A NOCTURNAL LUNCH, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
BY LILY J. CHUTE.
THERE was one pet, secret fault which was the delight of Tot Sheldon’s heart, and that was the eating, at night, after going to bed of such goodies as she could previously lay her mischievous little hands on.
Anything whatever to eat between the five o’clock P. M. supper and the seven o’clock A. M. breakfast was a forbidden luxury to the Sheldon children, for their good parents considered it altogether an unwholesome habit for little ones to give their stomachs work for the night. It was only adults, in their opinion, who might indulge themselves in rosy-cheeked apples, tempting nuts, or other dainties, in the long winter evenings, with impunity. To be sure, these little treats, seeming doubly delicious to the watering mouths of the children because forbidden them, were only brought forth after the clock had struck eight—the bed-hour of the youthful Sheldons, but, by some mysterious instinct which children often possess, they knew well enough the night custom of their elders, and were ambitious to grow up, that they, too, might not go to bed hungry.
For it was not seldom the case that they were, notwithstanding their hearty suppers of bread and milk, and such other food as was supposed to be harmless to the youthful digestion, really hungry before they fell to sleep.
Little Tot, however, had a special antipathy to hunger, either real or imaginary, and a similar love, as has been said, for secret nocturnal feasts. The other children being boys, Tot had a cunning little bed-room all to herself, and so could indulge her eccentric appetite without much fear of disturbance. To be sure, she often felt certain guilty qualms of conscience, when her mother would look into her room to kiss her good-night, and she feigned sleep, while clutching tightly her prize beneath her pillow. Crumbs of gingerbread or cracker would have betrayed her the next day, but Tot had been brought up to take care of her own mite of a room.
She wasn’t afraid of nightmares. Not Tot! She had eaten too many stolen suppers, and passed through the ordeal unharmed, to be afraid of any such bugbears, as she termed them. Neither of illness, for she considered her little stomach to be quite equal to that of any feather-bearing ostrich that ever stalked.
Sometimes it was a rosy baldwin or a brown russet apple, a juicy pear, or bit of cake, or even a “cent’s worth” of candy, that found its way to Tot’s chamber. But one night it was a whole pint of roasted chestnuts which her uncle Harry had given her as he met her coming from school, and which she had hoarded away, beneath the snowy sheets of her bed, till night.
For once Tot Sheldon was not unwilling to go to bed, a most remarkable occurrence. She said her good-nights with such cheerfulness, and started off with such alacrity that, unmindful of the many bed-times when the contrary had been true of her behavior, Mr. Sheldon said something, in a satisfied tone, about “the good effect of early training,” etc.
Chestnuts were Tot’s special delight,—and roasted chestnuts!
How she longed to get at them, that she might release the mealy meat, white and fine almost as flour, from the bursting brown shells, and revel in the peculiar, delicious flavor which she knew and loved so well!
Having undressed and ensconced herself in her cosey little bed, she waited with impatience for her mother’s nightly visit. She daren’t eat any of the nuts before, for fear something of the nutty aroma might be in her breath.
But she forgot that roasted chestnuts have a fragrance of their own, even while yet in their shells, and she trembled with fear least she should lose her treasures, when her mother, after kissing her, said kindly:
“You haven’t been eating chestnuts, have you, Tot? It seems as though I smelled them.”
“No, marm,” replied naughty, trembling Tot.
“That’s right, for you’d be sure to have dreadful nightmares,” said Mrs. Sheldon, as she bade her child good-night, and closed the door, distrusting the evidence of her own keen sense of smell.
“Well, anyway,” said Tot to herself, as her mother’s footsteps died away, “I hadn’t eaten any, so I didn’t tell a lie.”
She thought the matter over a moment, thinking of the nightmares of which she had been so often told, and half resolving to be so good a girl as not to eat any of the nuts; but in the midst of her resolution her hand strayed beneath her pillow, and into a paper-bag, and came out with a splendid great chestnut, which she had no sooner tasted than she sat up in bed, and with the bag in her lap began a feast.
The room was not very dark, for the light from the hall burner streamed through the transom over her door; and, if it had been pitch dark, Tot had no fear of it, for she had never been frightened with any of the silly, wicked stories often told to children.
So she crunched away on the delicious nuts until they were about half gone, and then stopped suddenly with a sense of fear lest she had eaten too many, rolled the bag carefully about the rest, put them under her pillow, and soon dozed off to sleep.
