Bessie at the Sea-Side

"Then we will not call her poor if she does not like it," said Mr. Bradford; "but Mrs. Jones is a kind-hearted woman, if she is a little rough sometimes. She tries very hard to please you. Late last night, I went into her kitchen to speak to Mr. Jones, and there she sat making that rabbit, although she had been hard at work all day, trying to finish her wash, so that she might have the whole of to-day to make cakes and other nice things for your party. Yet this morning when she brought it to you, you did not look at all pleased, and scarcely said, 'Thank you.'"

"Ought I to say I was pleased when I was not, papa?"

"No, certainly not; but you should have been pleased, because she meant to be kind, even if you did not like the thing that she brought. It was not like a lady, it was not like a Christian, to be so ungracious; it was not doing as you would be done by. Last week you hemmed a handkerchief for Grandpapa Duncan. Now you know yourself that, although you took a great deal of pains, the hem was rather crooked and some of the stitches quite long, yet grandpapa was more pleased with that one than with the whole dozen which Aunt Helen hemmed, and which were beautifully done, because he knew that you had done the best you could, and that it was a great effort for you. It was not the work, but the wish to do something for him, that pleased him. Now, if grandpa had frowned, and looked at the handkerchief as if it were scarcely worth notice, and grumbled something that hardly sounded like 'Thank you,' how would you have felt?"

"I'd have cried," said Maggie, "and wished I hadn't done it for him."

"Suppose he had told other people that he didn't like work done in that way, and was not going to be grateful for it?"

Maggie hung her head, and looked ashamed. She saw now how unkindly she had felt and acted towards Mrs. Jones.

Mr. Bradford went on: "I think Mrs. Jones was hurt this morning, Maggie. Now, I am sure you did not mean to vex her; did you?"

"No, papa, indeed, I did not. What can I do? I don't think I ought to tell Mrs. Jones that I think the rabbit is pretty when I don't."

"No, of course you must not. Truth before all things. But you might play with it a little, and not put it out of sight, as you did this morning. Perhaps, too, you may find a chance to thank her in a pleasanter way than you did before."

"I'll make a chance," said Maggie.

When they reached the house, Maggie ran up to the nursery. "Nursey," she said, "where is my rabbit; did baby have it?"

"No, indeed," said nurse; "I wasn't going to give it to baby, to hurt Mrs. Jones' feelings, – not while we're here, at least. When we go to town, then my pet may have it, if you don't want it; and a nice plaything it will make for her then. It's up there on the mantel-shelf."

"Please give it to me," said Maggie; "I'm going to cure Mrs. Jones' feelings."

Nurse handed it to her, and she ran down stairs with it. She took her doll out of the little wagon, put the rabbit in its place, and tucked the affghan all round it. Then she ran into the kitchen, pulling the wagon after her.

"Now, come," said Mrs. Jones, the moment she saw her, "I don't want any children here! I've got my hands full; just be off."

"Oh, but, Mrs. Jones," said Maggie, a little frightened, "I only want you to look at my rabbit taking a ride in the wagon. Don't he look cunning? I think you were very kind to make him for me."

"Well, do you know?" said Mrs. Jones. "I declare I thought you didn't care nothing about it, – and me sitting up late last night to make it. I was a little put out when you seemed to take it so cool like, and I thought you were stuck up with all the handsome presents you'd been getting. That wasn't nothing alongside of them, to be sure; but it was the best I could do."

"And you were very kind to make it for me, Mrs. Jones. I am very much obliged to you. No, Susie, you can't have it. Maybe you'd make it dirty, and I'm going to keep it till I'm thirteen; then I'll let baby have it, when she's big enough to take care of it."

"Oh, it will be in the ash-barrel long before that," said Mrs. Jones. "Here's a cake for you and one for Bessie."

"No, thank you," said Maggie; "mamma said we musn't eat any cakes or candies this morning, because we'll want some to-night."

"That's a good girl to mind so nice," said Mrs. Jones; "and your ma's a real lady, and she's bringing you up to be ladies too."

Maggie ran off to the parlor, glad that she had made friends with Mrs. Jones. She found her mother and Aunt Helen and Aunt Annie all making mottoes. They had sheets of bright-colored tissue paper, which they cut into small squares, fringed the ends with sharp scissors, and then rolled up a sugar-plum in each. They allowed Maggie and Bessie to help, by handing the sugar-plums, and the little girls thought it a very pleasant business. And once in a while mamma popped a sugar-plum into one of the two little mouths, instead of wrapping it in the paper; and this they thought a capital plan. Then came a grand frolic in the barn with father and Uncle John and the boys, Tom and Walter being of the party, until Mrs. Bradford called them in, and said Bessie must rest a while, or she would be quite tired out before afternoon. So, taking Bessie on his knee, Grandpapa Duncan read to them out of a new book he had given Maggie that morning. After the early dinner, the dolls, old and new, had to be dressed, and then they were dressed themselves, and ready for their little visitors.

