The reading of the letter was followed by an almost painful calm. Its meaning was too great to be taken in all at once, but gradually it dawned upon their bewildered little intellects that this was Saturday, and in less than four hours they would be on their journey to the far-away city and “Aunt Emma,” who was, to them, a sort of good fairy, who always remembered the six birthdays, and seemed a kind of familiar friend of Santa Claus, or, as Rosie said—“She guessed they had growed up together, and been to the same school.”
However that may be, certain fact it was, that whatever wishes they had whispered up the dark chimney the week before, were sure to be realized when, Christmas morning, the Adams Express wagon left a huge box marked “Providence,” with Aunt Emma’s card fastened on to the plum pudding, so sure to form the first layer, with the good Auntie’s assurance to Mamma, “It was made, by Celia, very weak, to suit the children.”
The nurses now appeared to carry off the younger folk to the nursery, thereby making short work of Jack’s series of joy-speaking somersaults, whose chief feature, much to his elder brother’s scarcely veiled contempt, seemed to be, that the heels never reached their destination, but remained dangling in the air.
Whilst the little ones, in the nursery, are riding astride the trunks which had appeared there, or tumbling over the piles of clean clothes spread out by Kitty; Artie and Daisy, as eldest son and daughter, are listening to some good advice from Mamma, who is putting the younger members of her flock under their care, urging Artie not to tease poor little Bear, who is really not well, and apt sometimes to be a little tiresome, and—cross, if we must say it. Daisy, too, is to try to be more gentle and patient with her little sister and brother. Then she bids them remember the verse which formed the subject of last Sunday evening’s talk,—“Be ye kindly affectionate one toward another, in honor preferring one another.”
She had then told them in how many ways they might bring sunshine into their own homes, the great outside world, and into their own hearts too, if they were constantly striving to be “kindly affectionate” and studying how they might
“Yield their way to others’ way,”
not selfishly seeking for themselves the best. She begged them to keep this little verse ever in their childish hearts, that so, with the dear Lord’s blessing, its echo might be found in their lives.
Mamma did not make her sober talk very long, for she knew the little heads and hearts had just about enough to fill them now, and she saw Artie’s big blue eyes were growing hazy, for with all his faults, he was a boy of loving heart, where Mamma reigned supreme, and just then a little cloud was drifting over the bright sunny prospect before him, as he thought of leaving her without Papa or eldest son to care for her.