LITTLE SISTER AND HER PUPPETS.
BY REV. W. W. NEWTON.
GOOD NIGHT, LOVELY STAR.
THERE was a dear little girl once whose name was Emily, but everybody called her “Little Sister,” because she was so sweet, and loved everyone.
She couldn’t pronounce some words plainly, and people used to get her to talk, on purpose to hear the cunning words used.
She used to sing a little song before she went to bed, and this was the way she sang it:
“Good night nitten tar (little star)
I mun (must) go to my bed
And neave (leave) you to burn
While I nay (lay) down my head,
On my pinnow (pillow) to neep (sleep)
Till the morning light,
When you mill (will) be fading
And I mill (will) be bight (bright).”
As she sang this little song, she would lean her face up against the window pane and throw a sweet kiss to the star and say, “Dud night, you nubny (lovely) nitten (little) tar!” (star.)
“Little Sister” used to make everybody love her who came near her. The grown-up people would always want to take her right up in their laps, and the little children loved to have her come up with her flowing silken hair and put her arms around them and kiss them.
When she went out with her sled in winter time, the gentlemen used to want to pull her, and the little boys would always drag her sled up hill again after a slide.
This was because she was so kind and sweet, and had such polite ways.
Little Sister used to love to go and see some puppets which were exhibited at a Punch-and-Judy show near where she lived.
The men used to stand under a great overspreading elm tree and work their puppets there, but there were so many people around the show that she could not see it plainly. Betsey, her nurse, used to hold her up, but still Little Sister couldn’t see it all.
On Little Sister’s fourth birthday, when she came down into the dining-room at breakfast time, what should she see over in one corner of the room but a puppet stand, with six puppets. First of all there was Punch, and then there was Judy; then there was the Doctor and the Judge, and the Policeman and Sheriff.
She was delighted. “Where did this come from?” she asked.
Then her papa told her that he had had the stand made for her, and had bought the puppets as a birthday present.
These puppets he worked with his thumb and fingers.
“Oh! what nubney nitten puppets!” said Little Sister, and off she ran to show them to her mamma.
Then in the afternoon of her birthday, her mother invited some little friends to come in and see the first exhibition of Little’s Sister’s puppets.
Nobody could see how her papa worked them from behind the stand.
They were ever so funny. One puppet was named Tommy, and he sat down to eat a piece of meat. Then the pussy-cat came on the boards, and walked right up to Tommy to take away the meat he had in his hands. Tommy gave the cat a hit on the head with his funny arm, and then pussy stood up on her hind legs and hit Tommy back. Finally pussy got hold of the piece of meat and jumped down, while poor little Tommy was left alone crying. Pussy was beautifully dressed up with a white paper ruffle around her neck, and pink ribbons tied on her feet and tail.
LITTLE SISTER’S BIRTHDAY PRESENT.
Then Tommy brought his naughty cat who had stolen the meat, before the Judge, an old wise-looking man, with a grey wig on, and the Judge sentenced pussy to be put in prison.
There was a prison all ready, which Little Sister’s papa had made out of a paper box. There were slats in it, and it was painted black, and had the word “Prison” printed at the top of it in large black letters.
Poor pussy, the thief, looked very sadly when the puppet policeman marched her off to prison.
Then there was old Punch, who threw the baby out of the window, and was also taken before the Judge and was hanged.
Then Tommy got sick from eating too much meat, and the Doctor had to come and bleed him. This made all the little folks laugh ever so much.
After this, Judy went to a store to buy some sausage, and when she got it home it turned into a snake and ran away.
THE POLICEMAN PUTS PUSSY IN A SAFE PLACE.
Then Tommy took up his father’s musket to fire it off and the gun went to pieces, and poor little Tommy was blown up in the air; his head and hands and feet were all blown away from his body and there was nothing left of him.
Then there was a paper doll named Polly Flinders, who set herself on fire.
This was the song Little Sister’s papa sang in a piping, squeaky voice, when he made little Polly dance:
“Little Polly Flinders
Sat among the cinders
A-warming her pretty little toes;
Her mother came and caught her
And spanked her little daughter
For burning her nice new clothes.”
When he got through singing this funny little song, he would set Polly on fire and then put her in a toy wash-tub, and all of a sudden a little fire-engine would appear and squirt water on her in the wash-tub. Then the curtain would drop down, and Punch would put his head out and say in a squealing little voice, “Children, don’t you ever play with fire.”
These were some of the ways in which Little Sister and her papa amused their friends on Saturday afternoons.
Sometimes Little Sister and her brother invited poor children to come in and see the funny puppets work. Sometimes these little children went with their papa while he showed the puppets to poor little children in some of the houses and asylums in the city where they lived.
One time they all went to the Children’s Hospital, where the sick children were, and made the poor little things laugh over the funny doings of Tommy and Jerry, and Pussy and Polly Flinders.
And in this way dear Little Sister and her little playthings did good to others; for we can serve God and be doing good by making others happy even in our plays, and with the toys which are given to us, instead of keeping them selfishly for ourselves.
FIRST SPRING FLOWERS.