Holiday House Part 9

Her eyes were fixed on her task, while her thoughts were wandering fifty miles away from it, when a housemaid, who had frequently attended upon Laura during her visit, accidentally entered the room, and seemed much surprised, as well as concerned, to find the young lady in such a way, for her sobbing could be heard in the next room. It was quite a relief to see any one; so Laura told over again all the sad adventures of the day, without attempting to conceal how naughty she had been; and most attentively was her narrative listened to, till the very end.

"You see, Miss!" observed Nelly, "when people doesn't behave well, they must expect to be punished."

"So they should!" sobbed Laura; "and I dare say it will make me better!

I would not pa.s.s such a miserable day as this again, for the world; but I deserve to be more punished than I am."

"That's right, Miss!" replied Nelly, pleased to see the good effect of her admonitions. "Punishment is as sure to do us good when we are naughty, as physic when we are ill. But now you'll go down to dessert, and forget it all."

"No! grandmama would have allowed me, and Lady Rockville and every body was so very kind about inviting me down; but my last clean frock is quite unfit to be seen, so I have none to put on. Oh, dear! what a thousand million of pities!"

"Is that all, Miss! Then dry your eyes, and I can wash the frock in ten minutes. Give it to me, and learn your lesson, so as to be ready when I come back."

Laura sprung off her seat with joy at this proposal, and ran--or rather flew--to fetch her miserable object of a frock, which Nelly crumpled under her arm, and walked away with, in such haste that she was evidently determined to return very soon; while Laura took her good advice, and sat down to learn her task, though she could hardly look at the book during two minutes at a time--she watched so impatiently for her benefactress from the laundry.

At length the door flew open, and in walked Nelly, whose face looked as red and hot as a beefsteak; but in her hand she carried a basket, on which was laid out, in great state, the very cleanest frock that ever was seen! It perfectly smelled of soap and water, starch and hot irons, and seemed still almost smoking from the laundry; while Laura looked at it with such delight and admiration, it might have been supposed she never saw a clean frock before.

When Lady Harriet was sitting after dinner that day, sipping her wine, and thinking about no thing very particular, she became surprised to feel somebody gently twitching her sleeve to attract notice. Turning instantly round to ascertain what was the matter, and who it could be, what was her astonishment to see Laura at her elbow, looking rather shy and frightened.

"How did you get here, child!" exclaimed Lady Harriet, in accents of amazement, though almost laughing. "Am I never to see the last of you to-day! Where did you get that frock! It must have dropped from the clouds! Or did some good fairy give you a new one?"

"That good fairy was Nelly the housemaid," whispered Laura. "She first tossed my frock into a washing-tub; and then at the great kitchen fire she toasted it, and----"

"----And b.u.t.tered it, I hope," added Major Graham. "Come here, Laura! I can read what is written in your grandmama's face at this moment; and it says, 'you are a tiresome little puss, that n.o.body can keep in any order except uncle David;' therefore sit down beside him, and eat as many almonds and raisins as he bids you."

"You are a nice, funny uncle David!" whispered Laura, crushing her way in between his chair and Miss Perceval's, "n.o.body will need a tongue now, if you can read so exactly what we are all thinking."

"But here is Miss Perceval, still more wonderful; for she knows by the b.u.mps on your head, all that is contained inside. Let me see if I could do so! There is a large b.u.mp of reading, and a small one of writing and arithmetic. Here is a terrible organ of breaking dolls and destroying frocks. There is a very small b.u.mp of liking uncle David, and a prodigious one of liking almonds and raisins!"

"No! you are quite mistaken! It is the largest b.u.mp for loving uncle David, and the small one for every thing else," interrupted Laura, eagerly. "I shall draw a map of my head some day, to show you how it is all divided."

"And leave no room for any thing naughty or foolish! Your head should be swept out, and put in order every morning, that not a single cobweb may remain in your brains. What busy brains they must be for the next ten years! But in the meantime let us hope that you will never again be reduced to your

"LAST CLEAN FROCK."

CHAPTER VI.

THE LONG LADDER.

There was a young pickle, and what do you think?

He liv'd upon nothing but victuals and drink; Victuals and drink were the chief of his diet, And yet this young pickle could never be quiet.

One fine sultry day in the month of August, Harry and Laura stood at the breakfast-room window, wondering to see the large broken white clouds, looking like curds and whey, while the sun was in such a blaze of heat, that every thing seemed almost red hot. The street door had become blistered by the sun-beams. Jowler the dog lay basking on the pavement; the green blinds were closed at every opposite house; the few gentlemen who ventured out, were fanning themselves with their pocket handkerchiefs; the ladies were strolling lazily along, under the umbrageous shade of their green parasols; and the poor people who were accustomed in winter to sell matches for lighting a fire, now carried about gaudy paper hangings for the empty grates. Lady Harriet found the b.u.t.ter so melted at breakfast, that she could scarcely lift it on her knife; and uncle David complained that the sight of hot smoking tea put him in a fever, and said he wished it could be iced.

"I wonder how iced porridge would taste!" said Harry. "I put mine at the open window to cool, but that only made it seem hotter. We were talking of the gentleman you mentioned yesterday, who toasted his m.u.f.fins at a volcano; and certainly yours might almost be done at the drawing-room window this morning."

