Happy Days for Boys and Girls

SQUIRRELS

HOW pretty little squirrels look perched in the branches of a tree! I like to watch them as they nimbly run up the trunk or spring from bough to bough. One or two are generally to be seen in a clump of great old beeches near a house in the country where I usually spend some happy weeks in summer; and I will tell you a story of a little squirrel whose acquaintance I made there last summer.

I happened to be up very early one morning, long before breakfast was ready or any of the family were down, and I went out into the garden to enjoy the fresh, sweet smell of the early day. The cows were grazing in the field beyond, and now and then lowing a friendly “good-morning” to each other. Some ducks were waddling in procession down to the pond, quacking out their wise remarks as they went. The little birds were singing lustily their welcome to the new-born day. Even the old watch-dog came yawning, stretching, blinking and wagging his tail in kindly dog-fashion to bid me “good-day” in the summer sunshine.

As I stood under the great beech trees, taking in with greedy eye and ear the sights and sounds of country-life so refreshing to a Londoner, I heard something fall from one of the trees, then a scuffle, and immediately afterward a white Persian cat belonging to the house bounded toward me in hot pursuit of a dear little squirrel. I was just in time to save the poor little animal by stepping between it and the cat. The squirrel passed under the edge of my dress and made off again up another tree; so pussy lost her prey.

Soon afterward, when we were at breakfast, the butler told us that one of the little boys of the village, who had lost a pet squirrel, had asked if he might look for it in the garden of the house. It had first escaped into some trees in the park, and he had traced it from them into the garden. It at once occurred to me that this must be the little creature I had saved from the cat. I remembered how it made straight toward me, as if asking me for protection from its enemy, which only a tame squirrel would do; and I proposed, when breakfast was over, that we should go out and help in the search.

Little Jack Tompkins stood under the beech trees, looking with tear-stained face up into the branches. Suddenly I saw his face brighten, and he called out, “I see un, ma’am; I see un! If so be no one warn’t by, I be sure he’d come to I.”

I need not say we retreated to a distance; then Jack called up the tree in a loud whisper, “Billee, Billee!” and in a minute down came the little creature on to his shoulder. I can tell you Jack was a happier child than he had been when he came into the garden. And when I told him what a narrow escape “Billee” had had from the cat, he said, “It would be hard if a cat eat he, for our old puss brought he up with her own kits.” Then he told us how the squirrel, when a tiny thing, had dropped out of its nest and been found by him lying almost dead at the foot of a tree, and how he had carried it home and tried whether pussy would adopt it as one of her own kittens. The cat was kind; the squirrel throve under her motherly care, and became Jack’s pet and companion.

Now, children, in this instance it was all very well to keep a tame squirrel. “Billee” seemed happy leading the life he was accustomed to; he had been fed and cared for by human beings from his infancy, and might be as incapable of finding food and managing for himself in a wild state as a poor canary would be if let loose from its cage. But generally it is cruel to imprison little wild birds and animals who have known the enjoyment of liberty.

PUPPET

PUPPET had two occupations. She had also a guitar and a half-bushel basket. These things were her capital – her stock in trade.

The guitar belonged to one of her occupations, the half-bushel basket to the other.

In consideration of her first employment, she might have been called a street guitarist. In consideration of her second, she might have been called a beggar – a broken-bits beggar.

Puppet would have been considered, among lawyers, “shrewd;” or, at a mothers’ meeting, “cunning;” or, among business men, “sharp.” That is to say, she knew a thing or two. She knew that being able to sing no songs was a disadvantage to her first occupation, as a large hole, half way up her basket, was an advantage to her second.

It seems odd that a hole in one’s begging basket should be an advantage.

But because of the hole, she had always behind her a crowd of dogs, that seemed to have been just dropped from the basket, the last one never having fairly got his nose out; and because of the dogs she was known as “Puppet” all over the city.

To be known by a characteristic name is of great advantage to a beggar.

