Read Ebook: Little Sunshine's holiday by Craik Dinah Maria Mulock Barry Etheldred B Etheldred Breeze Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 631 lines and 48199 words, and 13 pages

Release date: September 6, 2023

Original publication: Boston: L. C. Page & Company, 1900

LITTLE SUNSHINE'S HOLIDAY

Works of Miss Mulock

Little Sunshine's Holiday The Little Lame Prince Adventures of a Brownie His Little Mother John Halifax, Gentleman

L. C. PAGE AND COMPANY 212 Summer St., Boston, Mass.

LITTLE SUNSHINE'S HOLIDAY

A PICTURE FROM LIFE

BY MISS MULOCK

Illustrated by ETHELDRED B. BARRY

BOSTON L. C. PAGE & COMPANY PUBLISHERS 1900

DEDICATED TO Little Sunshine's Little Friends

PAGE

SUNSHINE SAYS GOOD-BYE TO THE GARDENER AND HIS WIFE 15

SUNSHINE AND FRANKY 40

NELLY AND SUNNY ON THE STEPS 59

"HER LITTLE BARE FEET PATTERING ALONG THE FLOOR" 75

FOUR LITTLE HIGHLAND GIRLS 87

LITTLE SUNSHINE GOES FISHING 101

"ENGAGED IN SINGLE COMBAT" 118

TWO LITTLE CHURCHGOERS 163

CLIMBING THE "MOUNTAIN" 187

TAILPIECE 207

LITTLE SUNSHINE'S HOLIDAY.

While writing this title, I paused, considering whether the little girl to whom it refers would not say of it, as she sometimes does of other things, "You make a mistake." For she is such a very accurate little person. She cannot bear the slightest alteration of a fact. In herself and in other people she must have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. For instance, one day, overhearing her mamma say, "I had my shawl with me," she whispered, "No, mamma, not your shawl; it was your waterproof."

Of course Little Sunshine has a Christian name and surname, like other little girls, but I do not choose to give them. She has neither brother nor sister, and says "she doesn't want any,--she had rather play with papa and mamma." She is not exactly a pretty child, but she has very pretty yellow curls, and is rather proud of "my curls." She has only lately begun to say "I" and "my," generally speaking of herself, baby-fashion, in the third person,--as "Sunny likes that," "Sunny did so-and-so," etc. She always tells everything she has done, and everything she is going to do. If she has come to any trouble--broken a teacup, for instance--and her mamma says, "Oh, I am so sorry! Who did that?" Little Sunshine will creep up, hanging her head and blushing, "Sunny did it; she won't ever do it again." But the idea of denying it would never come into her little head. Everybody has always told the exact truth to her, and so she tells the truth to everybody, and has no notion of there being such a thing as falsehood in the world.

Still, this little girl is not a perfect character. She sometimes flies into a passion, and says, "I won't," in a very silly way,--it is always so silly to be naughty. And sometimes she feels thoroughly naughty,--as we all do occasionally,--and then she says, of her own accord, "Mamma, Sunny had better go into the cupboard" . There she stays, with the door close shut, for a little while; and then comes out again smiling, "Sunny is quite good now." She kisses mamma, and is all right. This is the only punishment she has ever had--or needed, for she never sulks, or does anything underhand or mean or mischievous; and her wildest storm of passion only lasts a few minutes. To see mamma looking sad and grave, or hear her say, "I am so sorry that my little girl is naughty," will make the child good again immediately.

So you have a faint idea of the little person who was to be taken on this long holiday; first in a "puff-puff," then in a boat,--which was to her a most remarkable thing, as she lives in a riverless county, and, except once crossing the Thames, had scarcely ever beheld water. Her mamma had told her, however, of all the wonderful things she was to see on her holiday, and for a week or two past she had been saying to every visitor that came to the house, "Sunny is going to Scotland. Sunny is going in a puff-puff to Scotland. And papa will take her in a boat, and she will catch a big salmon. Would you like to see Sunny catch a big salmon?" For it is the little girl's firm conviction that to see Sunny doing anything must be the greatest possible pleasure to those about her,--as perhaps it is.

Well, the important day arrived. Her mamma was very busy, Little Sunshine helping her,--to "help mamma" being always her grand idea. The amount of work she did, in carrying her mamma's clothes from the drawers to the portmanteau, and carrying them back again; watching her dresses being folded and laid in the trunk, then jumping in after them, smoothing and patting them down, and, lastly, sitting upon them, cannot be told. Every now and then she looked up, "Mamma, isn't Sunny a busy girl?"--which could not be denied.

