Mamma took her, and from that safe eminence she watched everything: the men loosing the ropes from the pier, the engines moving, the seagulls flying about in little flocks, almost as tame as pigeons. She was much amused by these seagulls, which always follow the steamers, seeming to know quite well that after every meal on board they are sure to get something. She called her Lizzie to look at them,—her Lizzie who always sympathises with her in everything. Now it was not quite easy, as Lizzie also had never been on board a steamer before, and did not altogether relish it.
But she, too, soon grew content and happy, for it was a beautiful scene. There was no distant view, the mountains being all in a mist of heat, but the air was so bright and mild, with just enough saltness in it to be refreshing, that it must have been a very gloomy person who did not enjoy the day. Little Sunshine did to the utmost. She could not talk, but became absorbed in looking about her, endless wonder at everything she saw or heard shining in her blue eyes. Soon she heard something which brightened them still more.
“Hark, mamma! music! Sunny hears music.”
It was a flute played on the lower deck, and played exceedingly well.
Now this little girl has a keen sense of music. Before she could speak, singing always soothed her; and she has long been in the habit of commanding extempore tunes,—“a tune that Sunny never heard before,” sometimes taking her turn to offer one. “Mamma, shall I sing you a song,—a song you never heard before?” (Which certainly mamma never had). She distinguishes tunes at once, and is very critical over them. “Sunny likes it,” or “Sunny don’t like it,—it isn’t pretty;” and at the sound of any sort of music she pricks up her ears, and will begin to cry passionately if not taken to listen.
This flute she went after at once. It was played by a blind man, who stood leaning against the stairs leading to the higher deck, his calm, sightless face turned up to the dazzling sunshine. It could not hurt him; he seemed even to enjoy it. There was nobody listening, but he played on quite unconsciously, one Scotch tune after another, the shrill, clear, pure notes floating far over the sea. Sunny crept closer and closer,—her eyes growing larger and larger with intense delight,—till the man stopped playing. Then she whispered, “Mamma, look at that poor man! Somekin wrong with his eyes.”
Sunny has been taught that whenever there is “somekin (something) wrong” with anybody,—when they are blind, or lame, or ugly, or queer-looking, we are very sorry for them, but we never notice it; and so, though she has friends who cannot run about after her, but walk slowly with a stick, or even two sticks,—also other friends who only feel her little face, and pass their hands over her hair, saying how soft it is,—mamma is never afraid of her making any remark that could wound their feelings.
“Hush! the poor man can’t see, but we must not say anything about it. Come with mamma, and we will give him a penny.” All sorts of money are “pennies” to Sunny,—brown pennies, white pennies, yellow pennies; only she much prefers the brown pennies, because they are largest, and spin the best.
So she and mamma went up together to the poor blind man, Sunny looking hard at him; and he was not pleasant to look at, as his blindness seemed to have been caused by smallpox. But the little girl said not a word, only put the white “penny” into his hand and went away.
I wonder whether he felt the touch of those baby fingers, softer than most. Perhaps he did, for he began to play again, the “Flowers of the Forest,” with a pathos that even mamma in all her life had never heard excelled. The familiar mountains, the gleaming river, the “sunshiny” child, with her earnest face, and the blind man playing there, in notes that almost spoke the well-known words,