Tell Me a Story

Chapter Five.

Mary Ann Jolly

They say that the world – and of course that means the people in it – has changed very much in the last half century or so. I daresay in some ways this is true, but it is not in all. There are some ways in which I hope and think people will never change much. Hearts will never change, I hope – good, kind hearts who love and trust each other I mean; and little children, they surely will always be found the same, – simple and faithful, happy and honest; why, the very word childlike would cease to have any meaning were the natures it describes to alter.

Looking back over more than fifty years to a child life then, far away from here, flowing peacefully on, I recognise the same nature, the same innocent, unsuspicious enjoyment, the same quaint, so-called “old-fashioned” ways that now-a-days I find in the children growing up about me. The little ones of to-day enjoy a shorter childhood, there is more haste to hurry them forward in the race – we would almost seem to begrudge them their playtime – but that I think is the only real difference. My darlings are children after all; they love the sunshine and the flowers, mud-pies and mischief, dolls and story-books, as fervently as ever. And long may they do so!

My child of fifty years ago was in all essentials a real child. Yet again, in some particulars, she was exceptional, and exceptionally placed. She had never travelled fifty miles from her home, and that home was far away in the country, in Scotland. And a Scottish country home in those days was far removed from the bustle and turmoil and excitement of the great haunts of men. Am I getting beyond you, children, dear? Am I using words and thinking thoughts you can scarcely follow? Well, I won’t forget again. I will tell you my simple story in simple words.

This long-ago little girl was named Janet. She was the youngest of several brothers and sisters, some of whom, when she was born even, were already out in the world. They were, on the whole, a happy, united family; they had their troubles, and disagreements perhaps too, sometimes, but in one thing they all joined, and that was in loving and petting little Janet. How well she remembers even now, all across the long half century, how the big brothers would dispute as to which of them should carry her in her flowered chintz dressing-gown, perched like a tiny queen on their shoulders, to father’s and mother’s room to say good-morning; how on Hallowe’en the rosiest apples and finest nuts were for “wee Janet;” how the big sisters would work for hours at her dolls’ clothes; how, dearest memory of all, the kind, often careworn, studious father would read aloud to her, hour after hour, as she lay on the hearth-rug, coiled up at his feet.

For little Janet could not read much to herself. She was not blind, but her sight was imperfect, and unless the greatest care had been taken she might, by the time she grew up, have lost it altogether. To look at her you would not have known there was anything wrong with her blue eyes; the injury was the result of an accident in her infancy, by which one of the delicate sight nerves had been hurt, though not so as to prevent the hope of cure. But for several years she was hardly allowed to use her eyes at all. She used to wear a shade whenever she was in a bright light, and she was forbidden to read, or to sew, or to do anything which called for much seeing. How she learnt to read I do not know – I do not think she could have told you herself – but still it is certain that she did learn; perhaps her kind father taught her this, and many more things than either he or she suspected in the long hours she used to lie by his study fire, sometimes talking to him in the intervals of his writing, sometimes listening with intense eagerness to the legends and ballads his heart delighted in, sometimes only making stories to herself as she sat on the hearth-rug playing with her dolls.

There are many quaint little stories of this long-ago maiden that you would like to hear, I think. One comes back to my mind as I write. It is about a mysterious holly bush in the garden of Janet’s home, which one year took it into its head to grow all on one side, in the queerest way you ever saw. This holly bush stood in a rather conspicuous position, just outside the breakfast-room window, and Janet’s father was struck by the peculiar crookedness which afflicted it, and one morning he went out to examine it more closely. He soon found the reason – the main branch had been stunted by half an orange skin, which had been fitted upon it most neatly and closely, like a cap, just where it was sprouting most vigorously. Janet’s father was greatly surprised. “Dear me, dear me,” he exclaimed as he came in; “what a curious thing. How could this ever have got on to the holly bush? An old orange skin, you see,” he went on, holding it up to the assembled family party. Little Janet was there, in her usual place by her father’s chair.

“Was it on the robin’s bush, father?” she asked.

“The robin’s bush, Janet? What do you mean?”

“The bush the wee robin perches on when he comes to sing in the morning,” she answered readily. “A long, long time ago, I tied an orange skin on, to make a soft place for the dear robin’s feet. The bush was so prickly, I could not bear to see him stand upon it.”

And to this day the crooked holly bush tells of the little child’s tenderness.

Then there is another old story of Janet, how, once being sorely troubled with toothache, and anxious to bear it uncomplainingly “like a woman,” she was found, after being searched for everywhere fast asleep in the “byre,” her little cheek pillowed on the soft skin of a few days’ old calf. “Its breath was so sweet, and it felt so soft and warm, it seemed to take the ache away,” she said.

