Read Ebook: The country Christmas by Fox Frances Margaret Barry Etheldred B Etheldred Breeze Illustrator

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Ebook has 580 lines and 20123 words, and 12 pages

PAGE

"'HE PUT ON ONE OF HER NEW DRESSES'" 7

"POINTING TO A DILAPIDATED WEATHER-BEATEN STRUCTURE ALMOST HIDDEN FROM VIEW" 19

"WHEREUPON HE WAS TAKEN IN HAND" 42

"THEN BEGAN A WILD RIDE" 52

"A CLEANER IF NOT A BETTER BOY" 59

"JOINED HER FAMILY BENEATH AN APPLE-TREE" 73

"LAUGHING SOFTLY AS SHE ROCKED" 90

"THE NEXT DAY CHINKY SHARPENED HIS HATCHET" 103

"THE SEVEN STOOD IN A ROW" 107

THE COUNTRY CHRISTMAS

HOPE FOR THE MULVANEYS

Sally Brown remembered the Mulvaneys. It was no wonder the child talked of them at first; but, when she had lived in the country two months, her mother and brother Alfred begged her to change the subject.

"Give us a rest," was Alfred's repeated command.

"Really, Sally," her mother remonstrated one morning, "what is the use of thinking of the Mulvaneys all the time? If it did any good I wouldn't say a word, but you only make us uncomfortable without helping them in the least."

"Well, mamma," was the reply, "you see I can't help hoping."

"Hoping," mocked Alfred, "hoping for what, I'd like to know?"

"If your name was Chinky Mulvaney you'd guess quick enough," was Sally's retort. "I am hoping the Mulvaneys will get out of the city same as we did."

"Hoping won't get them out," said Alfred.

"Maybe it won't and maybe it will," Sally remarked. "I notice that when you hope for things hard enough, you're pretty sure to get them. That is," she added, "if you do some squirming too. Don't you know, Alfred, you can help things happen if you try. I've discovered there's more'n one way of hoping."

Mrs. Brown was ready to go out. "Sally, my child," was her parting advice, "hope all you wish, but please don't mention the Mulvaneys to Alfred or me for one week."

"She'd never live," Alfred said, as he grabbed his cap and followed his mother.

Sally flew to the kitchen. "I can talk to you about the Mulvaneys, can't I, Mrs. Turner? Now I am ready to wash the dishes. Alfred's gone to the post-office, and mamma has gone to sew for Mrs. Reuben Smith; that's why I didn't get out here sooner; I had to see them off. Mamma says,--what do you think?--that I mustn't say Mulvaney to her for a week. I can talk to you, though, can't I?"

"Indeed you may," laughed Mrs. Isaac Turner. "I feel as if I had known the Mulvaneys all my life. Talk about them, of course you may. Is Mrs. Mulvaney a nice looking woman?"

"Dear me, no," laughed Sally, playing with the soapsuds in the dishpan. "She's about as unpretty as any one you ever saw. She's cross as a bear, too, but who wouldn't be? Just 'magine, Mrs. Turner, if you lived in a horrid little pig-pen house, and you had seven acting children and your Mr. Mulvaney was dead, and you had to take in washing? I do wish they could come out in the country. I wish they could live in this very village. Why, Mrs. Turner, they are the most discouraging children you ever saw. There's Hannah and Chinky and Nora and Dora and Mike and Johnnie and Stubbins, and they all look worse'n they act."

"Yes," agreed Mrs. Turner, "I know them every one, Sally, just as well as if I had seen their photographs. Hannah is tall and thin; Chinky is red-headed and freckled; Mike is full of mischief; and Johnnie's always getting into trouble; and Stubbins is a terror. Now why do you want such a family turned loose in our pretty village?"

"Don't laugh, Mrs. Turner, because it is dreadful for children not to have better things. They live down by the railroad tracks and the river, in mud and dirt. I think it is worse for them because they have always lived there, and they don't know anything different. They are not so very bad yet, but you just wait and see what'll happen if they stay there."

"How is it, Sally, that you like such children?"

