Little Sunshine's holiday

by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

So she was,—for a long time. There were such interesting things to see out of the window: puff-puffs without end, some moving on the rails, some standing still,—some with a long train behind them, some without. What perplexed and troubled Little Sunshine most was to see the men who kept running across the rails and ducking under the engines. She got quite excited about them.

“That poor man must not go on the rails, else the puff-puff will run over him and hurt him. Then Sunny must pick him up, and take him to her nursery, and cuddle him.” (She always wants to cuddle everybody who is ill or hurt.) “Mamma, tell that poor man he mustn’t go on the rails.”

And even when mamma explained that the man knew what he was about, and was not likely to let himself be run over by any puff-puff, the little girl still looked anxious and unhappy, until the train swept right away into the open country, with fields and trees, and cows and baa-lambs. These last delighted her much. She kept nodding her head and counting them. “There’s papa baa-lambs, and mamma baa-lambs, and little baby baa-lambs, just like little Sunny; and they all run about together; and they are so happy.”

Everything, indeed, looked as happy as the lambs and the child. It was a bright September day, the trees just beginning to change colour, and the rich midland counties of England—full of farms and pasture-lands, with low hills sloping up to the horizon—looked specially beautiful. But the people in the carriage did not seem to notice anything. They were all gentlemen, as I said, and they had all got their afternoon papers, and were reading hard. Not much wonder, as the newspapers were terribly interesting that day,—the day after the capitulation of Sedan, when the Emperor Louis Napoleon surrendered himself and his army to King William of Prussia. When Little Sunshine has grown a woman, she will understand all about it. But now she only sat looking at the baa-lambs out of the window, and now and then pulling, rather crossly, at the newspaper in her mamma’s hand. “I don’t want you to read!” In her day, may there never be read such dreadful things as her mamma read in those newspapers!

The gentlemen at last put down theirs, and began to talk together, loudly and fast. Sunshine’s mamma listened, now to them, now to her little girl, who asked all sorts of questions, as usual. “What’s that? you tell me about that,” she is always saying, as she twists her fingers tight in those of her mamma, who answers at once, and exactly, so far as she knows. When she does not know,—and even mammas cannot be expected to understand everything,—she says, plainly, “My little girl, I don’t know.” And her little girl always believes her, and is satisfied.

Sunshine was growing rather tired now; and the gentlemen kept on talking, and did not take any notice of her, or attempt to amuse her, as strangers generally do, she being such a lively and easily amused child. Her mamma, fearful of her restlessness, struck out a brilliant idea.

Little Sunshine has a cousin Georgy, whom she is very fond of, and who a few days before had presented her with some pears. These pears had but one fault,—they could not be eaten, being as hard as bullets, and as sour as crabs. They tried the little girl’s patience exceedingly, but she was very good. She went every morning to look at them as they stood ranged in a row along mamma’s window-sill, and kissed them one by one to make them ripe. At last they did ripen, and were gradually eaten,—except one, the biggest and most beautiful of all. “Suppose,” mamma suggested, “that we keep it two days more, then it will be quite ripe; mamma will put it in her pocket, and we will eat it in the train half-way to Scotland.” Little Sunshine looked disappointed, but she did not cry, nor worry mamma,—who, she knows, never changes her mind when once she says No,—and presently forgot all about it. Until, lo! just as the poor little girl was getting dull and tired, with nothing to do, and nobody to play with, mamma pulled out of her pocket—the identical pear! Such a pear! so large and so pretty,—almost too pretty to eat. The child screamed with delight, and immediately began to make public her felicity.

“That’s mamma’s pear!” said she, touching the coat-sleeve of the old gentleman next her,—a very grim old gentlemen,—an American, thin and gaunt, with a face not unlike the wolf in Little Red Ridinghood. “That’s mamma’s pear. Mamma ’membered (remembered) to bring Sunny that pear!”

“Eh?” said the old gentleman, shaking the little fingers off, not exactly in unkindness, but as if it were a fly that had settled on him and fidgeted him. But Sunny, quite unaccustomed to be shaken off, immediately drew back, shyly and half offended, and did not look at him again.

He went on talking, in a cross and “cantankerous” way, to another gentlemen, with a gray beard,—an Indian officer, just come from Cashmere, which he declared to be the finest country in the world; while the American said angrily “that it was nothing like Virginia.” But as neither had been in the other country, they were about as able to judge the matter as most people are when they dispute about a thing. Nevertheless, they discussed the question so violently, that Little Sunshine, who is not used to quarrelling, or seeing people quarrel, opened her blue eyes wide with astonishment.