Part 1 (1/2)

The Wonderful Bed.

by Gertrude Knevels.

CHAPTER I

AUNT JANE'S OLD TOYS

It was beginning to get dark in the big nursery. Outside the wind howled and the rain beat steadily against the window-pane. Rudolf and Ann sat as close to the fire as they could get, waiting for Betsy to bring the lamp. Peter had built himself a comfortable den beneath the table and was having a quiet game of Bears with Mittens, the cat, for his cub--quiet, that is, except for an angry mew now and then from Mittens, who had not enjoyed an easy moment since the arrival of the three children that morning.

”Rudolf,” Ann was saying, as she looked uneasily over her shoulder, ”I almost wish we hadn't come to stay at Aunt Jane's alone without mother. I don't believe I like this room, it's so big and creepy. I don't want to go to bed. Especially”--she added, turning about and pointing into the shadows behind her--”especially I don't want to go to bed in that!”

The big bed in Aunt Jane's old nursery was the biggest and queerest the children had ever seen. It was the very opposite of the little white enameled beds they were used to sleeping in at their apartment in New York, being a great old-fas.h.i.+oned four-poster with a canopy almost touching the ceiling. It was hung with faded chintz, and instead of a mattress it had a billowy feather bed over which were tucked grandmother's hand-spun sheets and blankets covered by the gayest of quilts in an elaborate pattern of sprigged and spotted calico patches. The two front posts of the bed were of dark s.h.i.+ny wood carved in a strange design of twisted leaves and branches, and to Ann, as she looked at them by the leaping flickering firelight, it seemed as if from between these leaves and branches odd little faces peered and winked at her, vanished, and came again and yet again.

”Bother!” exclaimed Rudolf so loud that his little sister started.

”It's just a bed, that's all. It'll be jolly fun getting into it. I believe I'll ask if I can't sleep there, too, instead of in the cot. I wanted to take a running jump at it when we first came this morning, but Aunt Jane wouldn't let me with my boots on. She said she made that quilt herself, when she was a little girl. We'll all climb in together to-night as soon as Betsy goes, and have a game of something--I dare say we'll feel just like raisins in a pudding!”

”All the same,” said Ann, ”I don't think I like it, Rudolf. I wish Betsy would bring the lamp!”

It was almost dark now, and they could not see, but only hear, Peter as he came shuffling out of his den, dragging his unhappy cub, and prowled around the darkest corners of the room. Being a bear, he was not at all afraid, but made himself very happy for a while with pouncing and growling, searching for honey, and eating imaginary travelers. Then the cub escaped, and Peter tired of his game. Rudolf and Ann heard him tugging at the door of an old-fas.h.i.+oned cupboard in a far corner of the room, and presently he came over to the fire, carrying a wooden box in his arms.

”Oh, Peter, you naughty boy!” cried Ann. ”You've been at the cupboard, and Aunt Jane said expressly we were not to take anything out of it!”

”You are just like Bluebeard's wife,” began Rudolf, but Peter--as was his way--paid no attention to either of them. He put the box down on the hearth-rug, and got on his hands and knees to open it. Then, of course, the other two thought they might as well see what there was to see, and all three heads bent over the box. After all it contained nothing very wonderful, the cover itself being the prettiest part, Ann thought, for on it was painted a bright-colored picture of a little girl in a funny, high-waisted, old-fas.h.i.+oned dress, making a curtsy to a little boy dressed like an old gentleman and carrying a toy s.h.i.+p in his hand. The box was filled with old toys, most of them chipped or broken. There was a very small tea-set with at least half of the cups missing, a wooden horse which only possessed three legs, and the remains of a regiment of battered tin soldiers.

”How funny the box smells--and the toys, too!” Ann said. ”Sort of queer and yet sweet, like mother's glove case. I think she said it was sandal-wood. That set must have been a darling when it was new, but there's only just a speck of blue left and the gilt is every bit gone.

These must be Aunt Jane's toys that she had when she was little.”

”That was a long time ago,” remarked Rudolf thoughtfully. ”I don't see why Aunt Jane didn't throw 'em away, they're awful trash, I think.

Those soldiers aren't bad, but--”

Just then Ann's sharp eyes caught Peter as he was about to slip away with a little parcel done up in silver paper that had lain all by itself at the very bottom of the box. By this time she and Rudolf had both forgotten that they had no more right than Peter to any of the things in the box, and both threw themselves on their little brother.

Peter fought and kicked, but was at last forced to surrender the little parcel. Under the silver paper which Rudolf hurriedly tore off, was layer after layer of pink tissue infolding something which the boy, when he came to it at last, tossed on the floor in his disgust.

”Pshaw,” he exclaimed, ”it's nothing in the world but an old corn-cob!”

”Yes, it is, too,” said Ann, picking it up. ”It's a doll, the funniest old doll I ever saw!”

And a strange little doll she was, made out of nothing more or less than a withered corn-cob, her face--such a queer little face--painted on it, and her hair and dress made very cleverly out of the corn shucks. Ann burst out laughing as she looked at the old doll, and turning to her new children, Marie-Louise and Angelina-Elfrida, which her mother had given her for Christmas, she placed the two beauties on the hearth-rug, one on each side of the corn-cob, just to see the difference. This seemed to make Peter very cross. He tried his best to s.n.a.t.c.h away the old doll, but Rudolf, to tease him, held him off with one hand while with the other he seized the poor creature by her long braids and swung her slowly over the fire.

”Wouldn't it be fun, Ann,” said he, ”to see how quick she'd burn?”

”Oh, you mustn't, Rudolf,” Ann cried, ”Aunt Jane mightn't like it. I shouldn't be surprised if she'd punish you.”

At that Rudolf lowered the old doll almost into the blaze, and she would most certainly have burned up, she was so very dry and crackly, if at that very moment Aunt Jane had not come into the room and s.n.a.t.c.hed her out of his hand. Rudolf never remembered to have seen Aunt Jane so vexed before. Her blue eyes flashed, and her cheeks were quite pink under her silver-colored hair. He expected she would scold, but she didn't, she only said--”Oh, Rudolf!” in a rather unpleasant way, and then, after she had carefully restored the corn-cob doll to her wrappings, she knelt down and began to gather up the old toys which the children had scattered over the hearth-rug. Ann and Rudolf helped her, and Peter who, though a very mischievous little boy, was always honest, confessed that he had been the one to open the old cupboard and take out the box. He seemed to feel rather uncomfortable about it, and after the things had been put away, he climbed upon Aunt Jane's lap and hid his head upon her shoulder.

”Never mind, Peter, dear,” she said, holding him very tight, ”I always meant to show you my old toys some day. I dare say you children think it strange that I have kept such shabby things so long, but when I was a little girl I did not have such beautiful toys as you have now, and the few I had I loved very dearly.”

”Was this your nursery, Aunt Jane,” Ann asked.