Happy Days for Boys and Girls Part 29

Even the old watch-dog came yawning, stretching, blinking and wagging his tail in kindly dog-fashion to bid me "good-day" in the summer sunshine.

As I stood under the great beech trees, taking in with greedy eye and ear the sights and sounds of country-life so refreshing to a Londoner, I heard something fall from one of the trees, then a scuffle, and immediately afterward a white Persian cat belonging to the house bounded toward me in hot pursuit of a dear little squirrel. I was just in time to save the poor little animal by stepping between it and the cat. The squirrel pa.s.sed under the edge of my dress and made off again up another tree; so p.u.s.s.y lost her prey.

Soon afterward, when we were at breakfast, the butler told us that one of the little boys of the village, who had lost a pet squirrel, had asked if he might look for it in the garden of the house. It had first escaped into some trees in the park, and he had traced it from them into the garden. It at once occurred to me that this must be the little creature I had saved from the cat. I remembered how it made straight toward me, as if asking me for protection from its enemy, which only a tame squirrel would do; and I proposed, when breakfast was over, that we should go out and help in the search.

Little Jack Tompkins stood under the beech trees, looking with tear-stained face up into the branches. Suddenly I saw his face brighten, and he called out, "I see un, ma'am; I see un! If so be no one warn't by, I be sure he'd come to I."

I need not say we retreated to a distance; then Jack called up the tree in a loud whisper, "Billee, Billee!" and in a minute down came the little creature on to his shoulder. I can tell you Jack was a happier child than he had been when he came into the garden. And when I told him what a narrow escape "Billee" had had from the cat, he said, "It would be hard if a cat eat he, for our old puss brought he up with her own kits." Then he told us how the squirrel, when a tiny thing, had dropped out of its nest and been found by him lying almost dead at the foot of a tree, and how he had carried it home and tried whether p.u.s.s.y would adopt it as one of her own kittens. The cat was kind; the squirrel throve under her motherly care, and became Jack's pet and companion.

Now, children, in this instance it was all very well to keep a tame squirrel. "Billee" seemed happy leading the life he was accustomed to; he had been fed and cared for by human beings from his infancy, and might be as incapable of finding food and managing for himself in a wild state as a poor canary would be if let loose from its cage. But generally it is cruel to imprison little wild birds and animals who have known the enjoyment of liberty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SQUIRREL.]

PUPPET.

Puppet had two occupations. She had also a guitar and a half-bushel basket. These things were her capital--her stock in trade.

The guitar belonged to one of her occupations, the half-bushel basket to the other.

In consideration of her first employment, she might have been called a street guitarist. In consideration of her second, she might have been called a beggar--a broken-bits beggar.

Puppet would have been considered, among lawyers, "shrewd;" or, at a mothers' meeting, "cunning;" or, among business men, "sharp." That is to say, she knew a thing or two. She knew that being able to sing no songs was a disadvantage to her first occupation, as a large hole, half way up her basket, was an advantage to her second.

It seems odd that a hole in one's begging basket should be an advantage.

But because of the hole, she had always behind her a crowd of dogs, that seemed to have been just dropped from the basket, the last one never having fairly got his nose out; and because of the dogs she was known as "Puppet" all over the city.

To be known by a characteristic name is of great advantage to a beggar.

If Biddy, looking from the bas.e.m.e.nt door, says to cook, "Och, an'

there comes up the street our little Puppet, with her dogs all behind her, carrying her basket," cook is much more likely to see the broken bits "botherin' roun' on the schalves o' the cubbid," than she would be if Biddy should say, "Shure, an' thir cams to us a dirty beggar, it is."

But it is with Puppet's first occupation, and not her second, that we have to do. If you had not read more descriptions of faces within the last year than you can possibly remember in all the years of your life put together, I would tell you what sort of face Puppet's was; that it was a bright face, with blue eyes, just the color of the blue ribbon that went first round the guitar's neck, and then round Puppet's; that Puppet's teeth were as white as the mother-of-pearl pegs that held her guitar strings at the bottom; that her cheeks were as white as the ivory keys; that her hair was long, and yellow--just the shade of the guitar's yellow face.

