THE LITTLE SAND PAIL.
“No Kit, no toys. I think children don’t need their toys at the beach.” So said Kit’s mother.
Poor little Kit laid down the armful she had fetched to the trunks. “How will I ’muse me?” said she mournfully.
“O,” said her mother cheerfully, “there is a wonderful seashore plaything which I shall buy you.”
All the way Kit thought about this “plaything.” It proved to be a little blue wooden pail and a spoon.
Kit had never seen outdoors sand before. “Nurse,” said she, “Is this sand all sc’ubbing sand?”
KIT AND HER PRECIOUS PAIL.
The little blue pail was truly a “wonderful plaything.” Kit forgot doll-house and dolls. She was world-building—mountains and caves and rivers and seas; wells and “little homes” for star-fish and sand-crabs; great treasure-vaults for shells and pebbles; gardens of sea-weed. Other children had sand-pails. Some days they toiled in company, and built long lines of forts. Other days they built large cities. One boy dug a deep well and called it an “oil well.” He sunk a small tin cup of kerosene in it and put in rags and set it afire with a match, and the whole little crowd jumped up and down and shouted. But Kit’s mother and other mothers put it out and said it was wrong.
On the last day of all Kit filled her pail with “sc’ubbing sand” to carry home.
Louise Kendrick.
THE HOUSE OF THE GRANDMOTHERS.
CHAPTER XI.—For Great-grandmama Lois.
Not one of the grandmothers heard Mary Ellen on the stairs or on the landing, and the little creature patted along by the wall in her pretty red slippers, past the door where she had tumbled in the day before, past Madam Esther’s, and turned into the other hall with her rose. This hall was lighted by a large window, and as Mary Ellen felt the sunshine full in her face she began to smile and look like herself again. She pattered along faster, smiling and smiling, and just as she came to the last door was on the point of exploding into a whole fireworks of laughs and crows and calls, as was her way when very much pleased.
“Gum-um!” she called, but first running into the corner and backing up close against the wall. Mary Ellen had no notion of falling in when this door opened.
It was at Old Lady Lois’s room that she had stopped, as she her little self knew very well. The door opened instantly. But the dear old great-grandmother did not see the child at first. She looked all about her, as if very much alarmed.
“Yosy!” Mary Ellen cried out. “Yosy, Gum-um!” She toddled forward and held up the big wet rose.
Old Lady Lois gathered her up in her arms and went in. “Are you up here again, child?” she said, reproachfully.
“Yosy,” said Mary Ellen. “Yosy.”
“Yes, pretty rosy,” answered Old Lady Lois.
“Yosy!” persisted Mary Ellen.
“YOSY!” SAID MARY ELLEN.
“You best take the flower, Mrs. Gray,” said Mrs. Camp. The others had heard the chirping of the little voice and had come in to see what had happened.
“Don’t you see she has brought it on purpose for you? I told you she would know us apart. I knew she would know you by your flower! She must have been very observing when her mother has had her up here, to know which was your room.”
“Yosy,” said Mary Ellen, pushing the wet flower up against the gentle old face. This time Old Lady Lois took the rose and pinned it in her kerchief. She looked very pleased. The child seemed satisfied now. She laid her little yellow head back on the white kerchiefed shoulder and looked around on the others.
“I shouldn’t be surprised,” said Mrs. Persis, contemplating her, “if she has broken the vase getting the rose out. Her dress seems very wet.”
“Notty watty,” said Mary Ellen.
Madam Esther had gone down-stairs. She came up now with Mary Ellen’s father and mother. Poor Mama Nan seemed even more terrified and breathless than on the day before. “I told you I should never know another moment’s peace,” said she.
Papa Dick laughed at her. “You ought to feel relieved,” said he. “Here your smart little Mary Ellen has taught herself, all alone, how to go up-stairs.”
But Mama Nan was not to be comforted in that way. “What is to be done?” said she. “She will undertake this thing every day.” And here she quite broke down and began to sob in a miserable helpless way.
