Mrs Leslie, too, knew this, and was pleased to see the affectionate way in which Fanny thanked her papa. Fanny, though she did not care for the gift herself, was grateful to him for having brought it to her, and she thought that it would, at all events, amuse Norman, who had never seen anything of the sort. She therefore gladly jumped down to ring the bell that the servant might bring a dish of water for the swan and fish to swim in, and to be attracted by the magnet, which she found carefully wrapped up at the bottom of the box. She looked forward with pleasure to the surprise her brother would exhibit at seeing the fish and swan come at her call.
Norman, who was in the meantime fumbling away at the other parcel, eyed her toy with a feeling very like that which had entered his heart when she had her beautiful doll given to her. His parcel felt soft, he feared that it was of very little value, and he wondered what it could possibly be. At last the paper was torn off.
“Why, it’s only the skin of an old football without any wind in it!” he exclaimed in a disappointed tone.
“It is a new football, and we can soon put wind in it,” observed his papa, laughing at what he thought his son’s wit; and taking it from Norman, he put the part with the hole to his mouth and began to blow and blow till gradually the ball swelled out to its full size. Norman looked on wonderingly all the time. Then Captain Vallery fastened a piece of string round the neck of the bladder into which he had been blowing, and tightly laced up the leathern covering.
“There my boy,” he exclaimed, “you have a brand new football which you may kick from John o’ Groat’s house to the Land’s End without its being much the worse for its journey, only you must not treat it as you did the last.”
Norman ran after the ball, which his papa rolled to the other end of the room. The pleasure he might have felt at obtaining it was taken away by his hearing Captain Vallery tell the laird how he had cut open his other ball to look for the wind in it, at which the laird laughed heartily, declaring that he was a true philosopher and would some day become the Principal of the University of Aberdeen or Saint Andrews.
The servant coming in with the dish, Norman left his ball to see the swan and fish come at Fanny’s call to be fed. She managed very cleverly, by holding a piece of bread over the magnet. Norman looked on, wondering what could make the creatures come when Fanny called them, and half believing that they must be alive. Then he thought how much he should like to have them if they would come to him as readily as they did to Fanny.
“Let me try them, Fanny,” he said eagerly; “I am sure if I call them they will swim across the dish to me. Mamma give me a piece of bread.”
Norman held it to the side of the dish. Neither the swan nor the fish moved; then he threw some crumbs towards them, but they had no greater effect. He began to grow angry.
“I do not see why they should come more to you than to me,” he said grumpily.