Part 1 (1/2)
Holiday Stories for Young People.
by Various.
PREFACE.
Boys and girls, I am proud to call a host of you my personal friends, and I dearly love you all. It has been a great pleasure to me to arrange this gift book for you, and I hope you will like the stories and ballads, and spend many happy hours over them. One story, ”The Middle Daughter,” was originally published in Harper's ”Round Table,” and is inserted here by consent of Messrs. Harper and Brothers. Two of the ballads, ”Horatius,” and ”The Pied Piper,” belong to literature, and you cannot afford not to know them, and some of the fairy stories are like bits of golden coin, worth treasuring up and reading often. Miss Mary Joanna Porter deserves the thanks of the boys for the aid she has given in the making of this volume, and the bright stories she has contributed to its pages.
A merry time to you, boys and girls, and a heart full of love from your steadfast friend,
M.E.S.
CHAPTER I.
THE HEROINE PRESENTS HERSELF.
My name is Milly Van Doren, and I am an only child. I won't begin by telling you how tall I am, how much I weigh, and the color of my eyes and hair, for you would not know very much more about my looks after such an inventory than you do without it, and mother says that in her opinion it is pleasantest to form one's own idea of a girl in a story book. Mother says, too, that a good rule in stories is to leave out introductions, and so I will follow her advice and plunge into the middle of my first morning. It was early summer and very lovely, and I was feeling half-sad and half-glad, with the gladness surpa.s.sing the sadness, because I had never before been half so proud and important.
Father and mother, after talking and planning and hesitating over it a long while, were actually going on a journey just by themselves and without me; and I, being now considered old enough and steady enough, was to stay at home, keep house, and take care of dear grandmamma. With Aunt Hetty at the helm, the good old servant, whose black face had beamed over my cradle fifteen years ago, and whose strong arms had come between mother and every roughness during her twenty years of housekeeping, it really looked as if I might be trusted, and as if mother need not give me so many anxious directions. Did mother think me a baby? I wondered resentfully. Father always reads my face like an open page.
”Thee may leave something to Milly's discretion, dear,” he said, in his slow, stately way.
”Thee forgets her inexperience, love,” said my gentle mother.
Father and mother are always courtly and tender with one another, never hasty of speech, never impatient. They have been lovers, and then they are gentlefolk. Father waited, and mother kept on telling me about grandmamma and the cat, the birds and the best china, the fire on the hearth in cool evenings, and the last year's canned fruit, which might as well be used up while she was away, particularly the cherries and plums.
”May the girls come over often?” I asked.
”Whenever you like,” said mother. ”Invite whom you please, of course.”
Here father held up his watch warningly. It was time to go, if they were to catch the train. Arm in arm they walked down the long avenue to the gate, after bidding me good-bye. Grandmamma watched them, waving her handkerchief from the window of her room over the porch, and at the last moment I rushed after them for a final kiss and hug.
”Be good, dear child, and let who will be clever,” said father, with a twinkle in his eye.
”Don't forget to count the silver every morning,” said mother.
And so my term of office began. Bloomdale never wore a brighter face than during that long vacation--a vacation which extended from June till October. We girls had studied very diligently all winter. In spring there had been scarlet fever in the village, and our little housekeepers, for one cause or another, had seldom held meetings; and some of the mothers and older sisters declared that it was just what they had expected, our ardor had cooled, and nothing was coming of our club after all that had been said when we organized.
As president of the Bloomdale Clover Leaf Club I determined that the club should now make up for lost time, and having _carte-blanche_ from mother, as I supposed, I thought I would set about work at once.
Cooking was our most important work, and there's no fun in cooking unless eating is to follow; so the club should be social, and give luncheons, teas and picnics, at which we might have perfectly lovely times. I saw no reason for delay, and with my usual impulsiveness, consulted n.o.body about my first step.
And thus I made mistake number one. Cooking and housekeeping always look perfectly easy on paper. When you come to taking hold of them in real earnest with your own hands you find them very different and much harder.
Soon after I heard the train whistle, and knew that father and mother were fairly gone, I harnessed old Fan to the phaeton, and set out to visit every one of the girls with an invitation to tea the very next evening. I did put my head into grandmamma's chamber to tell her what I thought of doing, but the dear old lady was asleep in her easy-chair, her knitting lying in her lap, and I knew she did not wish to be disturbed. I closed the door softly and flew down stairs.
Just as I was ready to start, Aunt Hetty came to the kitchen door, calling me, persuasively: ”Miss Milly, honey, what yo' done mean to hab for dinner?”
”Oh, anything you please, aunty,” I called back, gathering up the reins, chirping to Fan, and taking the road to the Curtis girls' house.