“And to swim? May Sunny have it to swim?”
“No, dear, because, though it would not go down to the bottom like the other cup, it might swim right away and be lost, and then mamma would be so sorry. No, Sunny can’t have it to swim, but she may drink out of it as often as she likes. Shall we go home and look for it?”
“Yes.”
The exact truth, told in an intelligible and reasonable way, always satisfies this reasonable child, who has been accustomed to have every prohibition explained to her, so far as was possible. Consequently, the sense of injustice, which even very young children have, when it is roused, never troubles her. She knows mamma will give her everything she can, and when she does not, it is simply because she can’t; and she tells Sunny why she can’t, whenever Sunny can understand it.
So they climbed contentedly up the steep brae, and went home.
Nothing else happened here—at least to the child. If she had a rather dull life, it was a peaceful one. She was out-of-doors a great deal, with Lizzie and Nelly of afternoons, with her mamma of early mornings. Generally, each day, the latter contrived to get a quiet hour or two; while her child played about the garden steps, and she sat reading the newspaper,—the terrible newspaper! When Sunny has grown up a woman, she will know what a year this year 1870 has been, and understand how, many a time, when her mamma was walking along with her, holding her little hand and talking about all the pretty things they saw, she was thinking of other mothers and other children, who, instead of running merrily over sunshiny hillsides, were weeping over dead fathers, or dying miserably in burnt villages, or starving, day by day, in besieged cities. This horrible war, brought about, as war almost always is, by a few wicked, ambitious men, made her feel half frantic.
One day especially,—the day the Prussians came and sat down before Paris, and began the siege,—Little Sunshine was playing about, with her little wooden spade, and a “luggie,” that her papa had lately bought for her; filling it with pebbles, and then digging in the garden-beds, with all her small might. Her mamma sat on the garden steps, reading the newspaper. Sunny did not approve of this at all.
“Come and build me a house. Put that down,” pulling at the newspaper, “and build Sunny a house. Please, mamma,” in a very gentle tone,—she knows in a minute, by mamma’s look, when she has spoken too roughly,—“Please, mamma, come and build Sunny a house.”
And getting no answer, she looked fixedly at her mamma,—then hugged her tight around the neck and began to sob for sympathy. Poor lamb! She had evidently thought only little girls cried,—not mammas at all.
The days ran on fast, fast; and it was time for another move and another change in Little Sunshine’s holiday. Of course she did not understand these changes; but she took them cheerfully,—she was the very best of little travellers. The repeated packing had ceased to be an interest to her; she never wanted now to jump upon mamma’s gowns, and sit down on her bonnets, by way of being useful; but still the prospect of going in a puff-puff was always felicitous. She told Nelly all about it; and how she was afterward to sail in a boat, with Maurice and Maurice’s papa (Maurice was a little playfellow, of whom more presently), how they were to go fishing and catch big salmon.