Little Sunshine's holiday

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

“Sunny will give him her pocket,—her French pinafore with pockets in it, shall she?”

Mamma thought the big Highlander might not care for Sunny’s pretty muslin pinafore, with embroidery and Valenciennes lace, sewn for her by loving, dainty hands; and as the boat now moved away, and he was seen stalking majestically off along the road, there was no need to ask him the question.

For a little while the boat glided along the smooth canal, so close to either side that you felt as if you could almost pluck at the bushes, and ferns, and trailing brambles, with fast-ripening berries, that hung over the water. On the other side was a foot-road, where, a little way behind, a horse was dragging, with a long rope, a small, deeply laden canal-boat, not pretty like this one, which went swiftly and merrily along by steam. But at last it came to a stand, in front of two huge wooden gates which shut the canal in, and through every crevice of which the pent-in water kept spouting in tiny cataracts.

“That’s the first of the locks,” said papa, who had seen it all before, and took his little girl to the end of the boat to show her the wonderful sight.

She was not old enough to have it explained, or to understand what a fine piece of engineering work this canal is. It cuts across country from sea to sea, and the land not being level, but rising higher in the middle, and as you know water will not run up a hillside and down again, these locks had to be made. They are, so to speak, boxes of water with double gates at either end. The boat is let into them, and shut in; then the water upon which it floats is gradually raised or lowered according as may be necessary, until it reaches the level of the canal beyond the second gate, which is opened and the boat goes in. There are eight or nine of these locks within a single mile,—a very long mile, which occupies fully an hour. So the captain told his passengers they might get out and walk, which many of them did. But Sunshine, her papa and mamma, were much more amused in watching the great gates opening and shutting, and the boat rising or falling through the deep sides of the locks. Besides, the little girl called it “a bath,” and expressed a strong desire to jump in and “swim like a fish,” with mamma swimming after her! So mamma thought it as well to hold her fast by her clothes the whole time.

Especially when another interest came,—three or four little Highland girls running alongside, jabbering gayly, and holding out glasses of milk. Her own bottle being nearly drained, Sunny begged for some; and the extraordinary difficulty papa had in stretching over to get the milk without spilling it, and return the empty glass without breaking it, was a piece of fun more delightful than even the refreshing draught. “Again!” she said, and wanted the performance all repeated for her private amusement.

She had now resumed her old tyranny over her papa, whom she pursued everywhere. He could not find a single corner of the boat in which to hide and read his newspaper quietly, without hearing the cry, “Where’s my papa? Sunny must go after papa,” and there was the little figure clutching at his legs. “Take her up in your arms! up in your own arms!” To which the victim, not unwillingly, consented, and carried her everywhere.

Little Sunshine’s next great diversion was dinner. It did not happen till late in the afternoon, when she had gone through, cheerfully as ever, another change of boat, and was steaming away through the open sea, which, however, was fortunately calm as a duck-pond, or what would have become of this little person?

Papa questioned very much whether she was not far too little a person to dine at the cabin-table with all the other grown-up passengers, but mamma answered for her that she would behave properly,—she always did whenever she promised. For Sunny has the strongest sense of keeping a promise. Her one argument when wanting a thing, an argument she knows never denied, is, “Mamma, you promised.” And her shoemaker, who once neglected to send home her boots, has been immortalised in her memory as “Mr. James So-and-so, who broke his promise.”