But she didn’t sleep as soundly as usual, and woke up sometime in the night, when the hall-light had been put out, and it was perfectly dark. Her hand was tightly grasping the bag of nuts, and as she didn’t go at once to sleep, she thought she would try just one more,—which resulted in her again sitting up in bed, and finishing the pint of roasted chestnuts in the dark.
“She sat up in bed, and began a feast.”
That was a fearful infliction for Tot’s little stomach, strong as it was naturally, and although she didn’t have any nightmares—that she could remember, at least—she woke reluctantly in the morning, to a sense that Bridget was knocking loudly on her door, and telling her that breakfast was over, and it was very late.
At first she felt obstinate, and declared that she wouldn’t get up, but would go to sleep again; then a sudden guilty consciousness of the paper-bag full of the husks of a pint of chestnuts came to her mind; and the fear least somebody should come into the room and discover them made her turn hastily out of bed and begin to dress.
But, as the old saying goes, she got out “the wrong side of the bed” that morning, and everything was troublesome. Never had Tot experienced so much trouble with every article of clothing, with her ablutions, with her hair; and at last she nearly left the room without her bag of shells, which she had laid on a chair while making the bed, which she dared not leave unmade, although there was no time, this morning, for it to air first.
But cramming the shells into her pocket, together with her pocket-handkerchief, Tot started down-stairs, regardless of such faults in her toilet, as that her petticoat was wrong side out, her dress buttoned “up garret and down cellar,” her hair parted almost as much on the side as a boy’s, while her curls, usually so pretty, were mere stringlets.
When she reached the sitting-room, the clock pointed to quarter before nine, and as there was no time for her to eat the breakfast which had been saved for her, she threw on her sack and hat, seized her books, and started for school.
The rule of the school was that each pupil must be in his or her seat at five minutes before nine, and as Tot was one of the best scholars, and very ambitious, she was disgusted to find that all kinds of street obstructions concurred to belate her.
She came within a hair’s breadth of being run over by one desperate driver, and was only rescued by a brave policeman who pulled her from the tangle of horses and teams, but he hurt her arm severely by his grasp. Indeed, poor Tot afterward found it was black and blue.
Then she fell down in the mud and made a sorry looking spectacle of both herself and her books.
So that when she arrived at school, only to find the doors closed for the morning prayer, she was about as thoroughly cross as could well be imagined.
A reproof from her teacher, who was vexed that his best pupil should set such an example of tardiness, exasperated Tot into an ugly obstinate resolve to say nothing of the accidents by which she was belated. So she took her seat without a word, and looked for her French grammar, to study the lesson which was soon to be called for.
But she couldn’t find it, and then she remembered laying it apart from the other books, the previous evening, and that it was thus left at home.
Too angry still with the teacher, whom she had always before liked, to tell him of the blunder, Tot turned to her desk-mate and broke another rule, by asking the loan of the French grammar which the latter was not using.
But the master’s eye was on her.
“Miss Sheldon, you were whispering! Take a misdemeanor!”
Tot did not answer, and choked down the rising sobs. A “misdemeanor” was the blackest of black marks, and never before had she received one.
Some of her friends among the pupils looked at her sympathizingly, but there were those who, always envious of the more studious and obedient of their number, showed their spiteful delight at her fall.
Of course she failed in her French, and lost her high place in the class, and finally, when a stinging and almost unjust rebuke came from the teacher, poor Tot could stand it no longer, and bursting into tears she hastily pulled her handkerchief from her pocket, when, with it, out flew the forgotten chestnut-shells all over the room!
Into the master’s very face and eyes they went, and he, half blinded, and not fully realizing how it happened, told Tot that she needn’t stay at school any longer unless she could behave better.
Out of temper from the beginning, angered beyond measure at what she considered injustice, and maddened still more by the shout of laughter that went up from the school at the episode of the nut-shells, Tot defiantly replied:
“Then I’ll go home, and never enter this hateful old place again as long as I live—never!”
“Miss Sheldon, you will repent this. Miss Mayfair will accompany you to your mother at once, and will take with her your discharge from this school. Go to the dressing-room. Your books will be sent to you to-night.”
With flushed face and quickly beating heart, Tot left the school-room, put on her things, and started for home.
Had not her companion been with her, it is possible that she would have made some truant attempt to avoid meeting her parents’ eyes.