"Because," was the instant response, "I got acquainted with them. I've discovered that you're pretty sure to like every one if you only get well enough acquainted. I never knew how good Mrs. Mulvaney was until mamma was taken to the hospital, and Mrs. Mulvaney took me and Alfred in. Of course she was cross and everything, but I'll never forget how good she was to us, nor how she cried for joy,--that's what mamma said,--because they had a gay Christmas for once in their lives. She was glad mamma and Alfred and I could come here to live, too; and now I'll tell you something, Mrs. Turner. I'm not the only one that's hoping. This is exactly what Mrs. Mulvaney said when we talked it over. 'We'll put for the country, too, Sally, if we ever get a chance!' So you see, she wants to come."

Nothing more was said about the Mulvaneys for a week, which doesn't mean that Sally forgot them. It happened this way: Alfred brought a letter from the post-office that Saturday morning addressed to Mrs. Elizabeth Brown, and as Mrs. Elizabeth Brown was away all day, the children passed their spare time wondering about its contents. At night their curiosity was satisfied. A farmer's daughter needed the help of a dressmaker for two weeks. Better than that she wrote, "Come as soon as possible, and bring both your children. They can walk to school every day with my brother."

"That lets me out," declared Alfred; "but you may go, Sally, just the same." To show how little he cared, Alfred whistled "Yankee Doodle."

"Perhaps Mr. Turner would give you a vacation," suggested Sally.

"Wouldn't ask him," was the reply. "When they take a feller to work for his board in a grocery store after school hours, and to do chores around the house, he's got to tend to business or lose his job."

Alfred sometimes put on airs. Sally always felt humiliated when her brother talked about working for his board, and how fortunate it was that one of his mother's children happened to be a boy. "What if we'd both been girls?" he used to ask in tones of scorn. Instead of feeling sorry for Alfred, when she and her mother were driven to the Randall farm, Sally envied him because of his importance at home.

"How do you like it out there?" asked the boy at recess a few days later.

"The only thing I don't like," was the reply, "is coming to school with Tom Randall. I am glad he isn't my brother. He's the worst tease I ever saw. Why Alfred, you are a perfect angel beside of him. He made Cornelia Mary cry last night, and she's sixteen."

"Who's Cornelia Mary?"

"She's his sister. He put on one of her new dresses mamma is making, and said he was going to wear it out to milk the cows."

"Did he do it?" inquired Alfred.

"No, his mother made him take it off. He's fourteen and he thinks he knows it all."

"The boys all like him, Sally. If girls weren't so silly they wouldn't have so much trouble."

"You needn't think that bothers me," laughed Sally, "because I want to tell you about the Randalls. They're the nicest people ever, all but Tom. They live in a great big white house with green blinds and wide verandas. It must be lovely in the summer. You ought to see their cows and their horses and their chickens, and when I say chickens I mean everything with feathers; pigeons, ducks, and geese, turkeys, and even guinea hens. Oh, but it's nice. I can't begin to tell you. Cornelia Randall is the sweetest girl you ever saw, too. She told me to call her Cornelia Mary except when I go visiting her school next summer, then I must say 'Miss Randall,' to set the country children a good example."

"Is she going to be a school teacher?"

"Yes, Alfred, and she says she can hardly wait for summer. She's passed her examination and got her certificate, and she's going to teach over in the Hodgkins district. Tom declares he'll visit her school and make speeches to the children. It would be just like him, and she couldn't put him out either, if she tried. Cornelia Mary says sometimes she wishes she was an only child."

"Nice and selfish," suggested Alfred.

"You never lived with Tom Randall," observed Sally. "There he comes now, and don't you dare tell what I told you."

"Won't I though?"

"Oh, no, you won't, Alfred. Wait a minute," she called, "I want to tell you something. I'm still hoping about the Mulvaneys; they would have such a good time in the country!"

SALLY BROWN'S NEW IDEA

The following Saturday Tom Randall heard some news.

"You can't guess the latest!" he shouted, as he ran up the stairs three steps at a time, reaching the door of the sewing-room out of breath, and beaming with smiles.

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