Nine Little Goslings Part 3

"Why doesn't the sun make it that color always?"

"The sun is setting now. He is not setting always."

"That's an improper word. You mustn't say it."

"What's an improper word?"

"Papa _said_, when I said 'setting on the door-steps,' that it wasn't proper to say that. He said I must say _sitting_ on the door steps."

"That isn't the same thing, Goosey Gander," cried Mally laughing. "The sun sets and little boys sit."

"I'm not a goosey gander," responded d.i.c.kie. "And Papa _said_ it wasn't proper."

"Never mind," said Mally, whipping on his night-gown: "you're a darling, if you are a goosey. Now say your prayers nicely."

"Yes," replied d.i.c.k, dreamily. He knelt down and began his usual prayer.

"Please, G.o.d, bless Papa and Mally and Gwandmamma and--" "make d.i.c.k a good boy" should have come next, but his thoughts wandered. "Why don't the sun sit as well as little boys?" he asked.

"Oh, d.i.c.kie, d.i.c.kie!" cried the scandalized Malvina. "You're saying your prayers, you know. Good children don't stop to ask questions when they're saying their prayers."

d.i.c.kie felt rebuked. He finished the little prayer quickly. Mally lifted him into bed. "It's so warm that you won't want this," she said, folding back the blanket. Then she stooped to kiss him.

"Tell me a story before you go," pleaded d.i.c.kie, holding her tight.

"Oh, not to-night, darling, because I shall be late to Jane's if I do."

She kissed him hastily.

"I don't think it's nice at all to go to bed when the sun hasn't sit, and I'm not sleepy a bit, and there isn't nothing to play with,"

remarked d.i.c.k, plaintively.

"You'll fall asleep in a minute or two, Goosey, then you won't want any thing to play with," said Mally, hurrying away.

"I'm _not_ a goosey," shouted d.i.c.k after her. Ten minutes later, as she was tying her bonnet strings, she heard him calling from the top of the stairs.

"What is it, d.i.c.kie?"

"I'm not a goose. Goosies has feathers. They say 'quack.'"

"You're the kind that hasn't feathers and doesn't say quack," replied Mally from below. "No, darling, you're not a goose; you're Mally's good boy. Now, run back to bed."

"Yes, I will," replied d.i.c.k, satisfied by this concession. He climbed into bed again, and lay watching the pink patch on the wall. Yellow bars began to appear and to dance in the midst of the pink.

"Like teeny-weeney little ladders," thought d.i.c.k. There was a ladder outside his door, at top of which was a scuttle opening on to the roof.

d.i.c.kie turned his head to look at the ladder. The scuttle-door stood open; from above, the pink light streamed in and lay on the rungs of the ladder.

"I did go up that ladder once," soliloquized d.i.c.k. "Papa took me. It was velly nice up there. I wiss Papa would take me again. Mally, she said it was dangewous. I wonder why she said it was dangewous? Mally's a very funny girl, I think. She didn't ought to put me to bed so early. I can't go to sleep at all. Perhaps I sha'n't ever go to sleep, not till morning,--then she'd feel sorry.

"If I was a bird I could climb little bits of ladders like that," was his next reflection. "Or a fly. I'd like to be a fly, and eat sugar, and say b-u-z-z-z all day long. Only then perhaps some little boy would get me into the corner of the window and squeeze me all up tight with his fum." d.i.c.kie cast a rueful look at his own guilty thumb as he thought this. "I wouldn't like that! But I'd like very much indeed to buzz and tickle Mally's nose when she was twying to sew. She'd slap and slap, and not hit me, and I'd buzz and tickle. How I'd laugh! But perhaps flies don't know how to laugh, only just to buzz.

"'Pretty, curious, buzzy fly.'

That's what my book says."

The pink glow was all gone now, and d.i.c.k shifted his position.

"I _wiss_ I could go to sleep," he thought. "It isn't nice at all to be up here and not have any playthings. Mally's gone, else she'd get me something to amoose myself with. I'd like my dwum best. It's under the hall table, I guess. P'waps if I went down I could get it."