Nobody spoke for a minute. Then Great-Grandmother Day said gently, “Just let me take her in charge, Nancy. I promise you the child shall soon go up and down with perfect safety.”
Mama Nan started up in fresh terror. “She has got to learn how to go down too? Oh, me!”
MARY ELLEN LOOKED AFTER THEM.
“See here, Nan, you better come down-stairs,” said Papa Dick, a droll look about his mouth.
They went out, leaving Mary Ellen with her grandmothers. She sat up and looked after them, with big eyes. “Mama k’y!” she said.
Ella Farman Pratt.
THE HOUSE OF THE GRANDMOTHERS.
CHAPTER XII.—Baby Days go by.
TEACHING MARY ELLEN.
“Getting down-stairs,” said Great-grandmother Day, “doesn’t come so natural to a child as getting up-stairs does. And there is more danger about it. Mary Ellen ought to be taught how to do it, and then be watched. And the sooner the better, for evidently she is coming up here when she pleases.”
The venerable lady stood her cane up in a corner, took Mary Ellen from Old Lady Lois’s lap, gave her a finger and toddled her along to the staircase, and placed her on the floor, her little back to the stairs. Then she stepped down. “Come,” said she, “let’s go down-y, down-y, down-y!”
“See, she is going,” said Mrs. Persis.
But not exactly going was Mary Ellen. Great-grandmother Day had taken hold of her ankle, and was seeking to draw the little red-slippered foot down to the first stair. Feeling herself going, she knew not where, Mary Ellen began to scream, then threw herself flat on the landing.
“Mercy! I hope Nan doesn’t hear this!” said Mrs. Camp.
“She doesn’t,” said Mrs. Lee. “Dick and she have just driven out of the yard.”
Mrs. Day straightened herself up, with a red face. “She will do it all right in a minute or so,” she said. “Babies are born with instincts to do these needful things, just the same as cats and colts.”
After a long breath or two, Mrs. Day bent down and tried again. But Mary Ellen was really terrified, and screamed louder than before. This time she kicked too, and so hard that her poor Great-grandmother had to let go.
“Notty Gum-um!” cried the child.
“Turn her round,” said Mrs. Camp. “Perhaps her ‘instinct’ is to go frontwards. Nan’s was.”
And when Mary Ellen was turned, and could see what she was doing, and where she was, and Mrs. Day coaxed again, “Down-y, down-y, now!” the wonderful “instinct” began to stir. She held on to the landing, behind, with both hands, gave a quick hitch, and set her little self on the next step below all right. And down they got her at last, with great fun.
“Nan used to go down that way, so fast she seemed to be just sliding down,” said Nan’s mother, “and now she is so scared about Mary Ellen!”
A BABY NO LONGER.
Well, the day came at last when nobody was worried to find Mary Ellen going up or coming down quite alone, holding to the baluster by one hand, and perhaps a cat on the other arm. She visited first one and then another of her grandmothers, never making two visits on one trip. She seemed to be led by the kind of play she had in her little mind. In Mrs. Persis’s room it was the cat-basket, and a frolic with the cats. In Great-Grandmother Day’s it was to ride the cane cock-horse, like a little boy, thumping it about with plenty of noise. Some days she had a flower to carry to “Yady Yois.” She went up to Mrs. Lee’s room to look at pictures. In Madam Esther’s she picked up buttons; when Madam Esther, who loved quiet, heard the little red slippers stopping at her door, she hurried to overturn her button-box. In Mrs. Camp’s room the little visitor “made moosic” on the guitar strings.
It was to get for “Yady Yois” a big red dahlia that had blossomed by the gate, that one day, all by herself, Mary Ellen clambered down from the veranda, and took her first journey out into the world. She ran skipping over the green grass, tossing her little arms and singing “da-da! da-da!” at the top of her voice. Her yellow hair was blowing all about her face and shining in the September sun and wind.
Her father caught her up, as he came in through the gate. “O, ho!” said he. “Running away, is she? Not a baby any longer, but an independent little girl!”
Ella Farman Pratt.