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

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Ebook has 631 lines and 48199 words, and 13 pages

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.

And what do you think happened next? Sunny actually sat up to supper, which she had never done in all her life before,--supper by candle-light: a mouthful of fowl, and a good many mouthfuls of delicious cream, poured, with a tiny bit of jam in the middle of it, into her saucer. And she made a large piece of dry toast into "fishes," and swam them in her mamma's tea, and then fished them out with a teaspoon, and ate them up. Altogether it was a wonderful meal and left her almost too wide awake to go to bed, if she had not had the delight of sleeping in her mamma's room instead of a nursery, and being bathed, instead of in her own proper bath, in a washing-tub!

This washing-tub was charming. She eyed it doubtfully, she walked around it, she peered over it; at last she slowly got into it.

"Come and see me in my bath; come and see Sunny in her bath," cried she, inviting all the family, half of whom accepted the invitation. Mamma heard such shouts of laughing, with her little girl's laugh clearer than all, that she was obliged to go up-stairs to see what was the matter. There was Sunshine frolicking about and splashing like a large fish in the tub, the maids and mistresses standing round, exceedingly amused at their new plaything, the little "water baby."

But at last the day's excitement was over, and Sunny lay in her white nightgown, cuddled up like a round ball in her mamma's lap, sucking her Maymie's apron, and listening to the adventures of Tommy Tinker. Tommy Tinker is a young gentleman about whom a story, "a quite new story, which Sunny never heard before," has to be told every night. Mamma had done this for two months, till Tommy, his donkey, his father, John Tinker, who went about the country crying "Pots and kettles to mend," his schoolfellow, Jack, and his playfellow, Mary, were familiar characters, and had gone through so much that mamma was often puzzled as to what should happen to them next; this night especially, when she herself was rather tired, but fortunately the little girl grew sleepy very soon.

So she said her short prayers, ending with "God make Sunny a good little girl" , curled down in the beautiful large strange bed,--such a change from her little crib at home,--and was fast asleep in no time.

Thus ended the first day of Little Sunshine's Holiday.

Next morning Little Sunshine was awake very early, sitting upright in bed, and trying to poke open her mamma's eyes; then she looked about her in the new room with the greatest curiosity.

"There's my tub! There's Sunny's tub! I want to go into my tub again!" she suddenly cried, with a shout of delight, and insisted on pattering over to it on her bare feet, and swimming all sorts of things in it,--a comb, a brush, biscuits, the soap-dish and soap, and a large penny, which she had found. These kept her amused till she was ready to be dressed, after which she went independently down-stairs, where her mamma found her, as before, sitting on the white rug, and conversing cheerfully with the old gentleman and lady, and the rest of the family.

After breakfast she was taken into the garden. It was a very nice garden, with lots of apple-trees in it, and many apples had fallen to the ground. Sunshine picked them up and brought them in her pinafore, to ask mamma if she might eat them,--for she never eats anything without saying, "May I?" and when it is given to her she always says, "Thank you."

Then she went back into the garden again, and saw no end of curious things. Everybody was so kind to her, and petted her as if there had never been a child in the house before, which certainly there had not for a great many years. She and her mamma would willingly have stayed ever so much longer in the dear little cottage, but there was another house in Scotland, where were waiting Sunshine's two aunties; not real aunties, for she has none, nor uncles neither; but she is a child so well loved, that she has heaps of adopted aunts and uncles, too. These,--Auntie Weirie and Auntie Maggie,--with other kind friends, expected her without fail that very night.

So Sunny was obliged to say good-bye, and start again, which she did on her own two little feet, for the fly forgot to come; and her mamma, and her Lizzie, and two more kind people, had to make a rush of more than a mile, or they would have missed the train. If papa, or anybody at home, had seen them,--half walking, and half running, and carrying the little girl by turns, or making her run between them, till she said, mournfully, "Sunny can't run, Sunny is so tired!"--how sorry they would have been!

And when at the station she lost her mamma, who was busy about luggage, poor Sunny's troubles seemed great indeed. She screamed until mamma heard her ever so far off, and when she caught sight of her again, she clung around her neck in the most frantic way. "I thought you was lost; I thought you was lost."