The piazza and small garden and barn seemed fairly swarming with children that afternoon. And such happy children too! Every one was good-natured, ready to please and to be pleased. And, indeed, they would have been very ungrateful if they had not been; for a great deal of pains was taken to amuse and make them happy. Even Mamie Stone was not heard to fret once.

"I do wish I had an Uncle John!" said Mamie, as she sat down to rest on the low porch step, with Bessie and one or two more of the smaller children, and watched Mr. Duncan, as he arranged the others for some new game, keeping them laughing all the time with his merry jokes, – "I do wish I had an Uncle John!"

"You have an Uncle Robert," said Bessie.

"Pooh! he's no good," said Mamie. "He's not nice and kind and funny, like your Uncle John. He's as cross as anything, and he wont let us make a bit of noise when he's in the room. He says children are pests; and when papa laughed, and asked him if he said that because he remembered what a pest he was when he was a child, he looked mad, and said no; children were better behaved when he was a boy."

"I don't think he's very better behaved to talk so," said Bessie, gravely.

"No, he's not," said Mamie. "He's awful. He's not a bit like Mr. Duncan. And I like your Aunt Annie too. She plays so nice, just as if she were a little girl herself; and she helps everybody if they don't know how, or fall down, or anything."

"Are we not having a real nice time, Bessie?" asked Gracie Howard.

"Yes," said Bessie; "but I do wish my soldier and Mrs. Yush could come to our party."

"What makes you care so much about Colonel Rush?" asked Gracie. "He's such a big man."

"He isn't any bigger than my father," said Bessie; "and I love my father dearly, dearly. We can love people just as much if they are big."

"Oh, I didn't mean that," said Gracie; "I meant he's so old. You'd have to love your father, even if you didn't want to, because he is your father, and he takes care of you. But Colonel Rush isn't anything of yours."

"He is," said Bessie; "he is my own soldier, and my great, great friend; and he loves me too."

"I know it," said Gracie. "Mamma says it is strange to see a grown man so fond of a little child who doesn't belong to him."

"I think it is very good of him to love me so much," said Bessie, "and I do wish he was here. I want him very much."

"And so do I," said Maggie, who had come to see why Bessie was not playing; "but we can't have him, 'cause he can't walk up this bank, and the carriage can't come here, either. I just wish there wasn't any bank."

"Why, what is the matter?" asked Uncle John. "Here is the queen of the day looking as if her cup of happiness was not quite full. What is it, Maggie?"

"We want the colonel," said Maggie.

"Why, you disconsolate little monkey! Are there not enough grown people here already, making children of themselves for your amusement, but you must want the colonel too? If he was here, he could not play with you, poor fellow!"

"He could sit still and look at us," said Maggie.

"And we could look at him," said Bessie. "We are very fond of him, Uncle John."

"I know you are," said Uncle John, "and so you should be, for he is very fond of you, and does enough to please you. But I am very fond of you too, and I am going to make a fox of myself, to please you. So all hands must come for a game of fox and chickens before supper."

Away they all went to join the game. Uncle John was the fox, and Mrs. Bradford and Aunt Annie the hens, and Aunt Helen and papa were chickens with the little ones; while grandpa and grandma and Mrs. Jones sat on the piazza, each with a baby on her knee. The fox was such a nimble fellow, the mother hens had hard work to keep their broods together, and had to send them scattering home very often. It was a grand frolic, and the grown people enjoyed it almost as much as the children.

Even Toby seemed to forget himself for a moment or two; and once, when the chickens were all flying over the grass, screaming and laughing, he sprang up from his post on the porch, where he had been quietly watching them, and came bounding down among them with a joyous bark, and seized hold of the fox by the coat tails, just as he pounced on Harry and Walter, as if he thought they had need of his help. How the children laughed! But after that, Toby seemed to be quite ashamed of himself, and walked back to his old seat with the most solemn air possible, as if he meant to say, —

"If you thought it was this respectable dog who was playing with you just now, you were mistaken. It must have been some foolish little puppy, who did not know any better." And not even Bessie could coax him to play any more.

But at last fox, hen, and chickens were all called to supper, and went in together as peaceably as possible. The children were all placed round the room, some of them on the drollest kind of seats, which Mr. Jones had contrived for the occasion. Almost all of them were so low that every child could hold its plate on its lap, for there was not half room enough round the table.