And another old memory of little Janet on a visit at an uncle’s, put to sleep in a room alone, and feeling frightened by a sudden gale of wind that rose in the night, howling among the trees and sweeping down the hills. Poor little Janet! It seemed to her she was far, far away from everybody, and the wind, as it were, took mortal form and voice, and threatened her, till she could bear it no longer. Up she got, all in the dark, and wandered away down the stairs and passages of the rambling old house, till at last a faint glimmer of light led her to a modest little room in the neighbourhood of the kitchen, where old Jamie, the faithful serving-man, who had seen pass away more than one generation of the family he was devoted to, was sitting up reading his Bible before going to bed. How well Janet remembers it even now! The old man’s start of surprise at the unexpected apparition of wee missy, how he took her on his knee and turned over the pages of “the Book,” to read to her words of gentle comfort, even for a little child’s alarm; how Jesus hushed the winds and waves, and bade them be still; how not a hair of the head of even tiny Janet could be injured without the Father’s knowledge; how she had indeed no reason to fear; till, soothed and reassured, the child let the good old man lead her back to bed again, where she slept soundly till morning.

But all this time I am very long of introducing to you, children, the real heroine of this story – not Janet, but who then? Janet’s dearest and most tenderly prized doll – “Mary Ann Jolly.”

She was one of several, but the best beloved of all, though why it would have been difficult to say. She was certainly not pretty; indeed, to tell the truth, I fear I must own that she was decidedly ugly And an ugly doll in those days was an ugly doll, my dears. For whether little girls have altered much or not since the days of Janet’s childhood, there can be no two opinions about dolls; they have altered tremendously, and undoubtedly for the better. There were what people thought very pretty dolls then, and Janet possessed two or three of these. There was “Lady Lucy Manners,” an elegant blonde, with flaxen ringlets and pink kid hands and arms; there was “Master Ronald,” a gallant sailor laddie, with crisp black curls and goggle bead eyes; there were two or three others – Arabellas or Clarissas, I cannot tell you their exact names; on the whole, for that time, Janet had a goodly array of dolls. But still, dearest of all was Mary Ann Jolly. I think her faithfulness, her thorough reliableness, must have been her charm; she never melted, wept tears of wax – that is to say, to the detriment of her complexion, when placed too near the nursery fire. She never broke an artery and collapsed through loss of sawdust. These weaknesses were not at all in her way, for she was of wood, wooden. Her features were oil-painted on her face, like the figure-head of a ship, and would stand washing. Her hair was a good honest black-silk wig, with sewn-on curls, and the whole affair could be removed at pleasure; but oh, my dear children, she was ugly. Where she had come from originally I cannot say. I feel almost sure it was from no authorised doll manufactory. I rather think she was home-made to some extent, and I consider it highly probable that her beautiful features were the production of the village painter. But none of these trifling details are of consequence; wherever she had come from, whatever her origin, she was herself – good, faithful Mary Ann Jolly.

One summer time there came trouble to the neighbourhood where little Janet’s home was. A fever of some kind broke out in several villages, and its victims were principally children. For the elder ones of the family – such of them, that is to say, as were at home – but little fear was felt by their parents; but for Janet and the brother next to her, Hughie, only three years older than she, they were anxious and uneasy. Hughie was taken from the school, a few miles distant, to which every day he used to ride on his little rough pony, and for the time Janet and he were allowed to run wild. They spent the long sunny days, for it was the height of summer, in the woods or on the hills, as happy as two young fawns, thinking, in their innocence, “the fever,” to them but the name of an unknown and unrealisable possibility, rather a lucky thing than otherwise.

And Hughie was a trusty guardian for his delicate little sister. He was a brave and manly little fellow; awkward and shy to strangers, but honest as the day, and with plenty of mother-wit about him. Janet looked up to him with affection and admiration not altogether unmixed with awe. Hughie was great at “knowing best,” in their childish perplexities, and, for all his tenderness, somewhat impatient of “want of sense,” or thoughtlessness.

One day the two children, accompanied as usual by Hughie’s dog “Caesar,” and the no less faithful Mary Ann Jolly, had wandered farther than their wont from home. Janet had set her heart on some beautiful water forget-me-nots, which, in a rash moment, Hughie had told her that he had seen growing on the banks of a little stream that flowed through a sort of gorge between the hills. It was quite three miles from home – a long walk for Janet, but Hughie knew his way perfectly – he was not the kind of boy ever to lose it; the day was lovely, and the burn ran nowhere near the direction they had been forbidden to take – that of the infected village. But Hughie, wise though he was, did not know or remember that close to the spot for which he was aiming ran a road leading directly from this village to the ten miles distant little town of Linnside, and even had he thought of it, the possibility of any danger to themselves attending the fact would probably never have struck him. There was another way to Linnside from their home, so Hughie’s ignorance or forgetfulness was natural.