Well, she parted from her friends, quite cheerfully of course,--she never cries after anybody but her mamma and papa,--and soon made acquaintance with her fellow travellers, who this time were chiefly ladies. It being nearly one o'clock, two of them took a beautiful basket of lunch: sandwiches, and cakes, and grapes. Little Sunshine watched it with grave composure until she saw the grapes, which were very fine. Then she could not help whispering to her mamma, very softly, "Sunny likes grapes."

"Hush!" said mamma, also in a whisper. "They are not ours, so we can't have them,"--an answer which always satisfies this little girl. She said no more. But perhaps the young lady who was eating the grapes saw the silent, wistful eyes, for she picked off the most beautiful half of the bunch and handed it over. "Thank you," said Sunny, in the politest way. "Look, mamma! grapes!--shall I give you one?" And the delight of eating them, and feeding mamma with them, "like a little bird," altogether comforted her for the troubles with which she began her journey.

Then she grew conversational, and informed everybody that Sunny was going to Scotland, to a place where she had never been before, and that she was to row in a boat and catch big salmon,--which no doubt interested them much. She herself was so interested in everything she saw, that it was impossible not to share her enjoyment. She sat or stood at the carriage window and watched the view. It was quite different from anything she had been used to. Sunny lives in a very pretty but rather level country, full of woods and lanes, and hedges and fields; but she had never seen a hill or a river, or indeed any sort of water bigger than a horse-pond. Mamma had sometimes shown her pictures of mountains and lakes, but doubted if the child had taken it in, and was therefore quite surprised when she called out, all of a sudden, "There's a mountain!"

And a mountain it really was,--one of those Westmoreland hills, bleak and bare, which gradually rise up before travellers' eyes on the North journey, a foretaste of all the beautiful things that are coming. Mamma, delighted, held up her little girl to look at it,--the first mountain Sunny ever saw,--with its long, smooth slopes, and the sheep feeding on them, dotted here and there like white stones, or moving about like walking daisies.

Little Sunshine was greatly charmed with the "baa-lambs." She had seen plenty this spring,--white baa-lambs and black baa-lambs, and white baa-lambs with black faces,--but never so many at a time. And they skipped about in such a lively way, and stood so funnily in steep places, with their four little legs all screwed up together, looking at the train as it passed, that she grew quite excited, and wanted to jump out and play with them.

To quiet her, mamma told her a story about the mountains, how curious they looked in winter, all covered with snow; and how the lambs were sometimes lost in the snow, and the shepherds went out to find them, and carried them home in their arms, and warmed them by the fireside and fed them, until they opened their eyes, and stretched their little frozen legs, and began to run about the floor.

Little Sunshine listened, with her wide blue eyes fixed on the mountain, and then upon her mamma's face, never saying a word, till at length she burst out quite breathless, for she does not yet know words enough to get out her thoughts, with:

"I want a little baa-lamb. No,"--she stopped and corrected herself,--"I want two little baa-lambs. I would go and fetch them in out of the snow, and carry them in my little arms, and lay them on Maymie's apron by my nursery fire, and warm them, and make them quite well again. And the two dear little baa-lambs would play about together--so pretty."

It was a long speech,--the longest she had ever made all at once,--and the little girl's eyes sparkled and her cheeks grew hot, with the difficulty she had in getting it out, so that mamma might understand. But mamma understands a good deal. Only it was less easy to explain to Sunny that she could neither have a lamb to play with, nor go out on the mountain to fetch it. However, mamma promised that if ever a little lamb were lost in the snow near her own house, and her gardener were to find it, he should be allowed to bring it in, and Sunny should make it warm by the fire and be kind to it, until it was quite well again.

But still the child went back now and then to the matter in a melancholy voice. "I don't like a dear little baa-lamb to be lost in the snow. I want a little baa-lamb in my nursery. I would cuddle it and take such care of it" . "Mamma, some day may Sunny have a little baa-lamb to take care of?"

Mamma promised; for she knew well that if Sunny grows up to be a woman, with the same instinct of protection that she has now, God may send her many of His forlorn "lambs" to take care of.

Presently the baa-lambs were forgotten in a new sight,--a stream; a real, flowing, tumbling stream,--which ran alongside of the railway for ever so far. It jumped over rocks, and made itself into white foamy whirlpools; it looked so very much alive, and so unlike any water that Sunny had ever seen before, that she was quite astonished.

