Part 31 (1/2)

”Why, John, are you back? Dear me, if there isn't that same child--Puppet!”

John went off to his work again. Puppet ate her breakfast, and told her story, and then said,--

”Please, mum, may I play with the cart?”

And because of her yellow hair, she might play with the cart.

”But aren't you sick, and oughtn't you to take some medicine, and go to bed?” asked the lady, whose hair had grown gray over sickness and medicine.

Puppet meditated. She felt very well. She thought that she had rather play with the tip-cart than to take medicine. So she played all day, and went to bed at night.

At night John come home from his work, and, as usual, heard of all that had happened through the day.

”I wish we could keep the little thing, John, dear. She has yellow hair, just like--”

”Yes,” said John, ”I saw.”

”And she'd be _such_ a comfort!”

”If she didn't die by and by,” said John.

”But, John, dear, just think of a little thing like her spending the night in the middle of a meadow, with the water all about her.”

John thought. And he thought that if she could stand that without being sick, she could stand their love without dying.

So Puppet and the guitar live with John and the gray-haired lady.

MARY B. HARRIS.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”MIKE ROLLED OVER AND OVER TO THE FOOT OF THE STEPS.”

See p. 169.]

MERRY CHRISTMAS.

All the hill-side was green with maples, and birches, and pines. The meadows at its foot were green, too, with the tufted salt gra.s.s, and glittering with the silver threads of tide braided among its winding creeks. Beyond was the city, misty and gray, stretching its wan arms to the phantom s.h.i.+ps flitting along the horizon.

From the green hill-side you could hear the city's m.u.f.fled hum and roar, and sometimes the far-off clanging of the bells from its hundred belfries. But the maples and birches seemed to hear and see nothing beyond the suns.h.i.+ne over their heads and the winds which went frolicking by. Life was one long dance with them, through the budding spring and the leafy summer, and on through the grand gala days of autumn, till the frost came down on the hills, and whispered,--

”Your dancing days are all over.”

But the pines were quite different. They, the stately ones, stood quite aloof, the older and taller ones looking stiffly over the heads of the rollicking maples, and making solemn reverences to the great gray clouds that swept inland from the ocean. The straight little saplings at their feet copied the manners of their elders, and folding their fingers primly, and rustling their stiff little green petticoats decorously, sat up so silent and proper.

So unlike the small birches and maples that chattered incessantly, wagging their giddy heads, and playing tag with the b.u.t.terflies in the suns.h.i.+ne all the day long!

”How tiresome those stupid old pines are! No expression, no animation.

So lofty and so exclusive, and forever grumbling to each other in their hoa.r.s.e old Scandinavian, which it gives one the croup even to listen to! Of what possible use _can_ they be?”

This was what the maple said to the birch one day when the Summer and her patience with her sombre neighbor were on the wane--one day when there was a gleam of golden pumpkins in the tawny corn stubble beyond the wood, and the purpling grapes hung ripening over the old stone wall that lay between, and the maple had brightened its summer dress with a gay little leaf set here and there in its s.h.i.+ning folds.