The packing-up was such a great amusement--to herself, at least--that it was with difficulty she could be torn from it, even to get her dinner, and be dressed for her journey, part of which was to take place that day. At last she was got ready, a good while before anybody else, and then she stood and looked at herself from head to foot in a large mirror, and was very much interested in the sight. Her travelling-dress was a gray waterproof cloak, with a hood and pockets, where she could carry all sorts of things,--her gloves, a biscuit, the head of her dolly , and two or three pebbles, which she daily picked up in the garden, and kept to wash in her bath night and morning, "to make them clean," for she has an extraordinary delight in things being "quite clean." She had on a pair of new boots,--buttoned boots, the first she ever had,--and she was exceedingly proud of them, as well as of her gray felt hat, underneath which was the usual mass of curly yellow hair. She shook it from side to side like a little lion's mane, calling out, "Mamma, look at Sunny's curls! Such a lot of curls!"

When the carriage came to the door, she watched the luggage being put in very gravely. Then all the servants came to say good-bye to her. They were very kind servants, and very fond of Little Sunshine. Even the gardener and his wife looked quite sorry to part with her, but in her excitement and delight the little lady of course did not mind it at all.

"Good-bye! good-bye! I'm going to Scotland," she kept saying, and kissing her hand. "Sunny's going to Scotland in a puff-puff. But she'll come back again, she will."

After which kind promise, meant to cheer them up a little, she insisted on jumping into the carriage "all by her own self,"--she dearly likes doing anything "all my own self,"--and, kissing her hand once more, was driven away with her mamma and her nurse to meet her papa in London.

Having been several times in a "puff-puff," and once in London, she was not a bit frightened at the streets or the crowd. Only in the confusion at Euston Square she held very tight to her mamma's hand, and at last whispered, "Mamma, take her! up in you arms, up in you own arms!"--her phrase when she was almost a baby. And though she is now a big girl, who can walk, and even run, she clung tightly to her mamma's neck, and would not be set down again until transferred to her papa, and taken by him to look at the engine.

Papa and his little girl are both very fond of engines. This was such a large one, newly painted, with its metal-work so clean and shiny, that it was quite a picture. Though sometimes it gave a snort and a puff like a live creature, Sunny was not afraid of it, but sat in her papa's arms watching it, and then walked gravely up and down with him, holding his hand and making all sorts of remarks on the things she saw, which amused him exceedingly. She also informed him of what she was going to do,--how she should jump into the puff-puff, and then jump out again, and sleep in a cottage, in a quite new bed, where Sunny had never slept before. She chattered so fast, and was so delighted at everything about her, that the time went rapidly by; and her papa, who could not come to Scotland for a week yet, was obliged to leave her. When he kissed her, poor Little Sunshine set up a great cry.

"I don't want you to go away. Papa! papa!" Then, bursting into one of her pathetic little furies, "I won't let papa go away! I won't!"

She clung to him so desperately that her little arms had fairly to be untied from round his neck, and it was at least two minutes and a half before she could be comforted.

But when the train began to move, and the carriageful of people to settle down for the journey, Sunny recovered herself, and grew interested in watching them. They were all gentlemen, and as each came in, mamma had suggested that if he objected to a child, he had better choose another carriage; but nobody did. One--who looked like the father of a family--said: "Ma'am, he must be a very selfish kind of man who does object to children,--that is, good children." So mamma earnestly hoped that hers would be a good child.

So she was,--for a long time. There were such interesting things to see out of the window: puff-puffs without end, some moving on the rails, some standing still,--some with a long train behind them, some without. What perplexed and troubled Little Sunshine most was to see the men who kept running across the rails and ducking under the engines. She got quite excited about them.

And even when mamma explained that the man knew what he was about, and was not likely to let himself be run over by any puff-puff, the little girl still looked anxious and unhappy, until the train swept right away into the open country, with fields and trees, and cows and baa-lambs. These last delighted her much. She kept nodding her head and counting them. "There's papa baa-lambs, and mamma baa-lambs, and little baby baa-lambs, just like little Sunny; and they all run about together; and they are so happy."

Everything, indeed, looked as happy as the lambs and the child. It was a bright September day, the trees just beginning to change colour, and the rich midland counties of England--full of farms and pasture-lands, with low hills sloping up to the horizon--looked specially beautiful. But the people in the carriage did not seem to notice anything. They were all gentlemen, as I said, and they had all got their afternoon papers, and were reading hard. Not much wonder, as the newspapers were terribly interesting that day,--the day after the capitulation of Sedan, when the Emperor Louis Napoleon surrendered himself and his army to King William of Prussia. When Little Sunshine has grown a woman, she will understand all about it. But now she only sat looking at the baa-lambs out of the window, and now and then pulling, rather crossly, at the newspaper in her mamma's hand. "I don't want you to read!" In her day, may there never be read such dreadful things as her mamma read in those newspapers!

