some history; anyway, I'm sure I've heard it," Jinny replied.

"But this isn't a tower," said Agatha.

"No, it's a dungeon," replied Ginevra grimly. "And if any of you besides me had the spirit of a true princess, you wouldn't stand it."

"We don't want to stand it any more than you do," Helen said quietly.

"But what are we to do? You don't want to run away, do you? Where could we run to? It isn't as if papa was anywhere in England. Besides, we're not starved or beaten, and we're in no danger of having our heads cut off."

"I'd rather we were--there'd be some fun in that," said Princess Jinny.

"Fun!" repeated Agatha.

"Well, it wouldn't be as stupid as being shut up here in this dreary old nursery--I mean dungeon," said Ginevra. "And now that our cruel gaoler has refused to let us have the small solace of--of a--" she could not find any more imposing word--"_doll_ to play with, I think the time has come to take matters into our own hands, princesses."

"I've no objection," said Helen and Agatha, speaking together. "But what do you mean to do?"

"You shouldn't call Miss Burton a gaoler--she isn't as bad as _that_; besides, she's not a man," said Elspeth, who had not before spoken. "We might call her the governor--no, governess; but that sounds so funny, 'governess of the tower,' or custo--then some word like that, of the castle."

"But this isn't a tower--we've fixed that--nor a castle. It's just a dungeon--that'll do very well, and it's great fun at night when we put out the candles and grope about in the dark. And gaoler will do very well for Miss Burton--some are quite kind, much kinder than she."

"It's all along of our never having had any mamma," said a slow, soft little voice from the floor.