Little Sunshine's holiday

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Fun and Franky always came together. Sunny shook herself wide awake at once,—fresh as a rose, and lively as a kitten. Oh, the games that began, and lasted all the four miles that the carriage drove through the pelting rain! Never was a big boy kinder to a little girl; so patient, so considerate; letting her do anything she liked with him; never cross, and never rough,—in short, a thorough gentleman, as all boys should be to all girls, and all men to all women, whether old or young. And when home was reached, the fire, like the welcome, was so warm and bright that Sunny seemed to have lost all memory of her day at the seaside,—the stormy waves, the dreary shore, the wild wind, and pouring rain. She was such a contented little girl that she never heeded the weather outside. But her mamma did a little, and thought of sailors at sea, and soldiers fighting abroad, and many other things.

The happy visit was now drawing to a close. Perhaps as well, lest, as some people foretold, Sunny might get “quite spoiled,”—if love spoils anybody, which I do not believe. Certainly this child’s felicities were endless. Everybody played with her; everybody was kind to her. Franky and Franky’s mamma, her two aunties, the parrot, the dogs Bob and Jack, were her companions by turns. There was another dog, Wallace by name, but she did not play with him, as he was an older and graver and bigger animal,—much bigger than herself indeed. She once faintly suggested riding him, “as if he was a pony,” but the idea was not caught at, and fell to the ground, as, doubtless, Sunny would have done immediately, had she carried out her wish.

Wallace, though big, was the gentlest dog imaginable. He was a black retriever, belonging to Franky’s elder brother, a grown-up young gentleman; and his devotion to his master was entire. The rest of the family he just condescended to notice, but Mr. John he followed everywhere with a quiet persistency, the more touching because poor Wallace was nearly blind. He had lost the sight of one eye by an accident, and could see out of the other very little. They knew how little, by the near chance he had often had of being run over by other carriages in following theirs; so that now Franky’s mamma never ventured to take him out with her at all. He was kept away from streets, but allowed to run up and down in the country, where his wonderful sense of smell preserved him from any great danger.

This sense of smell, common to all retrievers, seemed to have been doubled by Wallace’s blindness. He could track his master for miles and miles, and find anything that his master had touched. Once, just to try him, Mr. John showed him a halfpenny, and then hid it under a tuft of grass, and walked on across the country for half a mile or more. Of course the dog could not see where he hid it, and had been galloping about in all directions ever since; yet when his master said, “Wallace, fetch that halfpenny,” showing him another one, Wallace instantly turned back, smelling cautiously about for twenty yards or so; then, having caught the right scent, bounding on faster and faster, till out of sight. In half an hour more he came back, and ran direct to his master with the halfpenny in his mouth.

Since, Mr. John had sent the dog for his stick, his cap, or his handkerchief, often considerable distances; but Wallace always brought the thing safe back, whatever it was, and laid it at his master’s feet. Mr. John was very proud of Wallace, and very fond of him.

Sunny was not old enough to understand these clevernesses of the creature, but she fully appreciated one trick of his. He would hold a bit of biscuit or sugar on his nose, quite steady, for several minutes, while his master said “Trust,” not attempting to eat it; but when Mr. John said “Paid for!” Wallace gobbled it up at once. This he did several times, to Sunshine’s great delight, but always with a sort of hesitation, as if he considered it a little below the dignity of such a very superior animal. And the minute they were gone he would march away with his slow, blind step, following his beloved master.

But all pleasures come to an end, and so did these of Little Sunshine’s. First, Franky went off to school, and she missed him out of the house very much. Then one day, instead of the regular morning amusements, she had to be dressed quickly, to eat her breakfast twice as fast as usual, and have her “things” put on all in a hurry, “to go by the puff-puff.” Her only consolation was that Dolly should have her things put on too,—poor Dolly! who, from constant combing, was growing balder and balder every day, and whose clothes were slowly disappearing, so that it required all Lizzie’s ingenuity to dress her decently for the journey.

This done, Sunny took her in her arms, and became so absorbed in her as hardly to notice the affectionate adieux of her kind friends, some of whom went with her to the station: so she scarcely understood that it was good-bye. And besides, it is only elder folks who understand good-byes, not little people. All the better, too.

Sunshine was delighted to be in a puff-puff again, and to see more mountains. She watched them till she was tired, and then went comfortably to sleep, having first made Dolly comfortable too, lying as snug in her arms as she did in her mamma’s. But she and Dolly woke up at the journey’s end; when, indeed, Sunny became so energetic and lively, that, seeing her mamma and Lizzie carrying each a bag, she insisted on carrying something too. Seizing upon a large luncheon basket which the pretty lady had filled with no end of good things, she actually lifted it, and bore it, tottering under its weight, for several yards.

“See, mamma, Sunny can carry it,” said she in triumph, and her mamma never hinders the little girl from doing everything she can do; wishing to make her a useful and helpful woman, who will never ask anybody else to do for her what she can do for herself.