Read Ebook: Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories by M T W

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Ebook has 198 lines and 11326 words, and 4 pages

a funny little catch in the voice: "Wake up, little Tot, mamma's treasure," and some one held her so tightly she could hardly breathe. And she opened her eyes and shut them again, quite dazzled; but she thought she saw papa and mamma standing beside her bed, and the room was all on fire it was so bright to two, poor, sleepy, baby eyes, and papa's voice seemed to say, a great way off:

"Poor, little, sleepy Tot."

It was such a queer dream, but not half so queer as what followed; for, after a while, she woke up and went right on dreaming just the same. That was very strange. How could it be anything else than a dream, to be taken up by gaslight and dressed all in her little street coat and hat before breakfast, to be made to drink milk and eat when she wasn't hungry, to be petted and cried over and half crushed in mamma's arms, to be taken by papa out into the cool, clear dawning, with the sky just beginning to flush like a sea shell and a waking bird or two to twitter about getting up, to be put into a coach that rolled and rumbled, to be put into something else that rolled and rumbled a thousand times worse; nothing had ever happened anything like this in any of Tot's waking hours before.

After the sun had climbed up a little way into the sky, grown blue and bluer, Tot began to accept the situation a little, and lay very still in papa's arms , watching the fences running away like mad, the trees gliding gracefully by in long endless procession, little white cottages and funny little hovels, and pretty little villages hopping suddenly in and then as suddenly out of the scene, a glimpse into shady depths of woods, a glint of a blue, nestling, lily-pad-speckled pond, an emerald gleam of peaceful meadows, a sight at a snowy tethered goat, of dappled grazing cows, a roll and rush and roar through riven, dripping rocks.

Papa told his little girl all about it. How little children in the town where Tot lived were very sick of a dangerous disease--diptheria. And how, coming home last evening from business and learning of several fresh cases, he had become alarmed for his darling and consulted mamma, and had succeeded in frightening her so thoroughly, that she had sat up all night to get Tot's things ready so that she might start the very next morning, on the very first early morning train, to where grandmamma lived.

"And, there," said papa, after they had ridden all the long forenoon, "there's Sugar River, Tot, where I used to fish when I was a boy!"

"O!" cried Tot, and then, immediately, with a roll and a pitch, they came to a little white farmhouse and stopped again, and Tot was at grandmamma's.

Tot didn't like being kissed quite so much all at a time, if it was by a grandmamma. The chickens, though, were fascinating, and as for some plushy round balls of yellow fuzz, rolling about--little ducks just hatched--Tot had never seen anything at all to compare with them. But there was a dreadful and discordant procession of big ducks that struck terror to Tot's soul, and it was very still and lonely when the night and dark crept on. The crickets and the frogs did their best, but they only made it stiller and lonelier; and the hills gleamed against the sky, and Tot missed her mamma. But yet, Tot was very sleepy, and the next she knew it was morning and she was at grandma's, where Uncle Will lived, and Uncle Will was coming pretty soon, and, better than that, mamma was coming, too; and there was a little girl, a short distance up the road, whom Tot was to play with, and then there were the chickens and the ducks, and old Brindle and the pigs, and the pony and the hay cart, and--yes, it was very delightful at grandmamma's.

Once or twice, during the next few days, Tot asked--preserving that singular reticence regarding her illusions, so common to children--to be taken to Sugar River; but grandpapa was busy haying, and grandmamma said:

"Will will come pretty soon and he will take you."

One afternoon grandmamma gave Tot and Susie each a fat hot jumble, and left them playing happily in the yard while she went back to her sewing. Susie was seven, so very safe company for little four-year-old Tot. After a while over ran Susie's brother, to summon her home to go with her mother to the village.

Tot stood at the gate, looking down the long road. Sturdy maples threw curving, interlacing boughs across, through which the sun-light filtered and flickered. How cool and shady it was! Tot all at once felt the little sunny yard grow hot and stupid, and then Susie's mamma drove out of the gate and down the long shady arch over the sun-flecked road. Tot wished she was going to the village, too. Tot wished she was going to--to--Sugar River.

"Run in to grandmamma, little Tot," whispered the still small voice. But Tot never heeded. Tot was tired. Tot was hot. Tot was homesick. Tot would walk down the road just a few little steps. What harm? How delightful! How grateful the cool green shade! How alluring the long level stretch of road under the arching maples! Where did it lead? It led--O, Tot knew--it led to Sugar River.

Step by step, a little and a little further on the tiny white figure glanced. A sense of happy freedom possessed the little girl. A cloud of golden butterflies beckoned on before. Here a dark thread of water crept down over the hills and splashed musically into the great stone trough. All the way an invisible brooklet gurgled and kept her company. Only one bird seemed to sing at a time--first one, then another. Wasn't it charming? And at the end of it all must be--Tot could see it now in fancy--the fluttering blue ribbon uncurling between sunny sloping banks--SUGAR RIVER--fast asleep under the summer sun, on its glittering bed of rock candy. O, rapture! Tot's mouth watered for its sugary delights.

On and on and on, with the brook and the butterflies and the welcoming bird. On, till the maples stopped and could go no further, and so she left them behind. Out into the open sun-light she came, and only the long, hot, and dazzling road stretched on before.

Tot's small feet trudged on, steadily. Just a little further on--Tot was sure--and then--But how long the road grew, how deep the dust lay, how tired the little feet were getting, little feet that can trudge about all day long in play, yet drag so wearily over long straight roads.

"I sood fink I would tum to Soogar Wiver pwetty soon," she sighed.

