Mrs. Plummer sat up very late that Saturday night.
CHAPTER V.
A LEAF FROM A LITTLE GIRL’S DIARY.
I am going to put some things about Effie in my diary; and this is the reason why I am going to put them in: My mother says, when Effie is a great girl she will like to read some of the things she did and said when she was three years old. And so will the Jimmyjohns when they grow up; and so I shall put in some of their things, too, when I have done putting in some of Effie’s things. The Jimmyjohns are my little brothers, both of them twins, just alike.
One time, Effie wanted to be dressed up in her best clothes to go up in the tree and see the sun-birds. She thinks that the tops of the trees are close up to the place where the sun is, and that makes her call birds sun-birds. And she thinks the birds light up the stars every night. My mother asked her, “What makes you think the birds light up the stars every night?” and Effie said, “Because they have some wings to fly high up.”
My father brought me home a pudding-pan to make little puddings in. It doesn’t hold very much: it holds most a cupful. And Joey Moonbeam is going to have a party; and, when she does, my mother is going to show me how to make a pudding in it. Joey Moonbeam is my very great rag-baby. She has got a new hat. I made it. Cousin Hiram says he is going to draw a picture of it on Joey Moonbeam’s head in my diary before she wears it all out. Betsey Ginger is going to have some new clothes to wear to Joey Moonbeam’s party; and Dorothy Beeswax is going to have one new arm sewed on. Susan Sugarspoon, and Eudora N. Posy, and Jenny Popover, are not careful of their clothes, and so they cannot have some new ones. N. stands for Nightingale. Dear little Polly Cologne was the very smallest one of them all. She was the baby rag-baby. She was just as cunning, and she had hair that wasn’t ravellings. It was hair; and all the others have ravellings. Her cheeks were painted pink. She had four bib-aprons, and she had feet. We don’t know where she is. Rover—that little dog that we used to have—carried her off in his mouth, and now she is lost. Rover went away to find her when I told him to, and he did not come back. We don’t know where Rover is. We think somebody stole him, or else he would be heard of. We feel very sorry. He was a good little dog. My father says he was only playing when he carried her off.
I love all my rag-babies. I love Snip, but not so much as I do Rover. I love dear little baby-brother. I love the Jimmies, both of them. I love Effie, and I love my mother, and my father, and grandma Plummer. I don’t love aunt Bethiah. Aunt Bethiah does not love little girls. When little girls have a pudding-pan, aunt Bethiah says it is all nonsense for them to have them. My mother said I might have raisins in my pudding. I like to pick over raisins. Sometimes my mother lets me eat six when I pick them over, and sometimes she lets me eat eight. Then I shut up my eyes, and pick all the rest over with them shut up, because then I cannot see how good they look. Grandma Plummer told me this way to do. Effie is not big enough. She would put them in her arm-basket. She puts every thing in her arm-basket. She carries it on her arm all the time, and carries it to the table, and up to bed. My mother hangs it on the post of her crib. When she sits up to the table, she hangs it on her chair.
One time, when the Jimmies were very little boys, they picked up two apples that did not belong to them under Mr. Spencer’s apple-tree, and ate a part. Then, when they were eating them, a woman came to the door, and said, “Didn’t you know that you mustn’t pick up apples that are not your own?” After she went in, the Jimmies carried them back, and put them down under the tree in the same place again.
I am going to tell what Effie puts in her arm-basket. Two curtain-rings, one steel pen she found, some spools, some strings, one bottle (it used to be a smelling-bottle), my father’s letter when he was gone away, a little basket that Hiram made of a nutshell, a head of one little china doll, Betsey Beeswax sometimes, and sometimes one of the other ones, a peach-stone to plant, a glass eye of a bird that was not a live one, and a pill-box, and a piece of red glass, and pink calico, and an inkstand, and her beads, and a foot of a doll. One time it got tipped over when we played “Siren.” Mr. Tompkins was in here when we played “Siren.” He looked funny with the things on. Cousin Floy told us how to play it. The one that is the siren has to put on a woman’s bonnet and a shawl, and then go under the table, and then sing under there, and catch the ones that come close up when they run by. I caught Hiram’s foot. Hiram was so tall, he could not get all under. Cousin Floy stood up in a chair to put the bonnet on him. My father did not sing a good tune: it was not any tune, but a noise. My mother did, and cousin Floy did too. Mr. Tompkins squealed. Mr. Tompkins could get way under. The one that is caught has to be the siren. Soon as the siren begins to sing, then the others go that way to listen, and go by as fast as they can. The siren jumps out and catches them. My father got caught. He did not want to put on the bonnet; but he did. He did not sing a bad tune like Hiram’s, but a pretty bad one. He made it up himself. My mother told Hiram that sirens did not howl. When Johnny was caught, Jimmy went under there too, and had another bonnet; and they both jumped out together to catch. The tune the Jimmies sung was,—