The way down to the edge of the burn was steep and difficult, for the shrubs and bushes grew thickly together, and there was no proper path.

“Stay you here, Janet,” he said, finding for the child a seat on a nice flat stone at the entrance to the gorge; “I’ll be back before you know I am gone, and I’ll get the flowers much better without you, little woman; and Mary Ann will be company like.”

Janet obeyed without any reluctance. She had implicit faith in Hughie. But after a while Mary Ann confided to her that she was “wearying” of sitting still, and Janet thought it could do no harm to take a turn up and down the sloping field where Hughie had left her. She wandered to a gate a few yards off, and, finding it open, wandered a little farther, till, without knowing it, she was within a stone’s throw of the road I mentioned. And here an unexpected sight met Janet’s eyes, and made her lose all thought of Hughie and the forget-me-nots, and how frightened he would be at missing her. Drawn up in a corner by some trees stood one of those travelling houses on wheels, in which I suppose every child that ever was born has at one time or other thought that it would be delightful to live. Janet had never seen one before, and she gazed at it in astonishment, till another still more interesting object caught her attention.

It was a child – a little girl just about her own age, a dark-eyed, dark-haired, brown-skinned, but very, very thin little girl, lying on a heap of old shawls and blankets on the grass by the side of the movable house. She seemed to be quite alone – there was no one in the waggon apparently, no sound to be heard; she lay quite still, one thin little hand under her head, the other clasping tightly some two or three poor flowers – a daisy or two, a dandelion, and some buttercups – which she had managed to reach without moving from her couch. Janet, from under her little green shade, stared at her, and she returned the stare with interest, for all around was so still that the slight rustle made by the little intruder caught her sharp ear at once. But after a moment her eyes wandered down from Janet’s fair childish face, on which she seemed to think she had bestowed enough attention, and settled themselves on the lovely object nestling in the little girl’s maternal embrace. A smile of pleasure broke over her face.

“What’s yon?” she said, suddenly.

“What’s what?” said Janet.

“Yon,” repeated the child, pointing with her disengaged hand to the faithful Mary Ann.

“That,” exclaimed Janet. “That’s my doll. That’s Mary Ann Jolly. Did you never see a doll?”

“No,” replied the brown-skinned waif, “never. She’s awfu’ bonny.”

Janet’s maternal vanity was gratified.

“She’s guid and she’s bonny,” she said, unconsciously imitating, with ludicrous exactness, her own old nurse’s pet expression when she was pleased with her. She hugged Mary Ann closer to her as she spoke. “You’d like to have a dolly too, wouldn’t you, little girl?”

The child smiled.

“I couldna gie her tae ye,” said Janet, relapsing into Scotch, with a feeling that “high English” would probably be lost upon her new friend. “But ye micht tak’ her for a minute in yer ain airms, if ye like?”

“Ay wad I,” said the child, and Janet stepped closer to her and deposited Mary Ann in her arms.

“Canna ye stan’ or walk aboot? Hae ye nae legs?” she inquired.

“Legs,” repeated the child, “what for shud’ I no hae legs? I canna rin aboot i’ the noo; I’ve nae been weel, but I’ll sune be better. Eh my! but she’s awfu’ fine,” she went on, caressing Mary Ann as she spoke.

But at this moment the bark of a dog interrupted the friendly conversation. Caesar appeared, and Janet started forward to reclaim her property, her heart for the first time misgiving her as to “what Hughie would say.” Just as she was taking Mary Ann out of the little vagrant’s arms, Hughie came up. He was hot, breathless, anxious, and, as a natural consequence of the last especially, angry.

“Naughty Janet, bad girl,” he exclaimed, in his excitement growing more “Scotch” than usual. “What for didna ye bide whaur I left ye? I couldna think what had become o’ ye; bad girl. And wha’s that ye’re clavering wi’? Shame on ye, Janet.”

He darted forward, snatched his little sister roughly by the arm, dropping the precious forget-me-nots in his flurry, and dragged Janet away, making her run so fast that she burst out sobbing with fear and consternation. She could not understand it; it was not like Hughie to be so fierce and rough.

