Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories Part 5

"Yes, yes, here you have it," he said, and taking a great bottle from his belt, and a little blue-bordered handkerchief from one pocket, he sprinkled it profusely with some real cologne and gave it to the delighted child.

"Any more brothers for sale, little girl? I'm in want of some boys?"

"Yes, sir! You can have Johnny, he tears up my dolls and mamma lets him wear my bestest sash--_and_ the baby, he gets the coli'c and screams--_and_ Harry, he won't bring in the wood for mamma, and he eats up my candy and has cookies for supper and I don't, _and_--"

"I'll take 'em all," grunted the big man.

"I'll sell Harry for a doll with _truly_ hair and a black silk and ear-rings and some choc'late ca'mels," said she with the air of an old trader.

"What luck!" he laughed; and diving into another pocket, he brought forth a handful of candy and filled Molly's ap.r.o.n pockets, then taking off his great cap he shook down a lovely doll, with _truly_ hair indeed, long and curly, dressed in a black silk with train and pull-back just like mamma's.

"And what'll you sell Jonathan for?"

"Johnny, you mean--you can have him for a kitten sir."

In an instant the fur cap was off, and a little mewing kitten was produced, for her wondering and delighted gaze.

"And the baby--he wouldn't be worth much to me--"

"Well, he is to me--but I'll sell him for a red cardinal sash and a little sister 'bout as big as Tilly White."

"Whew!" he exclaimed, "you most take my breath away! but here's the sash--a beauty, too--I don't happen to have any little sisters with me,"

feeling of the outside of his pockets, peering into his pack, and even taking off the great cap and shaking it as if a little girl _might_ be folded up in that. "No, really I haven't a little sister about me, but don't you cry; I'll bring one round to-morrow--and now I must be picking up these brothers--where are they?"

"Baby Willie is in the back-yard in his carriage and Johnny and Harry are playing _fooneral_ with him," said she, gravely.

"But that wasn't all; don't cheat me, little girl!" frowned the big freckled-faced man.

"No! I wasn't going to--Tommy--he's in the yard round the corner there with the big boys--he's 'leven--he's my greatest brother--he's a drefful wicked boy--" Molly was going on with the bean-story very likely, but at that moment the funeral procession of a baby carriage and two followers filed up.

The great man darted forward, seized three-year-old Johnny and Harry in his arms, stuffed one head-first, the other legs-first, into the monstrous pack.

The one that went in head-first had his fat legs left dangling; the one that went in legs-first, his head sticking out.

The baby went into one of his deep pockets where his screams were stifled.

This was the work of a second and the man hurried out of sight, saying cheerily over his shoulder to Molly, "I'll bring round the little sister to-morrow."

Molly had so many things to take her attention that she had no time to be conscience-smitten.

There was her odorous handkerchief; her sash, which she hung over her arm; her pockets full of candy; under one arm the wonderful doll; under the other, the live kitten.

But in a half hour the doll had ceased to charm; she couldn't tie the sash herself; the "perfoomery" had evaporated; the kitten had scratched her hand because Molly had picked her up by the tail; only a few chocolate caramels were left, and, I suspect that all seemed as "vanity of vanities" to poor Molly. Just then Fred, her favorite and only remaining brother, came dancing down the path and stopped, amazed before Molly's display of wealth.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHE COULDN'T SPARE FREDDIE.]

Somehow the "choc'late ca'amels" tasted sweeter again when she shared them with Fred, and she couldn't help saying, "Ain't they _boolicious_, Freddie?"

She hadn't time to tell Freddie how she came possessed of all her treasures, for there again appeared at the gate the same great man, with his cry, "Brother for sale!"

"No, no!" screamed Molly, throwing her two fat arms round Fred, at the same time crying, "Run away Freddie, quick! run away."

Now considering that Fred had the doll and the kitten in his lap, and his sister's arms around his neck, it wasn't strange that the little fellow didn't run.

"I'll give you ten dollars for this boy," said the great man, unwinding Molly's arms, and picking fat Fred up, and thrusting him like a roll of cotton batting under his arm.

Molly screamed and--and--well--she woke.

She hadn't been swinging on the gate at all; there wasn't any horrid, _rusty_-faced man standing by her; she had been asleep in school and dreaming.

But she couldn't believe it; and with all Miss Winche's kind coaxing, she wouldn't lift her face from her desk, and would only sob, "I want my Freddie! I want my Freddie!"