"What's that? What's that?" she kept saying; and at last, struck with a sudden idea, "Is it Scotland?"

What her notion of Scotland was,--whether a place, or a person, or a thing,--her mamma could not make out, but the name was firmly fixed in her mind, and she recurred to it constantly. All the long, weary journey, lasting till long after her proper bedtime, she never cried or fretted, or worried anybody, but amused herself without ceasing at what she saw. She ate her dinner merrily--"such a funny dinner,--no plates, no forks, no table-cloth"--and her tea,--milk drank out of a horn cup, instead of "great-grandpapa's mug, which he had when he was a little boy,"--which she used when at home.

As the day closed in, she grew tired of looking out of the window, snuggled up in her mamma's arms, and, turning her back upon the people in the carriage, whispered, blushing very much: "Maymie's apron--Sunny wants the little Maymie's apron;" and lay sucking it meditatively, till she dropped asleep.

She was asleep when the train reached Scotland. She did not see the stars coming out over the Grampian Hills, nor the beautiful fires near Gartsherrie--that ring of iron furnaces, blazing fiercely into the night--which are such a wonderful sight to behold. And she only woke up in time to have her hat and cloak put on, and be told that she was really in Scotland, and would see her aunties in a minute more. And, sure enough, in the midst of the bustle and confusion, there was Auntie Weirie's bright face at the carriage-door, with her arms stretched out to receive the sleepy little traveller.

Four or five miles were yet to be accomplished, but it was in a comfortable carriage, dark and quiet.

The little girl's tongue was altogether silent,--but she was not asleep, for all of a sudden she burst out, as if she had been thinking over the matter for a long time, "Mamma, you forgot the tickets."

Everybody laughed; and mamma explained to her most accurate little daughter that she had given up the tickets while Sunny was asleep. Auntie Weirie forboded merrily how Sunny would "keep mamma in order" by and by.

Very sleepy and tired the poor child was; but, except one entreaty for "a little drop of milk,"--which somehow was got at,--she made no complaint, and never once cried until the carriage stopped at the house-door.

Oh, such a door and such a house! Quite a fairy palace! And there, standing waiting, was a pretty lady,--not unlike a fairy lady,--who took Little Sunshine in her arms and carried her off, unresisting, to a beautiful drawing-room, where, in the great tall mirrors, she could see herself everywhere at full length.

What a funny figure she was, trotting about and examining everything, as she always does on entering a strange room! Her little waterproof cloak made her look as broad as she was long; and when she tossed off her hat, her curls tumbled about in disorder, and her face and hands were so dirty that mamma was quite ashamed. But nobody minded it, and everybody welcomed her, and the pretty lady carried her off again up-stairs into the most charming extempore nursery, next to her mamma's room, where she could run in and out, and be as happy as a queen.

She was as happy as a queen, when she woke up next morning to all the wonders of the house. First there was a poll-parrot, who could say not only, "Pretty Poll!" but a great many other words: could bark like a dog, grunt like a pig, and do all sorts of wonderful things. He lived chiefly in the butler's pantry, but was brought out on occasion for the amusement of visitors. Sunny was taken to see him directly; and there she stood, watching him intently, laughing sometimes in her sudden, ecstatic way, with her head thrown back, and her little nose all crumpled up, till, being only a button of a nose at best, it nearly disappeared altogether.

And then, in the breakfast-room there were two dogs,--Jack, a young rough Scotch terrier, and Bob, a smooth terrier, very ugly and old. Now Sunny's dog at home, Rose, who was a puppy when she was a baby, so that the two were brought up together, is the gentlest creature imaginable. She will let Sunny roll over her, and pull her paws and tail, and even put her little fat hand into her mouth, without growling or biting. But these strange dogs were not used to children. Sunny tried to make friends with them, as she tries to do with every live creature she sees; even crying one day because she could not manage to kiss a spider, it ran away so fast. But Bob and Jack did not understand her affection at all. When she stroked and patted them, and vainly tried to carry them in her arms, by the legs, head, tail, or anywhere she could catch hold of, they escaped away, scampering off as fast as they could. The little girl looked after them with mournful eyes; it was hard to see them frolicking about, and not taking the least notice of her.

