| PAGE | |
| The German Pictures | [Frontispiece] |
| Sunshine says Good-bye to the Gardener and His Wife | [15] |
| Sunshine and Franky | [40] |
| Nelly and Sunny on the Steps | [59] |
| “Her little bare feet pattering along the floor” | [ 75] |
| Four Little Highland Girls | [87] |
| Little Sunshine Goes Fishing | [101] |
| “Engaged in single combat” | [118] |
| Two Little Churchgoers | [163] |
| Climbing the “Mountain” | [187] |
| Tailpiece | [207] |
LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY.
CHAPTER I.
While writing this title, I paused, considering whether the little girl to whom it refers would not say of it, as she sometimes does of other things, “You make a mistake.” For she is such a very accurate little person. She cannot bear the slightest alteration of a fact. In herself and in other people she must have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. For instance, one day, overhearing her mamma say, “I had my shawl with me,” she whispered, “No, mamma, not your shawl; it was your waterproof.”
Therefore, I am sure she would wish me to explain at once that “Little Sunshine” is not her real name, but a pet name, given because she is such a sunshiny child; and that her “holiday” was not so much hers—seeing she was then not three years old, and every day was a holiday—as her papa’s and mamma’s, who are very busy people, and who took her with them on one of their rare absences from home. They felt they could not do without her merry laugh, her little pattering feet, and her pretty curls,—even for a month. And so she got a “holiday” too, though it was quite unearned: as she has never been to school, and her education has gone no farther than a crooked S, a round O, an M for mamma, and a D for—but this is telling.
Of course Little Sunshine has a Christian name and surname, like other little girls, but I do not choose to give them. She has neither brother nor sister, and says “she doesn’t want any,—she had rather play with papa and mamma.” She is not exactly a pretty child, but she has very pretty yellow curls, and is rather proud of “my curls.” She has only lately begun to say “I” and “my,” generally speaking of herself, baby-fashion, in the third person,—as “Sunny likes that,” “Sunny did so-and-so,” etc. She always tells everything she has done, and everything she is going to do. If she has come to any trouble—broken a teacup, for instance—and her mamma says, “Oh, I am so sorry! Who did that?” Little Sunshine will creep up, hanging her head and blushing, “Sunny did it; she won’t ever do it again.” But the idea of denying it would never come into her little head. Everybody has always told the exact truth to her, and so she tells the truth to everybody, and has no notion of there being such a thing as falsehood in the world.
Still, this little girl is not a perfect character. She sometimes flies into a passion, and says, “I won’t,” in a very silly way,—it is always so silly to be naughty. And sometimes she feels thoroughly naughty,—as we all do occasionally,—and then she says, of her own accord, “Mamma, Sunny had better go into the cupboard” (her mamma’s dressing-closet). There she stays, with the door close shut, for a little while; and then comes out again smiling, “Sunny is quite good now.” She kisses mamma, and is all right. This is the only punishment she has ever had—or needed, for she never sulks, or does anything underhand or mean or mischievous; and her wildest storm of passion only lasts a few minutes. To see mamma looking sad and grave, or hear her say, “I am so sorry that my little girl is naughty,” will make the child good again immediately.
So you have a faint idea of the little person who was to be taken on this long holiday; first in a “puff-puff,” then in a boat,—which was to her a most remarkable thing, as she lives in a riverless county, and, except once crossing the Thames, had scarcely ever beheld water. Her mamma had told her, however, of all the wonderful things she was to see on her holiday, and for a week or two past she had been saying to every visitor that came to the house, “Sunny is going to Scotland. Sunny is going in a puff-puff to Scotland. And papa will take her in a boat, and she will catch a big salmon. Would you like to see Sunny catch a big salmon?” For it is the little girl’s firm conviction that to see Sunny doing anything must be the greatest possible pleasure to those about her,—as perhaps it is.
Well, the important day arrived. Her mamma was very busy, Little Sunshine helping her,—to “help mamma” being always her grand idea. The amount of work she did, in carrying her mamma’s clothes from the drawers to the portmanteau, and carrying them back again; watching her dresses being folded and laid in the trunk, then jumping in after them, smoothing and patting them down, and, lastly, sitting upon them, cannot be told. Every now and then she looked up, “Mamma, isn’t Sunny a busy girl?”—which could not be denied.