“You are very, very unkind,” she began, as soon as her brother allowed her to stop to take breath. “Why should I nae speak to the puir wee girl? She looked sae ill lying there her lane, and she was sae extraordinar’ pleased wi’ Mary Ann.”

“You let her touch Mary Ann, did ye?” said Hughie, stopping short. “I couldna have believed, Janet, you’d be such a fule. A big girl, ten years old, to ken nae better! It’s ‘fare-ye-weel’ to Mary Ann any way, and you have yourself to thank for it.” They were standing near the spot where Hughie had left his sister while he clambered down to the burn, and before Janet had the least idea of his intention, Hughie seized the unfortunate doll, and pitched her, with all his strength, far, far away down among the brushwood of the glen.

For an instant Janet stood in perfect silence. She was too thunderstruck, too utterly appalled and stunned, to take in the reality of what had happened. She had never seen Hughie in a passion in her life; never in all their childish quarrels had he been harsh or “bullying,” as I fear too many boys of his age are to their little sisters. She gazed at him in terrified consternation, slowly, very slowly taking in the fact – to her almost as dreadful as if he had committed a murder – that Hughie had thrown away Mary Ann – her own dear, dear Mary Ann; and Hughie, her own brother had done it! Had he lost his senses?

“Hughie,” she gasped out at last; that was all.

Hughie looked uneasy, but tried to hide it.

“Come on, Janet,” he said, “it’s getting late. We must put our best foot foremost, or nurse will be angry.”

But Janet took no notice of what he said.

“Hughie,” she repeated, “are ye no gaun to get me Mary Ann back again?”

Hughie laughed, half contemptuously. “Get her back again,” he said. “She’s ower weel hidden for me or anybody to get her back again. And why should I want her back when I’ve just the noo thrown her awa’? Na, na, Janet, you’ll have to put up wi’ the loss of Mary Ann; and I only hope you won’t have to put up wi’ waur. It’s your own fault; though maybe I shouldna’ have left her,” he added to himself.

“Hughie, you’ve broke my heart,” said Janet. “What did you do it for?”

“If you’d an ounce of sense you’d know,” said Hughie; “and if you don’t, I’m no gaun to tell.” And in dreary silence the two children made their way home – Hughie, provoked, angry, and uneasy, yet self-reproachful and sore-hearted; Janet in an anguish of bereavement and indignation, yet through it all not without little gleams of faith in Hughie still, that mysteriously cruel though his conduct appeared, there must yet somehow have been a good reason for it.

It was not for long, however, that she understood it. She did not know that immediately they got home honest Hughie went to his father and told him all that had happened, taking blame to himself manfully for having for an instant left Janet alone.

“And you say she does not understand at all why you threw the doll away,” said Janet’s father. “Did she not notice that the little girl had been ill?”

“O yes, but she took no heed of it,” Hughie replied. “She thinks it was just awfu’ unkind of me to get in such a temper. I would like her to know why it was, but I thought maybe I had better not explain till I had told you.”

“You were quite right, Hughie,” said his father; “and I think it is better to leave it. Wee Janet is so impressionable and fanciful, it would not do for her to begin thinking she had caught the fever from the child. We must leave it in God’s hands, and trust no ill will come of it. And the first day I can go to Linnside you shall come with me, and we’ll buy her a new doll.”

“Thank you, father,” said Hughie gratefully. But he stopped as he was leaving the room, with his hand on the door handle, to say, half-laughing, half-pathetically, “I’m hardly thinking, father, that any new doll will make up to wee Janet for Mary Ann.”

Janet heard nothing of this conversation, however, and the silence which was, perhaps mistakenly, preserved about the loss of her favourite added to the mysterious sadness of her fate. The poor little girl moped and pined, but said nothing. To Hughie her manner was gently reproachful, but nothing more. But all her brightness and playfulness had deserted her; she hung about listless and uninterested, and for some days there was not an hour during which one or other of her doting relations – father, mother, sisters, and brothers – did not make up his or her mind that their darling was smitten by the terrible blast of the fever.

A week, ten days, nearly a fortnight passed, and they began to breathe more freely. Then one day the father, remembering his promise, took Hughie with him to the town to buy a new doll for Janet, instead of her old favourite. I cannot describe to you the one they bought, but I know it was the prettiest that money could get at Linnside, and Hughie came home in great spirits with the treasure in his arms.

“Janet, Janet,” he shouted, as soon as he had jumped off his pony, “where are you, Janet? Come and see what I’ve got for you!”

Janet came slowly out of the study, where she had been lying coiled up on the floor, near the low window, watching for her father’s return.