It was not like a school-room, nor like a play-room either. It was more like quarreling-room, screaming-room, sobbing-room.
Where the children’s hands could reach the room was spoiled and disordered; but above that it was as pretty as a room in a fairy tale, or as a Christmas-tree turned into a room. Bright balls shone there, some of silver, some of glass, rainbow-colored, like solidified soap-bubbles. There were bags of sweets, toys, flags in every corner. Wonderful shells, with golden ears, strange seaweed, and branching coral; flowers bloomed high up in the windows, and far out of the children’s reach in a safe place hung a cage full of birds. There were kaleidoscopes and musical boxes and pictures on the walls.
“Little angels! Hush—hush! Look, here’s a little friend come to see you,” said Daddy Coax, in a voice that was gay and soft as a bird chirruping in a tree, and calling to its young to come out into the pleasant morning.
Only a roar of confused voices answered. All the children were addressing the old man—all were speaking together; all were trying to talk loudest; all trying to talk quickest; all telling tales of each other.
“Hush—hush!” said Daddy Coax, putting up his finger. “Little lambs ought to be good. Eh!” he went on, patting his pocket with his disengaged hand in a suggestive manner. “Look—toys—sweets—all for my little darlings—a fairing for each. Hey now!” and he waved his hand above his head, “we’ll be as merry and good as if it were Christmas Day, and everybody’s birthday together besides.”
Perhaps the children had already had so many sweets and good things that they did not care for more. Not one look of thanks greeted the old man gazing down upon them with an anxious smile that seemed to say: “Be good, my little darlings. My heart thinks only of making you good by making you happy.”
The next moment there was a grand rush of children making for Daddy Coax’s pockets, with cries of “I! I! I!—me! me! me!” The rush turned to a battle royal between the children who came first and the children behind, who were hurrying up.
“Hush! hush! naughty to quarrel!” said Daddy Coax, feebly trying to make his way through the combatants, dealing loving strokes on rough heads, and uttering tender reproaches in a cooing voice. “Let me get to my arm-chair and we’ll have a distribution of treasures. Hullo!” he exclaimed, bending over a roaring boy and patting him gently on the back. “Poor laddie—Daddy Coax’s laddie—and he has been hurt—he has—”
“No—o—o,” roared the boy louder, and kick—kick—kick went his angry feet. “I am not hurt. I am—in a fu—u—ry!”
“A fury! Oh! oh! naughty,” said Daddy Coax, shaking his head till his wig was all in a flurry of reproach.