But that would be very much like a dozen other faces that you have seen; so I will only say that it was a smiling little face.

It smiled as it bent over the guitar, while the little fingers picked their ways in and out among the strings; and it smiled yet more sweetly as she looked up to catch the coppers thrown from the fourth and fifth story, and sky-parlor windows.

Puppet once lived with a man who said that he was her uncle; and she believed him so thoroughly, that she let him box her ears whenever he felt like it, till he died. Since then Puppet had lived almost friendless and alone.

One hot July day Puppet was wandering through the streets of the great city, with her little guitar under her little arm. The city did not seem so great to Puppet as it does to some of the rest of us, because she was born and brought up there.

"O, dear," sighed Puppet, "_what_ a mean place you are!"

No one had given her a copper since the cool of the morning. People seemed to have a fancy for spending their coppers on soda-water and ice-cream.

"What shall I do?" moaned Puppet. Whatever should she do? Puppet must have coppers, or she could not live.

She sat in a cool, shaded court, close to the busy street; but she couldn't get away from the heat, and the noise, and the people sighing, like herself, "O dear, O dear!"

"I'll try once more," said Puppet, tuning her guitar.

She played "Home, Sweet Home," with variations. But all the people who heard her were suffering, because their homes in the city were rather hot than sweet. "Home, Sweet Home" could win no pennies from "city folks" in July.

Then Puppet whistled to her guitar accompaniment a little "Bird Waltz," and whirled on the pavement in time, till I doubt if she herself knew whether the guitar had gone mad, and were waltzing about her, or she were waltzing about the guitar.

A boy came dancing into the court, singing,--

"O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad!

O, whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad!"

But he danced out again, without leaving a penny behind him; so it would have been just as well if he had never come in. Still, he amused himself for a few minutes, which not many people were able to do in that hot July midday.

Puppet went from the little court, and wandered on and on. At last she left the city far away behind her.

And out and away from the city there were green fields.

Puppet had heard of green fields, but she had never seen any face to face before. As she looked at them, she had a dim remembrance that she had heard that they were covered with long, waving gra.s.s. But all these fields were close shaven, like the beautiful mouse-colored horses in the city.

It was pleasant, but not very exciting to a city girl. The city girl presently grew tired of it.

"There seem to be houses farther along," she said; "I'll go and play there."

Puppet slung the little guitar about her little neck, and started off again.

Presently she came to a cottage with a little green yard in front of it, and in the middle of the little green yard was a great green tree.

Puppet sat down on the gra.s.s, leaned against the tree, and felt very hungry.

A lady was sitting by an open window, sewing. She was sitting so that Puppet could see only a bit of her left cheek, and her dark hair, just beginning to turn gray, and her right hand as she brought the needle up from her work. From what she did see, Puppet thought that she would give her something to eat, if she could but get her attention. Surely, she must be often hungry herself, or why should she have so many gray hairs?

Puppet, leaning against the tree, ran her fingers over the guitar frets in light harmonies; but the lady did not look.

Her thoughts must be far away, in a quiet and happy place, that Puppet's harmonies should seem a part of that place.

The guitar broke into a low, mournful minor. Still the lady gave no heed to Puppet.

Puppet was feeling very hungry. She would play the Fandango. That _must_ rouse any one. She began at the most rattling part.

The gray-haired lady looked round quickly. "Bless me, bless me! what's this?" Seeing a little girl out by the tree, she put her sewing on the table, and came to the door and into the yard.

"Dear me! a little girl with yellow hair, and I just to have been dreaming of a little girl with yellow hair!"

"Is anything the matter with my hair, mum?" Puppet stopped playing, and ran her hands through the yellow ma.s.s of uncombed locks.