If Biddy, looking from the basement door, says to cook, “Och, an’ there comes up the street our little Puppet, with her dogs all behind her, carrying her basket,” cook is much more likely to see the broken bits “botherin’ roun’ on the schalves o’ the cubbid,” than she would be if Biddy should say, “Shure, an’ thir cams to us a dirty beggar, it is.”

But it is with Puppet’s first occupation, and not her second, that we have to do. If you had not read more descriptions of faces within the last year than you can possibly remember in all the years of your life put together, I would tell you what sort of face Puppet’s was; that it was a bright face, with blue eyes, just the color of the blue ribbon that went first round the guitar’s neck, and then round Puppet’s; that Puppet’s teeth were as white as the mother-of-pearl pegs that held her guitar strings at the bottom; that her cheeks were as white as the ivory keys; that her hair was long, and yellow – just the shade of the guitar’s yellow face.

But that would be very much like a dozen other faces that you have seen; so I will only say that it was a smiling little face.

It smiled as it bent over the guitar, while the little fingers picked their ways in and out among the strings; and it smiled yet more sweetly as she looked up to catch the coppers thrown from the fourth and fifth story, and sky-parlor windows.

Puppet once lived with a man who said that he was her uncle; and she believed him so thoroughly, that she let him box her ears whenever he felt like it, till he died. Since then Puppet had lived almost friendless and alone.

One hot July day Puppet was wandering through the streets of the great city, with her little guitar under her little arm. The city did not seem so great to Puppet as it does to some of the rest of us, because she was born and brought up there.

“O, dear,” sighed Puppet, “what a mean place you are!”

No one had given her a copper since the cool of the morning. People seemed to have a fancy for spending their coppers on soda-water and ice-cream.

“What shall I do?” moaned Puppet. Whatever should she do? Puppet must have coppers, or she could not live.

She sat in a cool, shaded court, close to the busy street; but she couldn’t get away from the heat, and the noise, and the people sighing, like herself, “O dear, O dear!”

“I’ll try once more,” said Puppet, tuning her guitar.

She played “Home, Sweet Home,” with variations. But all the people who heard her were suffering, because their homes in the city were rather hot than sweet. “Home, Sweet Home” could win no pennies from “city folks” in July.

Then Puppet whistled to her guitar accompaniment a little “Bird Waltz,” and whirled on the pavement in time, till I doubt if she herself knew whether the guitar had gone mad, and were waltzing about her, or she were waltzing about the guitar.

A boy came dancing into the court, singing, —

But he danced out again, without leaving a penny behind him; so it would have been just as well if he had never come in. Still, he amused himself for a few minutes, which not many people were able to do in that hot July midday.

Puppet went from the little court, and wandered on and on. At last she left the city far away behind her.

And out and away from the city there were green fields.

Puppet had heard of green fields, but she had never seen any face to face before. As she looked at them, she had a dim remembrance that she had heard that they were covered with long, waving grass. But all these fields were close shaven, like the beautiful mouse-colored horses in the city.

It was pleasant, but not very exciting to a city girl. The city girl presently grew tired of it.

“There seem to be houses farther along,” she said; “I’ll go and play there.”

Puppet slung the little guitar about her little neck, and started off again.

Presently she came to a cottage with a little green yard in front of it, and in the middle of the little green yard was a great green tree.

Puppet sat down on the grass, leaned against the tree, and felt very hungry.

A lady was sitting by an open window, sewing. She was sitting so that Puppet could see only a bit of her left cheek, and her dark hair, just beginning to turn gray, and her right hand as she brought the needle up from her work. From what she did see, Puppet thought that she would give her something to eat, if she could but get her attention. Surely, she must be often hungry herself, or why should she have so many gray hairs?

Puppet, leaning against the tree, ran her fingers over the guitar frets in light harmonies; but the lady did not look.

Her thoughts must be far away, in a quiet and happy place, that Puppet’s harmonies should seem a part of that place.

The guitar broke into a low, mournful minor. Still the lady gave no heed to Puppet.

