Part 5 (2/2)
”Because she has on a supporter,” said Tom, with perfect gravity, pointing to the velvet belt. ”Poor thing! why don't you take her in bathing? It would do her health good, I'm sure; she looks fearfully pale.”
”Ah, make him put her down, Nelly,” said Baby; ”he'll break her if he goes on so;” for Tom was now amusing himself by balancing dolly on her head in his hand, making a great display of embroidered trowsers and hoop petticoats; and now, catching her by both hands, he suddenly swung her over the railing. ”This is the way she ought to be ducked under the waves!” he added. Nelly sprang forward at the same moment with an ”Oh, Tom! please!” and caught his arm rather suddenly. His hold relaxed at the same moment, and cras.h.!.+ down tumbled poor dolly on the ground below, breaking one of her wax arms completely off, and making a fearful cavity in her forehead, which killed her completely! that is, I should think so. I never heard of any one who survived fracture of the skull. Did you?
Poor Nelly! She tried hard not to mind it; but dolly's head was one too many for her, and the tears came rolling quickly down her cheeks as she gazed at the unfortunate waxen damsel below, with quivering lip. Tom turned red and white alternately in silence for a moment, and then began pouring forth apologies and regrets. He called himself all the imps that ever were heard of for being so careless; he offered to go to New York that very day to buy another doll, and have his hair well pulled beside, if she only would forgive him, and say she didn't think he had done it on purpose; and, in short, we had quite a little scene; when, fortunately, there occurred to me a pleasant means of diverting the minds of the party from the accident that had happened. So I laid down my paper, as though I had not been listening, and said:
”Well, little people, I believe I have discovered all the news there is; so what do you say to coming to a party I am thinking of giving in my room?”
”A party!” cried the children, dropping the subject of the doll to look at me; ”why, we should like that very much. What sort of a party is it?”
”A reading party,” I answered. ”I have some papers I have been thinking of reading to you, to get your opinion of them before I put them in a book; and I shouldn't be surprised if there was a paper of candy in my drawer besides.”
”Why, do you write books?” asked Baby, opening her bright eyes very wide indeed, as if to be certain what a real live author looked like.
”To be sure I do,” I said, laughing. ”Funny stories, and sad ones, too; and some that are every word of them true, and others that are told me by my friends; and you shall tell me whether they are true or not.”
So we all made haste into my room--not the same I had when I first came, but one on the front piazza, near Neighbor Nelly's. The papers I meant were my own, Tom's, and the Fat Gentleman's stories, which I had brought down with me, to look over and correct. The candy I had bought for Nelly and Jimmy, as I told you, and forgotten all about to that moment. Little Robby came trotting along just then, so we asked him to be of the party; and Mrs. Lawson, looking out to see why we were in such a bustle, made up the company.
I wish you could have been at Our Party that afternoon. We made a cosey little group, I a.s.sure you. Mrs. Lawson sat by the table with her sewing; Tom established himself close to my chair, and Nelly nestled by my other side. Baby and Jimmy sat on ha.s.socks, contrived from carpet bags, at my feet; dear little Robby was lifted to my knee, and the reading began. Oh, the laughter, and comical wonder, and blushes, when my little neighbors found the stories were about them! Nelly burst out with ”Oh, Neighbor Oldbird!” and hid her face on my shoulder every time there was some special praise of herself. Tom turned perfectly crimson when we came to his story, and was in and out of his seat twenty times, begging me to stop, during its progress, his splendid black eyes glancing appealingly at me and Nelly by turns. I wouldn't spare him a single word, however; and when I came to his declaration at the end, concerning Nelly, there was a general shout of laughter.
”There's an eligible offer for you, Miss Nell,” I said solemnly. ”You'd better take it into consideration!” and so on, until Mrs. Lawson begged me to stop. She did not like to have ideas about marriage put into the children's heads; and I, when I reflected, was very sorry I had been so thoughtless. Tom bore my teasing manfully; but Nelly's face was rather grave, as if she did not like such remarks to be made about her; so I hurried on to the Fat Gentleman's story, and brought up at the end, and then handed round the candy, amid general approbation.
How we all pa.s.sed that evening together on the beach, and had a wildly happy time; how we went in bathing the next day, and the next; and how, on Wednesday afternoon, I bid a most reluctant good-by to my little neighbors, I have not room to tell. I want to write how gladly we met again in the city in the fall; how Tom did come to live in New York, and favored us with his company as often as possible; how we chanced again on the little girl whom we had met in the toy shop, and found her living in a wretched tenement house in Cherry street, whence Mr. Lawson and I, with some other friends, removed them in haste, and established them in a nice little thread-needle store on one of the business avenues not far from our street; but all this would take too long.
I must say, though, what a blessed change it has been for them, particularly for poor little crippled Clara, who never fails to greet us with a smile when we go there to see her, as she sits in her comfortable arm-chair by the window, with her pet spaniel ”Dandy” beside her. She is always contented and cheerful, in spite of the sharp pain that often racks her slender limbs; and as I look on her pale face, which is so plainly not long for this earth, and think that now her suffering life will end amid comfort and peace, I whisper to myself with a heart full of love, ”All this through thy sweet influence, dear
”NEIGHBOR NELLY!”
FOOTNOTE:
[A] Quarrelling.
CONCLUSION.
AND that was the end of the famous Sock Stories, which had afforded George and Helen so much amus.e.m.e.nt during nearly three months; for it took all that time for Aunt f.a.n.n.y's daughter to write, and the children to read them all. They could not tell which they liked the best; for it so happened that the ”Funny Little Socks” made their appearance just at the time when some dear little cousins of theirs, only four or five years old, had come to spend a week or two with them, which made baby stories doubly welcome; and I don't know what the good and delightful gentleman to whom the fifth book is dedicated will say about it, when he sees his name at the front; but it was thought very appropriate by Helen's papa; as the very best story in the book is all about philosophers, grave and gay.
One thing in particular I am most happy to record; and that is, that the good habits which keeping mamma's little code of rules had engendered, were not broken off at the close of the readings; but instead, were formed more lastingly with every week; until now every one who knows George and Helen says, the first thing, ”What good children they are!
and yet, they never have to be whipped, or shut up in a dark closet to make them so.” No! they are good from a higher motive than the dread of punishment; for they are inspired with the sincere desire to make their dear mother as happy as they can; and it would not surprise me at all if Santa Claus, who is a very discerning old gentleman, were to put something very nice indeed in both socks and stockings this Christmas--in spite of the hard times!
And now, one last word, before Aunt f.a.n.n.y's daughter bids you good-by, little reader. She hopes and prays, in all sincerity, that she has succeeded not only in amusing you, but in giving you some lessons which will sink into your hearts for your real good. And if in the shadowy train of personages who have moved before you in these Sock Stories, there is one who has pleased you especially, from Colonel Freddy and little tender-hearted Greta, to Little Mother and the Old Bachelor, Neighbor Nelly, with her bright eyes and merry ways, or Gipsey, of the cork-screw tail and yap! yap! bark, the knowledge of this fact will give _her_ what she wishes for you all, a very
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
THE END OF THE SIXTH AND LAST BOOK.
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