But very soon somebody much better than a little dog began to notice her,--a kind boy named Franky, who, though he was a schoolboy, home for the holidays, did not think it in the least beneath his dignity to be good to a little girl. She sat beside him at prayers, during which time she watched him carefully, and evidently made up her mind that he was a nice person, and one to be played with. So when he began playing with her, she responded eagerly, and they were soon the best of friends.

Presently Franky had to leave her and go with his big brother down to the bottom of a coal mine, about which he had told such wonderful stories, that Little Sunshine, had she been bigger, would certainly have liked to go too. "You jump into a basket, and are let down, down, several hundred feet, till you touch the bottom, and then you find a new world underground: long passages, so narrow that you cannot stand upright, and loftier rooms between, and men working--as black as the coal themselves--with lights in their caps. Also horses, dragging trucks full of coal,--horses that have never seen the daylight since they were taken down the pit, perhaps seven or ten years ago, and will never see daylight again as long as they live. Yet they live happily, are kindly treated, and have comfortable stables, all in the dark of the coal mine,--and no doubt are quite as content as the horses that work in the outside world, high above their heads."

Sunshine heard all this. I cannot say that she understood it, being such a very little girl, you know; but whenever Franky opened his lips she watched him with intense admiration, and when he was gone she looked quite sad. However, she soon found another friend in the pretty lady, Franky's mamma. Her own mamma was obliged to go out directly after breakfast, so this other mamma took Sunny under her especial protection, and showed her all about the house. First, they visited the parrot, who went through all his performances over again. Then they proceeded up-stairs to what used to be the nursery, only the little girls had grown into big girls, and were now far away at school. But their mamma showed Sunny their old toy-cupboard, where were arranged, in beautiful order, playthings so lovely that it was utterly impossible such very tiny fingers could safely be trusted with them.

Now Sunny has had a good many dolls,--wooden dolls, gutta-percha dolls, dolls made of linen with faces of wax,--but none of them had ever lasted, entire, for more than twenty-four hours. They always met with some misfortune or other,--lost a leg or an arm; their heads dropped off, and the sawdust ran out of their bodies, leaving them mere empty bits of calico, not dolls at all. The wrecks she had left behind her at home--bodies without heads, heads without bodies, arms and legs sewed upon bodies that did not belong to them, or strewed about separately in all directions--would have been melancholy to think of, only that she loved them quite as well in that dismembered condition as when they were new.

But this was a dolly,--such a dolly as Sunny had never had before. Perfectly whole, with a pretty waxen face, a nose, and two eyes; also hair, real hair that could be combed. This she at once proceeded to do with her mamma's comb, just as her Lizzie did her own hair every morning, until the comb became full of long flaxen hairs--certainly not mamma's--and there grew a large bald place on the top of dolly's head, which Sunny did not understand at all. Thereupon her Lizzie came to the rescue, and proposed tying up the poor remnant of curls with a blue ribbon, and dressing dolly, whose clothes took off and on beautifully, in her out-of-doors dress, so that Sunshine might take her a walk, in the garden.

Lizzie is a very ingenious person in mending and dressing dollies, and has also the gift of unlimited patience with her charge; so the toilet went off very well, and soon both Sunshine and her doll were ready to go out with Franky's mamma and see the cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and all the wonders of the outside establishment, which was a very large one.

Indeed, the pretty lady showed her so many curious things, and played with her so much, that when, just before dark, her own mamma came back, and saw a little roly-poly figure, hugging a large doll, running as fast as ever it could along the gravel walk to meet her, she felt convinced that the first day in Scotland had been a most delightful one, altogether perfect in its way. So much so that, when put to bed, Sunny again forgot Tommy Tinker. She was chattering so much of all she had seen, that it was not until the last minute that she remembered to ask for a "story."

There was no story in mamma's head to-night. Instead, she told something really true, which had happened in the street near the house where she had spent the day:

A poor little boy, just come out of school, was standing on the top of the school-door steps, with his books in his hand. Suddenly a horse that was passing took fright, rushed up the steps, and knocked the boy down. He fell several feet, and a huge stone fell after, just on the top of him--and--and--

Mamma stopped. She could not tell any more of the pitiful story. Her child's eyes were fixed upon her face, which Little Sunny reads sometimes as plain as any book.

"Mamma, was the poor little boy hurt?"

"Yes, my darling."

"Very much hurt?"

"Very much, indeed."

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