Puppet was feeling very hungry. She would play the Fandango. That must rouse any one. She began at the most rattling part.

The gray-haired lady looked round quickly. “Bless me, bless me! what’s this?” Seeing a little girl out by the tree, she put her sewing on the table, and came to the door and into the yard.

“Dear me! a little girl with yellow hair, and I just to have been dreaming of a little girl with yellow hair!”

“Is anything the matter with my hair, mum?” Puppet stopped playing, and ran her hands through the yellow mass of uncombed locks.

“Ah, no, little girl! there is nothing the matter with your hair. Only – ” The lady was thinking how soft, and fine, and curly was the yellow hair of which she had been dreaming.

“What do you want?” asked the lady.

“I’m very hungry,” said Puppet, “because of the walk, and – and – and all,” concluded Puppet, remembering that the lady could not understand.

“Come in, then.”

Puppet went in. Up in one corner of the sitting-room were a little tip-cart and a doll. Puppet ate her bread and meat, looking hard at the tip-cart.

“Where is it, mum?”

“Where is what, child?”

“The child, mum.” Puppet pointed to the tip-cart.

“Gone, my dear,” said the lady, softly.

“Dead?” Puppet remembered that that was what they said about her uncle when he went away. It was the only going away that she had ever known.

“Yes, I suppose so,” said the lady, with a little shiver.

“That’s bad, mum.”

“No, not bad,” said the lady, sorrowfully. “It is just right that it should be so.”

“But it must be lonesome like, unless there were kicks and things.” Puppet was still thinking of her uncle.

The lady wondered what the child could mean, and not knowing, said, —

“What’s your name? How could I have forgotten to ask your name?”

“Puppet.”

“That’s a funny name. And where do you live?”

“Two or three miles away from here.”

“Have you walked here to-day?”

“Yes, mum.”

“What should make the child walk so far, I wonder?”

“Money, mum, and things to eat.”

“Have you eaten enough?”

“Yes. I must go home now, or I shall be late.”

“Are you sure you know the way?” asked the lady, a little anxiously. “You’re such a little thing!”

“O, yes, mum! Go as I came.”

“Well, good by.”

“Good by, mum.”

But was Puppet sure that she knew the way?

The next morning, a man walking on a road that ran by the edge of a meadow, was going to his work.

Hark! What did he hear? Was it a cry! was it a child’s cry? And what was that? It sounded like a fiddle. He stopped to look around.

“I declare, we’ve had a high tide in the night!” said he, and trudged on.

But what was that? That was certainly a child’s cry.

The man looked sharply about.

“It can’t be she,” he said. “Folks from heaven wouldn’t cry, even if they were let to come – at least, if they were little children.”

And so he still looked sharply about. And looking, what did he see?

He saw great haystacks of meadow hay out in the meadow, with the tide-water all about them. Then his eyes were fixed on one particular haystack. On its top, with her yellow hair and smiling face in sight, was – it could not be, though – but it was – a little girl, and dangling by the side of the stack was a guitar with a yellow face. The man waded through the water that lay between the dry land and the stack.

“Crawl down to my shoulders;” and he stood by the side of the stack till she was on his shoulders, with her arms about his neck.

“How came you there?”

“I went everywhere to try to get home, and it was dark, all but the moon; and I saw the stack, and a board went from the ground to the top of it.”

“Sure enough, the prop.”

“And I was so tired!”

“Poor child!”

“And I never saw the water come before, and it was only wet enough to wet my feet when I got up.”

“Well, well! We’ll go home and get something to eat.”

The man walked into his kitchen with the little girl and the guitar on his shoulders.

“Why, John, are you back? Dear me, if there isn’t that same child – Puppet!”

John went off to his work again. Puppet ate her breakfast, and told her story, and then said, —

“Please, mum, may I play with the cart?”

And because of her yellow hair, she might play with the cart.

“But aren’t you sick, and oughtn’t you to take some medicine, and go to bed?” asked the lady, whose hair had grown gray over sickness and medicine.

