Lill's Travels in Santa Claus Land Part 2

Very graceful the little dancing-teacher looked, tip-toeing here, gliding there, twinkling through a series of pretty steps down the long garden walk.

But the pupils! Do the best she might, st.u.r.dy little Kathie couldn't manage her dress. She grasped it tightly in either fat little fist.

"Mother Bunch!" Lu giggled behind her back.

Kathie's face got very red over that. It was well enough to be "Dumpling,"--everybody loves a dumpling; but "Mother Bunch!" So she bounced and shuffled a little longer, and then she said she was going home.

But Miss Lu wasn't ready. She greatly liked the new fun, the hopping and whirling to Winnie's steady "One, two, _three!_ One, two, _three!_"

There was a grown-up, affected smirk on her delicate little face, at which Mrs. Tennyson laughed every time she looked out. I think Lu would have hopped and minced up and down the walk until night, if Winnie's mother hadn't told them it was time to go.

"I don't like her old steps," said Kathie. They were sitting on a daisy bank near Mr. Medway's.

"Well, I do," said Lu. "And you would, too, if you wasn't so chunked.

You just bounced up and down."

Kathie burst out crying. "I'll bet dancing steps _is_ wicked, for you never was so mean before in your life, so! And you didn't dance near so pretty as Winnie, and you needn't think you ever will, for you _never_ will!"

"Oh! I won't, won't I?" said Lu, teasingly.

"No, you won't. I won't be wicked and say you are nice, for you're horrid."

"_You_'re wicked this minute, Kathie Dysart, for _you_'re mad."

And as she laughed a naughty laugh, and as Kathie glared back at her, then it was that that which happened began to happen. Lu's delicate, rosy mouth commenced drawing up at the corners in an ugly fashion, and her nose commenced drawing down, while her dimpled chin thrust itself out in a taunting manner; but the horror of it was that she couldn't straighten her lips, nor could she draw in her chin when she tried.

"You _dis'gree'ble_ thing!" shrieked Kathie, looking at her and feeling dreadfully, her eyebrows knotting up like two little squirming snakes.

"If I'm a Mother Bunch, you're a bean-pole, and you'll be an ugly old witch some day, and you'll dry up and you'll blow away."

By this time the two little pink starched sun-bonnets fairly stood on end at each other.

"Kathie Dysart, I'll tell your Sunday-school teacher, see if I don't."

"Tell her what? you old, _old_, OLD thing!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "They grew older and uglier each moment."]

Kathie Dysart loved her Sunday-school teacher, and now she _was_ in a rage. She couldn't begin to scowl as fiercely as she felt; her cheeks sunk in, her lips drew down, her nose grew sharp and long in the effort.

And, all at once, as the children say, her face "froze" so. Oh! it was perfectly horrid, that which happened to the two little dears, it was indeed. They could not possibly look away from each other, and they grew older and uglier each moment! Why, their very sun-bonnets--those fresh little pink sun-bonnets--shriveled into old women's caps, and even in the hearts of the poor little old crones the hardening process was going on, a fierce fire of hate scorching the last central drop of dew, until nothing would ever, ever grow and bloom again.

It was all over with Lu and Kathie forever and ever.

All this was long ago, of course--indeed, it happened "once upon a time." It would be difficult now to verify each point in the account. On the contrary, I suppose it just possible that there may be a mistake as to the transformation of the children's clothes--the change of the sun-bonnets into caps, for instance.

But, as a whole, I see no reason to doubt the story. Often, and quite recently, too, I have seen little faces in danger of a similar transformation.

Where anger, envy, spite, and some others of the ill-tempers, gain control of the nerves and muscles of the human countenance, they pull and twitch and knot and tie these nerves and muscles, until it is almost impossible to recognize the face.

Sometimes this change has pa.s.sed off in a minute; but at other times it has lasted for hours, and there is _always_ danger that the face will fail to recover its pleasantness wholly, that traces will remain, like wrinkles in a ribbon that has been tied, and that, at last, the transformation will be final and fatal, and the fair child become and remain "a horrid old witch."

Of one thing we all are certain--that the most gossiping and malicious person now living was once a fair and innocent child; so who shall say that this which I have related did _not_ happen to Lu and Kathie?

FLAXIE FRIZZLE.

Her name was Mary Gray, but they called her Flaxie Frizzle. She had light curly hair, and a curly nose. That is, her nose curled up at the end a wee bit, just enough to make it look cunning.

What kind of a child was she?

Well, I don't want to tell; but I suppose I shall have to. She wasn't gentle and timid and sweet like you little darlings, oh, no! not like you. And Mrs. Willard, who was there visiting from Boston, said she was "dreadful."

She was always talking at the table, for one thing.

"Mamma," said she, one day, from her high chair, "your littlest one doesn't like fish; what makes you cook him?"

Mamma shook her head, but Flaxie wouldn't look at it. Mrs. Willard was saying, "When we go to ride this afternoon we can stop at the slate-quarry."

_Who_ was going to ride? And would they take the "littlest one" too?

Flaxie meant to find out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Flaxie Frizzle.]

"Do you love me, mamma?" said she, beating her mug against her red waiter.

"When you are a good girl, Flaxie."

"Well, look right in my eyes, mamma. Don't you see I _are_ a good girl?

And _mayn't_ I go a-riding?"

"Eat your dinner, Mary Gray, and don't talk."

Her mother never called her Mary Gray except when she was troublesome.

"I want to tell you sumpin, mamma," whispered she, bending forward and almost scalding herself against the teapot, "I _won't_ talk; I won't talk _a_ tall."

But it was of no use. Mrs. Willard was not fond of little girls, and Mrs. Gray would not take Flaxie; she must stay at home with her sister Ninny.

Now Ninny--or Julia--was almost ten years old, a dear, good, patient little girl, who bore with Flaxie's naughtiness, and hardly ever complained. But this afternoon, at four o'clock, her best friend, Eva Snow, was coming, and Ninny did hope that by that time her mamma would be at home again!

Mrs. Gray and Mrs. Willard rode off in the carriage; and the moment they were gone, Flaxie began to frisk like a wild creature.

First she ran out to the gate, and screamed to a man going by,--

"How d'ye do, Mr. Man? You _mustn't_ smoke! My mamma don't like it!"

"Oh, why _did_ you do that?" said Ninny, her face covered with blushes, as she darted after Flaxie, and brought her into the house.