Anonymous

“ Anywhere forbidden to a respectable kitten was Buzz’s favorite spot, and especially inside the fender, where the blue tiles at the back reflected the warmth of the fire, and the brown tiles of the hearth were so bright that he could see other kittens in them, and play with them, dabbing at them with his velvet paw. ”

“ Upon one occasion, when the children ran up, it was to find the dog half wild as he barked to them to come and see what he was holding down under his paw,—this proving to be an unfortunate frog which uttered a dismal squeal from time to time till Gran’ma set it at liberty, so that it could make long hops into a bed of ivy, where it lived happily long afterwards, to sit there on soft wet nights under a big leaf like an umbrella, and softly whistle the frog song which ends every now and then in a croak. ”

“ And O, the happy hours that we have had with our clumsy old sled! Away we would go, the wind stinging our faces until crimson roses blossomed in our cheeks, and the shining crust snapping and creaking under our sled, and the hill flying away behind us!
If a damp clinging snow came, it made lovely snowballs; and it was such fun to catch hold of the long clothes-lines and shake them and see little clumps of snow hop like rabbits from the line into the air. ”

“ Could this child, whose blue eyes were full of sunshine, be the miserable little Fred?
“Well, master Alec,” she said, kissing the older baby, “you’re a perfect little darling. Well, I never! to think of you finding out a way to please that poor child.”
“Tic-tac-too!” said Fred, in a loud and vigorous voice. He was fast getting over his shyness, and Alec’s game suited him to perfection.
But the little stranger did not like the game of kittens. He marched in a fat, solid sort of way across the nursery, and sat down in a corner, with his back to the company. ”

“ Then Sammy began to cry real hard, for he thought of his poor mother, off there in Massachusetts, wondering day after day, “What has become of my Sammy!”
And then to be compelled to eat nothing but ginger all his life! It was awful! He already hated ginger. He looked so woebegone that they all cried:
“If you will promise to be good, and think before you do things, we will let you go! But if you don’t keep your promise we’ll get you again, and then, look out!” ”

“ Oftentimes, when we were tired of cooking, we would go to work and lay out a wonderful garden with tiny flower-beds and winding paths, out of that wet sand. Some of those flower-beds were star-shaped, some were round as a wheel, and some were square. ”

“ VIII.—THE OLD PASTURE. I used to play a great deal out in the old pasture. It had a clump of cradle-knolls in it. A cradle-knoll is a little mound of moss.
On these mossy little cradle-knolls, checkerberry leaves and berries used to grow. How delicious those spicy young checkerberry leaves tasted! And we hunted those red plums as a cat hunts a mouse!
The pasture had two or three well-beaten paths in it, that the cows had made by their sober steady tramping back and forth from the barnyard lane to the growth of little trees and bushes and tender grass at the back. ”

“ Three rabbits and a dog! Enough pets for any girl, my reader; but Gran’ma had another—Buzz, a round, soft-furred kitten with about as much fun in it as could be squeezed into so small a body. But Buzz had a temper, possibly soured by jealousy of Grant, whom he utterly detested.
Buzz’s idea of life was to be always chasing something,—his tail, a shadow, the corner of the table-cover, or his mistress’s dress. ”

“ Harry dropped Alec’s reins, and rushed to the window; Rosie forgot her toys, and did likewise; Jack and Alec both pressed for a view from behind.
“Me, me, me, me want to see!” screamed baby Alec from the back.
Nurse lifted him into her arms; as she did so, she murmured under her breath,—
“God preserve us! I hope that awful boy isn’t bringing us anything bad.”
Rosie heard the words, and felt a sudden sense of chill and anxiety; she pressed her little hand into nurse’s, and longed more than ever to give all the nicest toys to the new little boy. ”

“ There are very few children who do not know the funny old nursery rhyme of “Tic-tac-too;” it is an old-fashioned rhyme, and in great vogue amongst nurses. Of course Alec enjoyed it, and liked to have his toes pulled, and the queer words said to him. But that is not the story; for it is one thing to like a nursery rhyme very much, and another to be called by the name of that rhyme, and nothing else. ”

“ His ears went up, his tail began to wave, and he dashed about frantically to hunt for those imaginary wild beasts. He barked till he was hoarse sometimes, when after a good deal of rushing about he made a discovery, and would then look up triumphantly at Gran’ma, and point at his find with his nose, till she came up to see what he had discovered. One time it would be a snail, at another a dead mouse killed by the cat, and not eaten because it was a shrew. ”