The funniest part of it was, the child hadn't been asleep five minutes.

She had been idly listening to a spelling cla.s.s, and just after the word "_sail_" dropped into a nap.

By the way, perhaps I should not omit to mention that before she went to school that morning she had declared to her mother that boys were _bothers_; no wonder! baby Willie, at breakfast, had punched his little fist down into her mug, spilled the milk, and sent the mug crashing on the floor. Johnny had taken the orange out of her sacque pocket, and she had to let him have it because he was "a little fellow," and Harry and Tommy had carried all the cookies to school in their pockets.

But now--after the dream, Molly hugged the baby; and she said confidentially to mamma, "Isn't he sweet?--I don't think boys are a bother, do you, mamma?"

And a little later, while rocking her old rag-doll, "mamma," said she, "I won't ever swing on the front-gate again ever--ever--ever in my life."

A STORY OF A CLOCK.

My real name was so short that I was called Nancy, "for long." I was the fourth child in a very large family. The three elder were a brother and two sisters. The first, very quick at books and figures, finished his education at an early age, and seemed to me about as old and dignified as my father. My sisters, Sarah and Mary, were exemplary in school and out. The former, at eight, read Virgil; painted "Our Mother's Grave" at eleven--'twas an imaginary grave judging from the happy children standing by; wrote rhymes for all the alb.u.ms, printed verses on card-board and kept on living. Mary read every book she could find; had a prize at six years of age for digesting "Rollins' Ancient History;"

had great mathematical talent, and though she sighed in her fourteenth year that she had grown old, yet continues to add to her age, being one of the oldest professors in a flourishing college.

With such precedences, it is not strange that my parents were astonished when their fourth child developed other and less exaggerated traits, with no inclination to be moulded. Within ten months of my eighth year, my teacher, who had previously dealt with Sarah and Mary with great success, made the following remark to me: "If thou wilt learn to answer all those questions in astronomy," pa.s.sing her pencil lightly over two pages in _Wilkin's Elements_ "before next seventh day, I'll give thee two cents and a nice note to thy parents" (my father was a scientific man, and my mother a prime mover in our education).

"Two cents" did seem quite a temptation, but the lesson I concluded not to get. "I worked wiser than I knew." I may have wanted a "two cents"

many a time since, but I never was sorry about that. Spelling, arithmetic, grammar, geography, history and reading, though they were the Peter-Parley edition, seemed about enough food for a child that was hungering and thirsting for a doll like Judith Collin's, and for capacity to outrun the neighboring boys. To be sure the recitation in concert, where the names of the asteroids, only four in number (instead of a million and four) were brought out by some of us, as "vesper,"

"pallid," "you know," and "serious" showed that we did not confine ourselves too closely to the book.

Seventh-day afternoon was a holiday, and on one of these occasions I was sent to stay with my grandmother, as my mother, as my maiden aunt (the latter lived with my grandmother) were going to Polpis to a corn-pudding party. I was too troublesome to be left at home, therefore, two birds were to be killed with one stone.

Now I had for a long time desired to be left alone with my lame and deaf grandmother and the Tall Clock, especially the Tall Clock. I went, therefore, to her old house on Plover street in a calm and lovely frame of mind and helped get my aunt ready for the ride.

'Twas a cold day though September; and after she took her seat in the flag-chair tied into the cart, I conceived the notion to add my grandmother's best "heppy" to the wraps which they had already put into the calash. I always had wanted a chance at that camphor-trunk; and the above cloak, too nice to be worn, lay in the bottom underneath a mighty weight of neatly-folded articles of winter raiment. It came out with a "long pull" and many a "strong pull" and I got to the door with the head of it, while the whole length of this precious bright coating was dragging on the floor. But the cart had started, and when my aunt looked back, I was flourishing this "heppy" to see the wind fill it.

I returned to the room, restored the article to the chest quite snugly, leaving one corner hanging out and that I stuffed in afterwards and jumped upon the cover of the trunk so that it shut. Very demurely I sat down before the open fire by my grandmother's easy chair, rocking furiously, watching my own face in the bright andirons, whose convex surfaces reflected first a "small Nancy" far off, then as I rocked forward, a large and distorted figure. My rapid motions made such rapid caricatures that I remained absorbed and attentive. My grandmother, not seeing the cause of my content, decided (as she told my mother afterwards), "that the child was sick, or becoming regenerated." Happy illusion!

At last, my grandmother got to nodding and I sprang to my long-contemplated work.