Yes; now you need not look so innocent, just as if you never, when a lady had picked her way carefully through the sloppy streets, jumped into a big puddle near her, and sent the dirty water all over her nice white stockings, and pretty gaiter boots—ah—you see I know you; just as if you hadn’t come rushing round a corner when you were playing tag, and knocked the breath out of a woman before she could say “Don’t;” just as if you didn’t eat peanuts in an omnibus and let the wind blow the shells into her lap; just as if you didn’t put your muddy shoes up on the omnibus seat, and soil the cushions, and spoil ladies’ dresses; just as if you did not—you rogues—say saucy things to bashful little girls, at which your schoolmates Tom Tules and Sam Hall would burst into a loud laugh and the poor little girl would have to go a long way round to school the next morning merely to get rid of you. I should be sorry to believe that you know how much pain you sometimes give a little girl in this way: perhaps her mother is a widow and has to earn her own living, and can not spare time every morning to go with her daughter to school, or to call for her when school is done; and it pains her very much to have to send the weeping child who is so afraid of you, out alone; and she sighs when she thinks of the time when that child’s father was alive, and they had plenty of money to hire a nurse-maid to see that she did not get run over or troubled on her way.
I don’t believe you think of this, when you slyly pull their curls as you go by, or make believe snatch their satchels, or elbow them off the sidewalk, to please that naughty Frank Hale, who says, “’Tis fun.” I am sure you never thought seriously of all I have just told you, or you would not do it.
A stupid boy who never wants “fun” will never be good for any thing. But it is not “fun” to give pain to the weak, timid, and helpless; it is not fun to play the tyrant. Oh, no, no. It is fun to play ball, and hop-scotch; and it is fun to skate, and slide, and “coast,” as the Boston boys call it (i.e., go down a steep, icy hill on a sled); but this steep, icy hill should not be in the street, where horses and carriages are, crossed by other streets, through which people are passing. A little boy was once coasting very fast down such a hill as this, and when a very prim maiden lady was picking her way across it. On came the boy, like lightning, tripped up her heels, and carried her down on his sled, on top of him, to the bottom of the hill. She was, fortunately, not hurt. She got slowly up, smoothed out her rumpled dress, bent her bonnet straight, put her spectacles on the end of her nose, and looking at the little boy (who stood there quite as much astonished as she at what he had done), she remarked, “Young man, it was not my intention to have come this way!” He got off easily, didn’t he? But had he broken any of her bones, a policeman would perhaps have rung at his father’s door some time that day, and his father would have been obliged to pay a fine, because his boy broke the law by “coasting” in the streets—(that’s Boston law). And beside that, had the lady been poor, his father would have had to pay a doctor for mending her bones. Don’t think I do not approve of coasting in safe places. It is what boys call “prime.” I like to coast as well as you do; and when you get a nice sled, with good “runners,” I should like to try it. If it goes like chain-lightning, you may name it Fanny Fern; but if it twists round at every little thing in the path, and don’t go straight ahead, you may call it—what you like; but don’t you dare to name it after me.
KATY’S FIRST GRIEF.
Little Katy, so they told me, was an only child. I don’t know how that could be, when she had two little sisters in heaven. But Katy had never seen them; they turned their cheeks wearily to the pillow and died years before she was born. Katy had heard her mamma speak of them, and she had seen their little frocks and shoes, and a little blue silk hood, trimmed round the face with a soft white fur, soft as the baby’s velvet skin; and she had seen a dry crust of bread, with the marks of tiny teeth in it, carefully put away in the drawer; and a small string of coral beads, red as the baby’s lip; and she had seen her mother put her fingers through the sleeve of a little fine cambric shirt, and look at it till tears blinded her eyes. Katy was not strong herself; her mother was very much afraid that she would die too; she was very careful always to tie her tippet closely about her throat, when she went out, and to see that her feet were warm, and her little arms covered. There were very few days in which Katy felt quite well, and I don’t suppose she could help crying and fretting a great deal; she wanted to be in her mother’s lap all the while, and did not like to have strangers come in and talk to her mother. That could not be helped you know, and then Katy would cry very loud, and nothing seemed to pacify her.