They were scarcely arranged when a curious sound was heard outside, like a tapping on the piazza.

"That sounds just like my soldier's crutches," said Bessie. "But then it couldn't be, because he never could get up the bank."

But it seemed that the colonel could get up the bank, for as Bessie said this, she turned, and there he stood at the door, with Mrs. Rush at his side, both looking very smiling.

"Oh, it is, it is!" said Bessie, her whole face full of delight. "Oh, Maggie, he did come! he did get up! Oh, I'm perferly glad."

And indeed she seemed so. It was pretty to see her as she stood by the colonel, looking up at him with her eyes so full of love and pleasure, and a bright color in her cheeks; while Maggie, almost as much delighted, ran to the heavy arm-chair in which Grandpapa Duncan usually sat, and began tugging and shoving at it with all her might.

"What do you want to do, Maggie?" asked Tom Norris, as he saw her red in the face, and all out of breath.

"I want to take it to the door, so that he need not walk another step. Please help me, Tom," said Maggie, looking at the colonel who stood leaning on his crutches, and shaking hands with all the friends who were so glad to see him.

"Never mind, little woman," said he; "I shall reach the chair with far less trouble than you can bring it to me, and I can go to it quite well. I could not have come up this bank of yours, if I had not been 'nice and spry,' as Mrs. Jones says. I told you you should have the answer to your invitation to-night; did I not?"

"Oh, yes; but why didn't you tell us you were coming?"

"Because I did not know myself that I should be able to when the time came; and I was vain enough to think you and Bessie would be disappointed if I promised and did not come after all. I knew I should be disappointed myself; so I thought I would say nothing till I was on the spot. Would you have liked it better if I had sent you a 'refuse'?"

"Oh, no, sir!" said Maggie. "How can you talk so?"

"You gave us the best answer in the world," said Bessie.

Certainly the colonel had no reason to think that all, both old and young, were not glad to see him. As for Maggie, she could not rest until she had done something for him. As soon as she had seen him seated in the great chair, she rushed off, and was presently heard coming down stairs with something thump, thumping after her, and in a moment there she was at the door dragging two pillows, one in each hand. These she insisted on squeezing behind the colonel's back, and though he would have been more comfortable without them, he allowed her to do it, as she had taken so much trouble to bring them, and smiled and thanked her; so she was quite sure she had made him perfectly easy. Neither she nor Bessie would eat anything till he had taken or refused everything that was on the table, and he said he was fairly in the way to be killed with kindness.

After supper Fred whispered to his father, and receiving his permission, proposed "three cheers for Bessie's soldier, Colonel Rush." The three cheers were given with a hearty good-will, and the room rang again and again.

"Three cheers for all our soldiers," said Harry; and these were given.

Then Walter Stone cried, "Three cheers for our Maggie, the queen of the day," and again all the boys and girls shouted at the top of their voices.

But Maggie did not like this at all. She hung her head, and colored all over face, neck, and shoulders, then calling out in a vexed, distressed tone, "I don't care," ran to her mother, and buried her face in her lap.

"Poor Maggie! That was almost too much, was it not?" said her mother, as she lifted her up and seated her on her knee.

"Oh, mamma, it was dreadful!" said Maggie, almost crying, and hiding her face on her mother's shoulder. "How could they?"

"Never mind, dear; they only did it out of compliment to you, and they thought you would be pleased."

"But I am not, mamma. I would rather have a discompliment."

Maggie's trouble was forgotten when Uncle John jumped up and began a droll speech, which made all the children laugh, and in a few moments she was as merry as ever again.

"So this has been a happy day?" said the colonel, looking down at Bessie, who was sitting close beside him, as she had done ever since he came in.

"Oh, yes," said Bessie; "it is the best birthday we have ever had."

"We?" said the colonel. "It is not your birthday, too; is it?"

"No," said Bessie; "but that's no difference. I like Maggie's birthday just as much as mine, only I like hers better, 'cause I can give her a present."

"Does she not give you a present on your birthday?"

"Yes; but I like to give her one better than to have her give me one; and it was such a great part of the happiness 'cause you came to-night."

"Bless your loving little heart!" said the colonel, looking very much pleased.

"You know, even if you did not give me that beautiful doll, it would be 'most the same; for Maggie would let me call hers half mine; but I am very glad you did give it to me. Oh, I'm very satisfied of this day."

"Wasn't this a nice day?" Bessie said to her sister, when their little friends were gone, and they were snug in bed.

"Yes, lovely," said Maggie, "only except the boys hollering about me. I never heard of such a thing, – to go and holler about a girl, and make her feel all red! I think, if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't know what to do 'cause of my gladness."