As this idea crossed his mind, d.i.c.kie popped quickly out of bed. The floor felt cool and pleasant to his bare little feet as he crossed to the door. He had almost reached the head of the stairs when, looking up, something so pretty met his eyes that he stopped to admire. It was a star, shining against the pure sky like a twinkling silver lamp. It seemed to beckon, and the ladder to lead straight up to it. Almost without stopping to think, d.i.c.kie put his foot on the first rung and climbed nimbly to the top of the ladder. The star was just as much out of reach when he got there as it had been before, but there were other beautiful sights close at hand which were well worth the trouble of climbing after.

Miles and miles and miles of sky for one thing. It rose above d.i.c.kie's head like a great blue dome pierced with pin-p.r.i.c.ks of holes, through which little points of bright light quivered and danced. Far away against the sky appeared a church spire, like a long sharp finger pointing to Heaven. One little star exactly above, seemed stuck on the end of the spire. d.i.c.kie wondered if it hurt the star to be there. He stepped out on to the roof and wandered about. The evening was warm and soft. No dew fell. The shingles still kept the heat of the sun, and felt pleasant and comfortable under his feet. By-and-by a splendid rocker-shaped moon came from behind the sky's edge where she had been hiding away, and sailed slowly upward. She was a great deal bigger than the stars, but they didn't seem afraid of her in the least. d.i.c.kie reflected that if he were a star he should hurry to get out of her way; but the stars didn't mind the moon's being there at all, they kept their places, and shone calmly on as they had done before she came.

He was standing, when the moon appeared, by the low railing which guarded the edge of the roof. The railing was of a very desirable height. d.i.c.kie could just rest his chin on top of it, which was nice.

Suddenly a loud "Maau-w!" resounded from above. d.i.c.kie jumped, and gave his poor chin a knock against the railing. It couldn't be the moon, could it? Moons didn't make noises like that.

He looked up. There, on the ridge pole of the next roof, sat a black cat, big and terrible against the sky. "Ma-a-uw," said the cat again, louder than before.

"Why, p.u.s.s.y, what's the matter?" cried d.i.c.k. His voice quavered a little, but he tried to speak boldly. p.u.s.s.y was displeased at the question. She hissed, put up her back, swelled her tail to a puff, and fled to a distant part of the roof, where, from some hidden ambush, d.i.c.k could hear her scolding savagely.

"She's a cwoss cat, I guess," he remarked philosophically. "Why, this chimney is warm," he cried, as his arm touched the bricks. "It's 'cause there used to be a fire in there. But there isn't any smoke coming out.

I wonder if all the chimneys are warm too, like this one."

There was another chimney not far off, and d.i.c.k hastened to try the experiment. To do this he was obliged to climb a railing, but it was low and easy to get over. The second chimney was cold, but a little farther on appeared a third, and d.i.c.k proceeded to climb another railing.

But before he reached this third chimney, a surprising and interesting sight attracted his attention. This was a scuttle door just like the one at home, standing open, with a ladder leading down into a garret below.

d.i.c.k peered over the edge of the scuttle. There was no little chamber in this attic like his at home. It was all an open s.p.a.ce, crammed with trunks, furniture, boxes, and barrels. He caught sight of a rocking-horse standing in a corner; a rocking-horse with a blue saddle on his wooden back, and a fierce bristling mane much in need of brush and comb. Drawn by irresistible attraction, d.i.c.kie put, first one foot, then the other, over the scuttle's edge, crept down the ladder, and in another moment stood by the motionless steed. Thick dust lay on the saddle, on the rockers, and on the stiffly stretched-out tail, from which most of the red paint had been worn away. It was evidently a long time since any little boy had mounted there, chirruped to the horse, and ridden gloriously away, pursuing a fairy fox through imaginary fields.