At last she came to where some cross-roads met, and looking down one she saw the cool green shade again. Not maples this time, but close and clustering shrubbery.

She left the brook gurgling "go-oo-oo-d-by," and the butterflies waving adieu with their golden wings, and went on alone. How sweet and still it was here! The tall grass drooped over two brown beaten paths that horses feet had worn, and a tender green light lay over all. But where was the sweet river hiding? Another meeting of cross roads. Tot looked this way, that. Ah, there it was over the road! Over the meadow. Gleaming, gliding, Sugar River, at last.

"I fought I sood det to it pwetty soon," murmured Tot, triumphantly. "Won't dwandma be glad to get some nice sugar plums? I wis I tood det froo dis fence."

Through she got, with much squeezing and rending. Tot eyed her torn pinafore, ruefully.

"I wis' 'ittle dirl's aprons wouldn't teep tearing on every single fing."

"'Pears to me," doubtfully, putting one little foot down on the soft marshy ground, "it is wather wet."

Rather wet? Yes, Totchen, very wet. Too wet for such little little feet as yours. And see, little one, the sun is getting lower. Crawl back through the fence and run home. The sleepy murmuring river has nothing but trouble for you.

But Tot stumbled on over the marshy ground.

"I don't 'ike to go down so far," sighed Tot, drawing a little drenched boot up from a treacherous bog. "And my new boots is detting all wet."

But Tot had a Spartan soul; and at last, beside the wonderful stream, on the beautiful shore she stood, and--poor, poor little Tot! The little pinafore torn, the pretty, trim boots soaked and soiled, all Tot's little body dragged and weary; yet, it isn't that that makes me say "poor little Tot!" It is to see her standing there at the goal of her childish hopes with such happy, radiant eyes, and know how soon will come to her that "saddest pain of all--to grasp the thing we long for and find how it can fail us."

Up and down she walks, searching for sweetmeat pebbles and sugary stones, and when she finds none--the water running high and close to the grassy ground--she stoops and, dipping her little fingers, she lifts them, wet and dripping, to her longing lips.

Poor little Tot! Down the stream she came to a ford, and the shallow water had left stones and pebbles bare. Big and little, and half size; white and yellow, and brown and gray.

Here was richness at last. All in a minute Tot's little, nibbling, crunching teeth went on edge on a perverse, grating pebble that sternly refused to be nibbled or crunched. Another and another and another she tried.

"Pwobably," she thought, "they has to be cwacked dus 'ike nuts." And she proceeded to crack, not the stones, but her own little, eager, blundering fingers, instead. O stony, stony-hearted stones and pebbly-hearted pebbles! Tot's cup of bitterness seemed to flow over. She stood up, sobbing. A sudden sense of desolation oppressed her.

Her only thought, now, was to get home. But, first, what do you think she did? She filled her bit of a pocket full of pebbles for grandmamma to crack; then the little weary feet stumbled back again over the weary way.

Tot was crying piteously now, and no one heard. All alone, mamma's baby, who had never been alone before in all her short cherished life. All alone with the croaking frogs and lonesome crickets. Hark! what was that? A roll of wheels and the clatter of a horse's hoofs.

"Whoa!" called out a boy's shrill voice. Down to the ground dropped the owner of the voice. "What is the matter, little girl?"

"I'se been to Soogar Wiver, and I don't know how to det home aden, I'se so vewy tired, and I toodn't cwack the candy, and I want to see dwandma," and Tot's words ended in a wail of inarticulate woe.

"Where do you live?" asked the boy.

"A dwate, dwate ways off," answered Tot.

"What is your name?"

"Tot Lindsay."

"Lindsay? O, I know! All you've got to do is to jump into this wagon and have a nice ride, and, presently, we'll be there."

And presently, in the gloaming, they stopped before grandpapa's house, and the boy, lifting out Tot in his arms, carried her to the door and bade her good-by, and, jumping into his wagon, rattled away. Empty and silent stood the little house, like the dwelling of the Three Talking Bears, and little Tot might have been Silver Hair herself.

"Dwandma, dwandma!" she called. But no grandmamma replied.

"Perhaps she has dus dorn out a minute," thought she. "I'll det up on dis lounge and tover dis shawl over me, and s'prise her when she tums back."

Something else besides the shawl covered Tot's eyes. Down over the blue orbs drifted the snowy lids. Tired little Tot.

Where was dwandma and the rest all this time? In trouble and confusion. Calling and searching, searching and calling: "Tot, Tot, Tot, little Tot! Where are you?" Grandpapa and grandmamma, and Uncle Will and Tot's mamma.

Will ran all the way home and went straight to the barn and harnessed the horse, and then went into the house and into the sitting-room and snatched a shawl from the lounge, and--"Jerusalem Crickets!" was all he had breath enough left to say. Tot had surprised somebody, indeed.

Down by the river, in the dusk and the river damp, as they waited, came Will, striding along with what looked like a bundle of old shawls upon his shoulder; and presently, parting the folds like the calyx of a flower, Tot's rosy face blossomed out.

"Peekabo!" she said, with a sweet sound of laughter. "O mamma, mamma!"

It was wonderful how quickly mamma recovered; and it was more wonderful still how ever Tot escaped sudden death, then and there, from suffocation. But, bless you! You need not worry, it was larks to Tot.

What a triumphal procession home it was. Tot, in her little night-dress sat in her mother's lap, and told her adventures; and Will sat in the darkest corner and said not a word, but resolved that no story more fabulous than that of George Washington and his hatchet should ever again pass his lips. His lip quivered, as much as a boy's lip is ever allowed, when Tot said:

"And I brought home a whole pottet full to cwack."

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