"Wait till you arrive at the countries I have visited, where, as somebody remarked, the very salamanders die of heat. At Agra, which is the hottest part of India, we could scarcely write a letter, because the ink dries in the pen before you can get it to the paper. I was obliged, when our regiment was there, to lie down in the middle of the day, during several hours, actually gasping for breath; and to make up for that, we all rose at midnight. An officer of ours, who lived long in India, got up always at three in the morning, after we returned home, and walked about the streets of Portsmouth, wondering what had become of everybody."

"I shall try not to grumble about weather any more," said Laura. "We seem no worse off than other people."

"Or rather we are a great deal better off! At Bermuda, where my regiment stopped on the way to America, the inhabitants are so tormented with high winds, that they build 'hurricane houses'--low, flat rooms, where the families must retire when a storm comes on, as trees, houses, people, and cattle, are all whirled about with such violence, that not a life is safe on the island while it lasts."

"That reminds me," said Lady Harriet, "of a droll mistake made yesterday by the African camel, when he landed at Leith. His keepers were leading him along the high road to be made a show of in Edinburgh, at a time when the wind was particularly high; and the poor animal encountering such clouds of dust, thought this must be a simoon of the desert, and threw himself flat down, burying his nose in the ground, according to custom on those occasions. It was with great difficulty that he could at last be induced to face the danger, and proceed."

"Quite a compliment to our dust," observed Laura. "But really in such a hot day, the kangaroos and tigers might feel perfectly at home here.

Oh! how I should like to visit the GEOlogical Gardens in London!"

"Then suppose we set off immediately!" said Major Graham, pretending to rise from his chair. "Your grandmama's donkey-carriage holds two."

"Ah! but you could carry the donkey-carriage more easily than it could carry you!"

"Shall I try? Well, if we go, who is to pay the turnpikes, for I remember the time, not a hundred years ago, when Harry and you both thought that paying the gates was the only expense of travelling. You asked me then how poor grandmama could afford so many shillings and sixpences."

"We know all about every thing now though!" said Harry, nodding in a very sagacious manner. "I can tell exactly how much time it takes going by the public coach to London, and it sleeps only one night on the road."

"Sleeps!" cried uncle David. "What! it puts on a night-cap, and goes to bed?"

"Yes! and it dines and breakfasts too, Mr. uncle David, for I heard Mrs.

Crabtree say so."

"Never name anybody, unless you wish to see her immediately," said Major Graham, hearing a well-known tap at the door. "As sure as you mention an absent person, if he is supposed to be fifty miles off at the time, it is rather odd, but he instantly appears!"

"Then there is somebody that I shall speak about very often."

"Who can this Mr. Somebody be?" asked uncle David, smiling. "A foolish person that spoils you both I dare say, and gives you large slices of bread and jelly like this. Hold them carefully! Now, good bye, and joy be with you."

But it was with rather rueful faces that Harry and Laura left the room, wishing they might have remained another hour to talk nonsense with uncle David, and dreading to think what new sc.r.a.pes and difficulties they would get into in the nursery, which always seemed to them a place of torture and imprisonment.

Major Graham used to say that Mrs. Crabtree should always have a thermometer in her own room when she dressed, to tell her whether the weather was hot or cold, for she seemed to feel no difference, and scarcely ever made any change in her own attire, wearing always the same pink gown and scarlet shawl, which made her look like a large red flower-pot, while she was no more annoyed with the heat than a flower-pot would have been. On this very oppressive morning she took as much pains in suffocating Harry with a silk handkerchief round his neck, as if it had been Christmas, and though Laura begged hard for leave to go without one of her half-a-dozen wrappings, she might as well have asked permission to go without her head, as Mrs. Crabtree seemed perfectly deaf upon the subject.

"This day is so very cold and so very shivering," said Harry, slyly, "that I suppose you will make Laura wear at least fifty shawls."

"Not above twenty," answered Mrs. Crabtree, dryly. "Give me no more of your nonsense, Master Harry! This is no business of yours! I was in the world long before you were born, and must know best; so hold your tongue. None but fools and beggars need ever be cold."

At last Mrs. Crabtree had heaped as many clothes upon her two little victims, as she was pleased to think necessary; so she sallied forth with them, followed by Betty, and proceeded towards the country, taking the sunny side of the road, and raising clouds of dust at every step, till Harry and Laura felt as if they had been made of wax, and were melting away.

"Mrs. Crabtree!" said Harry, "did you hear uncle David's funny story yesterday? One hot morning a gentleman was watching an ant's nest, when he observed, that every little insect, as it came out, plucked a small leaf, to hold over its head, as a parasol! I wish we could find leaves large enough for us."

"You must go to the Botanical Gardens, where one leaf of a palm-tree was shown to grandmama, which measured fourteen feet long," observed Laura.

"How horrid these very warm countries must be, where the heat is all the year round like this!"

"You may well say that," answered Mrs. Crabtree. "I would not go to them East Indies--no! not if I were Governess-General,--to be running away with a tiger at your back, and sleeping with real live serpents twisted round the bed-post, and scorpions under your pillow! Catch me there! I'm often quite sorry for Master Frank, to think that his ship is maybe going that way! I'm told the very rats have such a smell in that outlandish place, that if they touch the outside of a bottle with their tails, it tastes of musk ever after; and when people are sitting comfortably down, expecting to enjoy their dinner, a swarm of great ants will come, and fall, an inch thick, on all the side-dishes. I've no desire whatever to see foreign parts!"

"But I wish to see every country in the universe," said Harry; "and I hope there will be a rail-road all round the world before I am grown up.

Only think, Mrs. Crabtree, what fun lion-hunting must be, and catching dolphins, and riding on elephants."