As she grew older, her mother took such good care of her, that her health began to improve, and she grew stronger; but she had been petted, and had her own way so much (because they disliked to trouble her when she was sick) that she had become very selfish; she liked nobody to touch her toys, or even look at them. This was a pity. One morning Katy woke, climbed up in her crib, and called out “Mamma!” but there was no mamma there. “Papa!” there was no papa either. This was something very uncommon; for they were always there when she woke in the morning. Then Katy set up a great cry, louder than you would ever believe such a little bit of a thing could cry, and then a strange woman came in, and said, “Hush!” and then Katy screamed louder than ever, and grew very red in the face, and said, “I won’t hush, I want my mamma—I will have my mamma!” and then Katy’s papa came up and whispered to the strange woman, and then the strange woman nodded her head and went out of the room; and then Katy’s papa told Katy that her mamma was in the other room, and that, if she would be a good girl, and stop crying, and let him dress her, she should go and see her. Katy had a great mind not to stop, but she wanted so much to see her mamma that she made up her mind she would; so her papa put on her little petticoats, and as he never had dressed his little girl, he buttoned them before, instead of behind; and then Katy had a cry about that, and then her papa was a great while finding out how her frock fastened; he saw some “hooks” on it, but he could not find any “eyes” to hook them into, and so he told Katy, who kept wriggling round on his lap like a little eel, slipping off his knee, and slipping back, and fretting like a little tempest to see “mamma;” then papa’s forehead began to have great drops of perspiration on it, as he fumbled away at the little frock with his big fingers, and by-and-by he found out that there were things called “loops,” so small he could hardly see them, to hold the hooks, instead of eyes, and then he said, drawing a long breath, “Now, little Katy, I’ll have you dressed in a twinkling!” so he fastened it, and then put on her stockings, and one shoe; but when he looked for the other, it was nowhere to be found; it was not in the crib, nor under it, in the closet, or in the bureau drawers; it was not anywhere, that he could see. Katy wanted to go without it, but her papa said, no, she would get cold: and then Katy set up another of her great cries, and just as two big tears, big enough to wet the whole front of her frock, came rolling down, her papa found the little red shoe under the wash-stand. Then he put it on, and saying, “Now, Katy,” he took her in his arms, and carried her through the entry, into the “best chamber;” it was so dark, with all the blinds shut and the curtains drawn, that Katy at first could not see who or what was in it. In a minute or two her eyes got used to the dim light, and then she saw her mamma on the bed, and a little white bundle of something lying on her arm. Katy’s papa moved a little nearer, and whispered to Katy, “See, mamma has a cunning little brother for you to play with.” Katy looked at him a minute, and then her face puckered up all over, and she burst out into such a cry, you never heard the like; “I don’t want him—I don’t want him, I want to lay on mamma’s arm, I don’t want any little brother!” Then the strange woman motioned to Katy’s papa to take her out of the room, and then Katy clung to the bed-post, and cried louder than ever, “No, no—take him away, take him away—I don’t want that little brother!”
Poor little Katy—you should have heard her sob, going down stairs; all that papa could say did not comfort her. He took her on his lap to the breakfast table, gave her some real tea out of his saucer, and let her eat with mamma’s nice silver fork; it did no good, not more than a minute at a time; she could not forget that “little brother,” who was cuddled up so comfortably in her place on mamma’s arm. And now even papa could not stay any longer with Katy, for it was already past nine o’clock, and he must go down town to attend to his business; so he called Bridget, and told her to keep Katy in the parlor with her playthings, till her mamma sent for her; and kissing his little sobbing girl, he went away. Papa and mamma both gone! what should Katy do? Bridget tried to comfort her, and sang her a song, called “Green grow the rushes, O,” but it was of no use. Then the strange woman came down to eat her breakfast. Katy wiped the tears out of her eyes, and looked at her from under the corner of her apron. The strange woman sat down to her breakfast, and ate away; how she did eat! one egg—two eggs—three eggs—two cups of coffee, and several slices of bread and butter; then she said to Bridget, “Where’s that crying child? Mrs. Smith wants to have her brought up-stairs; I never heard of such a thing since I went out nursing, as having such a troublesome little thing in a sick chamber. She will make her mother sick with her fussing, and so I told her; but she told me to bring her up when I had done my breakfast, and to I suppose I must; where is she?”
“There,” said Bridget, pointing to Katy, cuddled up in the corner, so afraid of the strange woman, that she had forgotten to cry.
“Sure enough—well—I am glad to see you are in a better temper, Miss Katy; your mother wants you to go up-stairs, but I can tell you that you won’t stay there long, unless you are as hush as a mouse; for I have come here to take care of her, did you know that? and I never allow naughty children to stay with their sick mothers. Now, if you will promise to be good, I will take you up-stairs; will you promise?”
Katy’s under lip quivered a little, but not a word came out of it.