It was a little strange that Nettie Mayfair, her own particular friend, should have been selected as her companion. But so it was, and, as soon as they were out of the building, Nettie exclaimed in friendly but annoyed tones:
“Why, Tot Sheldon, how could you!”
“I!” repeated Tot, her anger rising toward the very one to whom she had meant to pour out all her griefs, “how could I? Why, I didn’t do anything—it was all that mean old Mr. Stimpson! I never saw such an abominable man in my life!”
“Oh, Tot!” began Nettie indignantly, “you know he has always been as good as—”
“No, he hasn’t either, Net Mayfair—and if you stand up for him, you’re just as bad as he, a mean hateful girl—so!”
“I should think you’d be ashamed of yourself, you spiteful girl,” cried Nettie, “I don’t see how I ever came to like you.”
“And I never did like you” retorted Tot, “though I was fool enough to think I did! I’ll never speak to you again!”
“Nor I to you, so long as I live!” was Nettie’s reply.
Arrived at home at last, the message and accompanying discharge from Mr. Stimpson was read by Mrs. Sheldon, who, full of sorrow and almost in tears, told her daughter to go to her chamber and remain till her father should come home, and they could decide what should be done with her.
The key was turned that made Tot a prisoner in her own little bed-room, and here she remained through the long hours of the day without hearing a word or a step near her door. No voice came to her longing ears from parent or brother; no food to eat, and no books to read,—nothing to do but to think.
What a condition was she in indeed! Discharged in disgrace from the school she loved; under the lasting ban of the displeasure of the master she had always so much respected; the friendship with her own Nettie utterly broken; and a prisoner in her room, utterly uncertain what the future might be to which her parents would consign her.
The twilight darkened, and night came on. The hall gas was not lit, and still no sound came to her. All was silent as the grave.
At last, fearing and trembling, poor little Tot undressed and crept into bed, where she lay for a long time unable to go to sleep, the bed seeming as if lined with thorns.
But at last she slept so soundly, that she was only awakened by her mother’s voice, close to her face, saying in its kindest and sweetest tones:
“Why, Tot, my darling, what is the matter? Why are you so flushed and restless?”
In utter delight at the dear sound of her mother’s voice so gentle and kind, Tot sprang out of bed when her mother exclaimed, half laughing and halt in amazement:
“Bless the child! I don’t wonder you were restless! Why, you’ve been sleeping on a bed of chestnut-shells! But, oh! you naughty girl, you told me last night you hadn’t been eating chestnuts!”
The laugh had left her mother’s voice, and it was sad but yet tender, when Tot exclaimed in surprise:
“Last night! wasn’t it night before last? What day is this, mamma?”
“Tuesday, of course,—what do you mean?”
“I thought it was Wednesday, and oh! such dreadful things happened yesterday!” and Tot threw herself on her mother’s bosom, and burst into sobs.
“Oh—I see, my dear,” said Mrs. Sheldon, tenderly stroking her child’s tumbled curls, “you’ve had your nightmare! But don’t cry, for nothing really dreadful has happened, except that I’m afraid my little girl told her mother a wrong story last night.”
“Oh, no, I didn’t, mamma—or, at least I thought I didn’t; for I hadn’t eaten a single nut when you asked me, but ate them afterwards;—but, oh! I’ll never do it again in the world, if you’ll forgive me.”
The forgiveness was freely granted, when the story of a day’s troubles which had been crowded into an hour’s disturbed slumber, had been related, and Tot in the neatest of toilets and with the freshest curls, ate her breakfast, and, without forgetting to take her French grammar, went off to school. She could hardly get it out of her head all day long, that she was in disgrace, but her lessons went off well, Mr. Stimpson was as kind as ever, and Nettie Mayfair was as loving as a bosom-friend could possibly be.
Tot’s strong digestive organs had done the heavy work assigned them by their reckless little mistress, but they had given her a foretaste of what might happen in reality, were she to grow dyspeptic and miserable, through abusing them. In her unrest, she had turned over her pillow to find a cool spot for her head, and spilt the shells from their bag into the bed.
One good lesson was taught by the nightmare, however, to the mother as well as the child, for thereafter, some light refreshment, as a slice of light plain cake and a glass of milk, was allowed each child of the Sheldon family, an hour before he or she went to bed, and thus the temptation to recur to her old habit never overcame Tot’s resolution to eat no more private lunches.
DAISY’S SURPRISE.