The gentlemen at last put down theirs, and began to talk together, loudly and fast. Sunshine's mamma listened, now to them, now to her little girl, who asked all sorts of questions, as usual. "What's that? you tell me about that," she is always saying, as she twists her fingers tight in those of her mamma, who answers at once, and exactly, so far as she knows. When she does not know,--and even mammas cannot be expected to understand everything,--she says, plainly, "My little girl, I don't know." And her little girl always believes her, and is satisfied.

Sunshine was growing rather tired now; and the gentlemen kept on talking, and did not take any notice of her, or attempt to amuse her, as strangers generally do, she being such a lively and easily amused child. Her mamma, fearful of her restlessness, struck out a brilliant idea.

Little Sunshine has a cousin Georgy, whom she is very fond of, and who a few days before had presented her with some pears. These pears had but one fault,--they could not be eaten, being as hard as bullets, and as sour as crabs. They tried the little girl's patience exceedingly, but she was very good. She went every morning to look at them as they stood ranged in a row along mamma's window-sill, and kissed them one by one to make them ripe. At last they did ripen, and were gradually eaten,--except one, the biggest and most beautiful of all. "Suppose," mamma suggested, "that we keep it two days more, then it will be quite ripe; mamma will put it in her pocket, and we will eat it in the train half-way to Scotland." Little Sunshine looked disappointed, but she did not cry, nor worry mamma,--who, she knows, never changes her mind when once she says No,--and presently forgot all about it. Until, lo! just as the poor little girl was getting dull and tired, with nothing to do, and nobody to play with, mamma pulled out of her pocket--the identical pear! Such a pear! so large and so pretty,--almost too pretty to eat. The child screamed with delight, and immediately began to make public her felicity.

"That's mamma's pear!" said she, touching the coat-sleeve of the old gentleman next her,--a very grim old gentlemen,--an American, thin and gaunt, with a face not unlike the wolf in Little Red Ridinghood. "That's mamma's pear. Mamma 'membered to bring Sunny that pear!"

"Eh?" said the old gentleman, shaking the little fingers off, not exactly in unkindness, but as if it were a fly that had settled on him and fidgeted him. But Sunny, quite unaccustomed to be shaken off, immediately drew back, shyly and half offended, and did not look at him again.

He went on talking, in a cross and "cantankerous" way, to another gentlemen, with a gray beard,--an Indian officer, just come from Cashmere, which he declared to be the finest country in the world; while the American said angrily "that it was nothing like Virginia." But as neither had been in the other country, they were about as able to judge the matter as most people are when they dispute about a thing. Nevertheless, they discussed the question so violently, that Little Sunshine, who is not used to quarrelling, or seeing people quarrel, opened her blue eyes wide with astonishment.

Now here a confession must be made. The one consolation of life to this little person is the flannel apron upon which her first nurse used to wash her when she was a baby. She takes the two corners of it to stroke her face with one hand, while she sucks the thumb of the other,--and so she lies, meditating with open eyes, till at last she goes to sleep. She is never allowed to have the apron in public, so to-day her mamma was obliged to invent a little "Maymie's apron"--a small square of flannel--to comfort her on the long railway journey. This being produced, though she was a little ashamed, and blushed in her pretty childish way, she turned her back on the gentlemen in the carriage and settled down in deep content, her eyes fixed on mamma's face. Gradually they closed--and the lively little woman lay fast asleep, warm and heavy, in her mamma's arms.

There she might have slept till the journey's end, but for those horrid gentlemen, who began to quarrel so fiercely about French and Prussians, and which had the right of it in this terrible war,--a question which you little folks even when you are great big folks fifty years hence may hardly be able to decide,--that they disturbed the poor child in her happy sleep, and at last she started up, looking round her with frightened eyes, and began to scream violently. She had been so good all the way, so little trouble to anybody, that mamma could not help thinking it served the gentlemen right, and told them, severely, that "if gentlemen did differ, they need not do it so angrily as to waken a child." At which they all looked rather ashamed, and were quiet for the rest of the journey.

It did not last much longer; and again the little girl had the fun of jumping out of a puff-puff and into a carriage. The bright day closed; it was already dusk, and pouring rain, and they had to drive a long way, stop at several places, and see several new people whom Little Sunshine had never seen before. She was getting tired and hungry, but still kept good and did not cry; and when at last she came to the cottage which her mamma had told her about, where lived an old gentleman and lady who had been very kind to mamma, and dear grandmamma, too, for many years, and would be very kind to the little girl, Sunny ran in at once, as merry as possible.

After awhile mamma followed, and lo! there was Little Sunshine, quite at home already, sitting in the middle of the white sheep-skin hearth-rug, having taken half her "things" off, chattering in the most friendly manner, and asking to be lifted up to see "a dear little baby and a mamma," which was a portrait of the old lady's eldest sister as an infant in her mother's arms, about seventy years ago.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet