BESSIE MAYNARD TO HER DOLL.
Berlin, December, 1880.
Yes, we are really in Europe at last, my Clytie. So much has happened since I wrote last, that I don't know where to begin; and I shouldn't have a nidear what I had written about if I didn't keep a "mimete" of my letters, as papa says, in a little memberandum-book he gave me.
Everything I put down in it he calls an "entry." Funny to have a book full of entries, isn't it? Well, this is the last one; "Steamer—seasick—got over it—fun with R. and N.—dance on deck—will write next about Captain's birthday, etsetterer."
But now the birthday seems ages ago, and all that I can say about it is that the Captain was forty-five years old and we had a neligant time, with all sorts of things for dinner, and a birthday cake as big as a flower bed, with forty-five colored tapers, and every single slice had one or more presents in it, so we all got something. The Captain found in his piece a gold ring and a china Cupid, and a donkey with great long ears and his mouth wide open. Mamma had a stone cigar, and papa a thimble; and in my slice was the teentiest tontiest china doll not more than half an inch long. I keep her in a cradle made of a pecan-nut, and she's the cunningest child you ever saw. I've named her "Wee Tot," for the little girl who writes sometimes in my Young People's Post-office Box.
A week after the birthday we derived at Bremen, and I was awfully sorry to leave the steamer, for it seemed almost like home. We had to say good-by to everybody, and it was real sad.
Papa, mamma, and I came away by ourselves, Cousin Frank and Cousin Carrie (and oh, Clytie, she is just perfeckly eligant!) went some other roundabout way from Bremen, and the Peytons are going to Paris first; but by-and-by our party will come together again, and we shall proberly live in the same house, or at least in the same place, for the winter.
We are at Aunt Mary's now. She lives here in Berlin, and is mamma's auntie as well as mine. She used to live in Cambridge when she was a little girl, and was dear great-grandma's truly baby once! I never saw her before, but I love her already. Uncle Max has gray hair, and wears speckertles, and carries a cane, and so I suppose he's old, but he plays with us children, and you can't help laughing just to hear him laugh, and he sings funny songs to us, and he doesn't seem any older than Randolph. He keeps us having a good time from morning till night; and guess how many children there are. But you never could guess. There's eight right here in the house, and all of them belong to Uncle Max and Aunt Mary.
Gretchen and Wilhelm are quite grown up, but Ilsie wears short dresses, and her hair in two long braids; Lisbet isn't any taller than I; Karl is eight years old, Fritz is six, and cunning little Max and Marie are three-year-old twins.
The nursery is the jolliest room in the house. The floor is bare, and polished like glass. The stove reaches almost to the ceiling, and is made of white porcelain covered all over with the prettiest little baby figures. They are raised 'way up, you know, and their arras are as round and fat as a real doll's. Some of them are playing tag, some are in swings or wading in brooks, and all round the top of the stove is a row of little angels. Wouldn't you like to see a stove like that? In the bay-window there are lots of plants, and three cages full of canary-birds, besides another cage, 'most as big as a bureau, for the parrot. He is gray, with red tips to his wings, and a green collar round his neck, and he calls all the children's names, and says "Guten Morgen," "Gute Nacht," "Schlafe wohl," "Wie geht's" (Good-morning, Good-night, Sleep well, How do you do?), and he sings and whistles, and is just as happy as the rest of the family.
And now tell me, was Jack's nose really broken, or only cracked, as we hoped when I came away, and did the glue-liniment do him any good? I long to know if poor little Mopsy can use her arm yet, or does she still wear it in a sling? Do they all mind you, Clytie, and is Leonora getting over her vain and silly ways? Don't fail to suppress upon her that "handsome is that handsome does," and of all things, don't allow her to be imperent to the others.
Give my love to George Washington and Lafayette, and tell them that of all the soldier-dolls on parade in the shops here (and there are whole regiments of them), I haven't seen one I would change for them. Papa says, "In military bearing they are equal to any we find here," and I agree with him. It is a great compliment, too, for Germany is full of soldiers.
Lisbet is calling me to go with her in the little goat-phaeton for a drive in the park. The next time I write I will tell you about this cunning little phaeton.
Gute Nacht—träume süss, as they say here. It means just what I say to you at home, Good-night and pleasant dreams.
Your loving mamma,
Bessie Maynard.
P.S.—Please tell Cousin Fanny, who reads my letters to you, that I do wish she would be your meanuensis, and write to me for you. If she looks close in your eyes, she can see what you will want to say, even if you do not speak, and a letter from you would be such a comfort to your anxious mamma.
[A SAILOR'S WIFE.]
There have been heroines as well as heroes on the sea, and of these Mrs. Annie Wilson is certainly one. When she was fourteen years of age, she married the captain of a vessel sailing from Boston, and for seven years accompanied him on his voyages around the world, without accident.
But in 1872 the ship encountered a terrible storm off the banks of Newfoundland. The captain was knocked down and his shoulder was broken by the fall of one of the masts. The first mate and several of the crew were also disabled, and the second mate was so frightened that he could not give any orders. The captain was carried down, lashed on a door, into the cabin; and when his wife saw him rendered helpless in this way, instead of yielding to useless lamentations, she only thought of what she could do to supply his place. She rushed on deck, and called the men around her.
"Boys, our lives are in danger," she said; "but stick to me, and do what I tell you. I'll take you into port all right."
She set them to work to clear away the wreck; they manned the pumps; and when the gale had subsided a little, they rigged up a jury-mast, under their new captain's orders, set sail again, and in twenty-one days the ship was safely anchored at St. Thomas.
After the necessary repairs had been made there, and as her husband was still quite helpless, the brave woman worked the ship to Liverpool, and made the voyage in thirty days. After this, she settled down in New York, and for seven years has supported her crippled husband and her child by working as a clerk in a dry-goods store in this city.
A few months ago her husband died, and Secretary Sherman has appointed her to the post of inspectress in the New York Custom-house.