The eye of the wooden horse was glazed and dim. Life had lost its interest to the poor animal, turned out, as it were, to pasture as best he might in the dull, silent garret.

d.i.c.kie patted the red neck, a timid, affectionate pat, but it startled the horse a little, for he shook visibly, and swayed to and fro. There was evidently some "go" left in him, in spite of his dejected expression of countenance. The shabby stirrup hung at his side. d.i.c.kie could just reach it with his foot. He seized the mane, and, pulling hard, clambered into the saddle. Once there, reins in hand, he clucked and encouraged the time-worn steed to his best paces. To and fro, to and fro they swung, faster, slower, d.i.c.kie beating with his heels, the wooden horse curveting and prancing. It was famous! The dull thud of the rockers echoed through the garret, and somebody sitting in the room below raised his head to listen to the strange sound.

This somebody was an old man with white hair and a gray, stern face, who sat beside a table on which were paper and lighted candles. A letter lay before him, but he was not reading it. When the sound of the rocking began, he started and turned pale. A little boy once used to rock in that way in the garret overhead, but it was long ago, and for many years past the garret had been silent and deserted. "Harry's horse!" muttered the old man with a look of fear as he heard the sound. He half rose from his chair, then he sat down again. But soon the noise ceased. d.i.c.kie had caught sight of another thing in the garret which interested him, and had dismounted to examine it. The old man sank into his chair again with a look of relief, muttering something about the wind.

The thing which d.i.c.kie had gone to examine was a little arm-chair cushioned with red. It was just the size for him, and he seated himself in it with a look of great satisfaction.

"I wiss this chair was mine," he said. "P'waps Mally'll let me take it home if I ask her."

A noise below attracted his attention. He peeped over the bal.u.s.ters and saw an elderly woman, with a candle in her hand, coming up from the lower story. She went into a room at the foot of the attic stair, leaving the door open. "Hester! Hester!" called a voice from below. The woman came from the room and went down again. She did not take the candle with her: d.i.c.k could see it shining through the open door.

Like a little moth attracted by a flame, d.i.c.k wandered down the stair in the direction of the light. The candle was standing on the table in a bedroom,--a pretty room, d.i.c.kie thought, though it did not seem as if anybody could have lived in it lately. He didn't know why this idea came into his mind, but it did. It was a girl's bedroom, for a small blue dress hung on the wall, and on the bureau were brushes, combs, and hair-pins. Beside the bureau was a wooden shelf full of books. A bird-cage swung in the window, but there was no bird in it, and the seed gla.s.s and water cup were empty. The narrow bed had a white coverlid and a great white pillow. It looked all ready for somebody, but it was years since the girl who once owned the room had slept there. The old housekeeper, who still loved the girl, came every day to dust and smooth and air and sweep. She kept all things in their places just as they used to be in the former time, but she could not give to the room the air of life which once it had, and, do what she would, it looked deserted always--empty--and dreary.

On the chimney-piece were ranged a row of toys, plaster cats, barking dogs, a Noah's ark, and an enormous woolly lamb. This last struck d.i.c.k with admiration. He stood on tip-toe with his hands clasped behind his back to examine it.

"Oh, dear," he sighed, "I wiss I had that lamb." Then he gave a jump, for close to him, in a small chair, he saw what seemed to be a little girl, staring straight at him.

It was a big, beautiful doll, in a dress of faded pink, and a pink hat and feather. d.i.c.k had never seen such a fine lady before; she quite fascinated him. He leaned gently forward and touched the waxen hand. It was cold and clammy; d.i.c.k did not like the feel, and retreated. The unwinking eyes of the doll followed him as he sidled away, and made him uncomfortable.

In the opposite room the old man still sat with his letter before him.

The letter was from the girl who once played with the big doll and slept in the smooth white bed. She was not a child now. Years before she had left her father's house against his will, and in company with a person he did not like. He had said then that he should never forgive her, and till now she had not asked to be forgiven. It was a long time since he had known any thing about her. n.o.body ever mentioned her name in his hearing, not even the old housekeeper who loved her still, and never went to bed without praying that Miss Ellen might one day come back. Now Ellen had written to her father. The letter lay on the table.