Puppet meditated. She felt very well. She thought that she had rather play with the tip-cart than to take medicine. So she played all day, and went to bed at night.

At night John come home from his work, and, as usual, heard of all that had happened through the day.

“I wish we could keep the little thing, John, dear. She has yellow hair, just like – ”

“Yes,” said John, “I saw.”

“And she’d be such a comfort!”

“If she didn’t die by and by,” said John.

“But, John, dear, just think of a little thing like her spending the night in the middle of a meadow, with the water all about her.”

John thought. And he thought that if she could stand that without being sick, she could stand their love without dying.

So Puppet and the guitar live with John and the gray-haired lady.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

ALL the hill-side was green with maples, and birches, and pines. The meadows at its foot were green, too, with the tufted salt grass, and glittering with the silver threads of tide braided among its winding creeks. Beyond was the city, misty and gray, stretching its wan arms to the phantom ships flitting along the horizon.

From the green hill-side you could hear the city’s muffled hum and roar, and sometimes the far-off clanging of the bells from its hundred belfries. But the maples and birches seemed to hear and see nothing beyond the sunshine over their heads and the winds which went frolicking by. Life was one long dance with them, through the budding spring and the leafy summer, and on through the grand gala days of autumn, till the frost came down on the hills, and whispered, —

“Your dancing days are all over.”

But the pines were quite different. They, the stately ones, stood quite aloof, the older and taller ones looking stiffly over the heads of the rollicking maples, and making solemn reverences to the great gray clouds that swept inland from the ocean. The straight little saplings at their feet copied the manners of their elders, and folding their fingers primly, and rustling their stiff little green petticoats decorously, sat up so silent and proper.

So unlike the small birches and maples that chattered incessantly, wagging their giddy heads, and playing tag with the butterflies in the sunshine all the day long!

“How tiresome those stupid old pines are! No expression, no animation. So lofty and so exclusive, and forever grumbling to each other in their hoarse old Scandinavian, which it gives one the croup even to listen to! Of what possible use can they be?”

This was what the maple said to the birch one day when the Summer and her patience with her sombre neighbor were on the wane – one day when there was a gleam of golden pumpkins in the tawny corn stubble beyond the wood, and the purpling grapes hung ripening over the old stone wall that lay between, and the maple had brightened its summer dress with a gay little leaf set here and there in its shining folds.

The birch agreed with the maple about the pines, and the maple went glibly on.

“I’ve ordered my autumn dresses – a different one for each day in the week. Just think of those horrid pines never altering the fashion of their stiff old plaiting.”

“We shall not be obliged to remain in this dull place much longer,” said the tall pines loftily to each other, looking quite over the heads of the maple and the birch. “We shall soon be crossing the ocean, and then our lives will have just begun. We simply vegetate here.”

“Ho, ho!” laughed the maple and the birch behind their fluttering green fans, pretending to be greatly amused at what the west wind was saying to them.

Now, though the trees spoke a different language, yet each understood perfectly well what the other said; so their rudeness was quite inexcusable.

When the summer was ended, the maple began to put on her gorgeous autumn dresses; but the pines looked much at the sky, and paid little heed to the maple. The other trees on the hill-side, quite faded with their summer gayeties, looked on languidly in the still autumn days at the maple’s brilliant toilets.

Soon the cold rains swept in from the sea, blurring the wood vistas; and when they were gone, the frost came in the midnight, with its unwelcome message, and later the snow lay white above all the faded and fallen crimson and gold of the maple and the tarnished silver of the birch.

All the trees, brown and bare now, moaned in the wintry wind – all but the tall pines, and they were crossing the ocean; their lives had begun. The little saplings remained behind, but with their heads perked stiffly up above the snow; they had the air of expecting somebody.

They were not disappointed. One sunny morning, a boy and a girl came singing through the wood paths, each in a pair of high-topped boots, and each in a faded and closely-buttoned coat, the girl with a blue hood pulled over her rosy face, and the boy with a fur cap closely tied about his ears by a red comforter. The two drew a hand-sled, and peered about under the tall trunks as they went stamping through the deep snow. How they shouted as they spied the little pine trees perking up their heads! How they tossed aside the snow, and worked away with their jackknives, hacking at the little pine trees till they had cut them all down, all ready to be piled up on their hand-sled.

“Where are you going?” asked the giddy little birch of the pines, peeping out from a small window in her snow-house. Her nose was purple, and her fingers stiff with cold; but down under the earth her feet were warm, and that was pleasant, at any rate.

“It is of no consequence where,” said the pines, in their grimmest Scandinavian.

The birch simply said, “O!” and drew in her little purple nose, hoping heartily they were all going to be burned, as that would be a good end and riddance of them.

But the little pines were not going to be burned; they were going away to the city that lay misty and still beyond the frozen meadows. Stretched out stiffly on the hand-sled, they were jostled along out through the wood, over the frozen turnpike, and across the mill-dam to Boston.

They alighted at the Boylston Market, and were ranged in a row against the dark brick wall.

“How much happens in a very short time!” they said to each other; “all those gaudy, chattering trees left without a leaf to cover them, our own friends all gone on their travels, and we here in the city, wrapped in our warm winter furs.”

It was the Christmas week. The shop windows were gay with toys and gorgeous Christmas offerings; the shop doors were opening and shutting on the crowd that came and went through them. A bustling throng of people passed incessantly up and down the narrow sidewalks, and carriages of all descriptions blocked the crossings, or drove recklessly over the frozen pavement.

The old woman in the quilted black hood and shaggy cape, who had charge of the little pine trees, drove a brisk trade that day in her wreaths and holly; but though many people stopped to admire the little pines, and even to ask their price, no purchaser had yet appeared for them.

The old dame was rubbing her mittened hands briskly together, and mumbling in a displeased way at the pine trees, when a carriage drew suddenly up at the curbstone, and out sprang a little girl.

“See, papa, how lovely! So green, and fresh, and thick!” she said, pointing to the row of pines.

A bargain was concluded in a trice. The money was dropped into the eager, outstretched mitten of the old woman, and a little Christmas tree dragged over the sidewalk, and set up in the buggy.

“We must have some of these lower branches cut off; they are in the way,” said papa.

“Hev a knife, sir?” shouted a ragged little fellow, whipping a rusty old knife out of his pocket.

“Please, sir, lemme cut it for you. Say, where?” he cried, laying hold of the pine, as the gentleman in the buggy pointed to him where to cut.

The lower branches being trimmed to the gentleman’s satisfaction, the Christmas tree, leaning comfortably against the crimson afghan, was soon on its way to Meadow Home, while its lower branches and some jingling small coin remained in the hands of the gaping urchin on the curbstone.

“This here’s luck – fust-rate luck,” remarked the small boy, stamping his feet, and staring stupidly after the retreating buggy wheels.

“Out of the way there!” growled a man in a farmer’s frock, lifting a pile of frozen turkeys from a wagon.

The boy ducked aside, his ragged little trousers fluttering in the wind. Then he sat down on the market steps to count his coin.

“Hi! twenty-five cents. There’s a mutton stew and onions for you and your folks a Christmas, Mike Slattery, and all this jolly green stuff thrown in free gratis. That chap was a gen’leman, and no mistake. Won’t Winnie hop when she sees me a-h’isting of these here over our stairs, and she a-blowin’ at me for a week to bring her some sich, and me niver seein’ nary a chance at ’em ’cept stealin’s, which is wot this here feller ain’t up to no ways whatsomever. No, sir. Hi!”

Mike waved his Christmas boughs aloft in great glee.

An old gentleman with gold-headed cane and spectacles was going up the steps of the market, followed by a beautiful black-and-white setter. The playful dog sprang at the green branches. Mike held on to them stoutly. The dog suddenly let go of them, and bounded away, while Mike rolled over and over to the foot of the steps, clutching tightly the pine boughs.