“ People sigh most likely from habit, and from no reason whatever. There’s nothing to fret anybody in a sigh, Miss Rosie.”
“But mother doesn’t sigh from habit,” answered Rosie; “I expect there’s going to be something sad about the new little boy, and I wonder what it is. Harry, shall we collect some of our very nicest toys to have ready for the poor little new boy?” ”

“ Sometimes we would put a board through the fence and have a fine time at “seesaw.” Up one of us would go, high in the air, and down would go the other with a thud!
We used to play that the pasture fence was a huge cupboard. Each rail was a shelf. Many of those rail-shelves were loaded down with bits of broken dishes, shining pebbles, bits of green moss that we called “pincushions,” and white clam-shells full of strawberries, or raspberries, or little dark juicy choke-cherries. ”

“ Dinny had the carrying of this truant, and with another bark, Grant dashed in among the gooseberry bushes, where there was a great deal of rustling, a glimpse of something brown, and then of a white cottony tail. Then in spite of poor Grant getting his nose pricked with the thorns, Brown Downie was caught and held by her ears till mamma lifted her up, and she was carried in triumph back, Grant trotting on before, and leading the way to the stable-yard and the hutch, turning round every now and then to bark. ”

“ You know how bad it is for the eyesight to read any print by firelight, and it must be very much worse when the print is very small; and so Furrin would say to Purrin, “My eyes are getting quite dim, so now you must read;” and before Purrin had read a page he would say the same thing to Tod, and then Tod would try; but after a time their eyes became so dim they couldn’t see at all, and so they had to invent stories to tell little Gilliflower; so the poor little mice went quite blind, trying to amuse their little girl friend. ”

“ You must all be kind to the little baby stranger, children, and try your very best to make him feel at home. Poor little man, I trust he will be happy with us.”
Mother sighed as she spoke; and when she did this, Rosie, the eldest nursery child, looked up at her quickly. Rosie had dark gray eyes, and a very sympathetic face; she was the kind of child who felt everybody’s troubles, and nurse said she did this far more than was good for her. ”

“ But out where the tender grasses grew there were no thistles, and such fun as hide-and-seek used to be among the bushes!
Sometimes we could not find the cows very readily; and then we would climb up on a smutty stump and call, “co’ boss! co’ boss!” until the woods rang.
In the spring, we would go a-maying out in the old pasture, and O, such great handfuls of the sweet mayflower as we used to bring home! Later on, we would gather great bunches of sweet-smelling herbs that grew wild out there, and carry them home to hang up in the shed-chamber and dry. ”

“ But I don’t see why a new baby should have my best toys. Gee-up, Alec! you’re a horse, you know, and I’m going to race you from one end of the nursery to the other—now trot!”
Fat little curly-headed Alec started off good-humoredly, and Rosie surveyed her own shelf to see which toys would most distract the attention of the little stranger. ”

“ Here, if Dinny was what Gran’ma called “a good girl,” she had a treat. For this was where the rabbits lived.
Old Brownsmith sent those rabbits, hutch and all, as a present for Gran’ma, one day when John went to the market garden with his barrow to fetch what he called some “plarnts;” and when he came back with the barred hutch, and set the barrow down in the walk, mamma went out with Gran’ma and Dinny, to look at them, and Grant came up growling, sniffed all round the hutch before giving a long loud bark, which, being put into plain English, meant, “Open the door, and I’ll kill all the lot.” ”

“ Sammy flew down the road like a runaway colt, the black man in his rear yelling like thunder and lions. Sammy never ran so fast in his life, but the little black man gained on him, and finally caught him! ”

“ At such seasons Myra and I would take our little raft made of boards, and by means of some stout sticks would push the raft around on that little pond for hours. The wind would raise little waves, and these waves would splash up against the sides of our little raft with a delicious sort of noise.
We used to dress a smooth stick of wood in doll’s clothes. We used to call this wooden dolly by the name of Mrs. Pippy. We would take Mrs. Pippy on board our ship as passenger. Somehow, Mrs. Pippy always contrived to fall overboard. ”

“ But Buzz was not allowed to enjoy himself in that fashion for long. No sooner did Gran’ma catch sight of what he had done than she got up, went to the fireplace, gravely lifted the slipper, and poured Buzz out on to the hearth-rug, replaced the slipper where it would warm, and went back, to find, five minutes later, that the kitten had fitted himself into the other slipper, with only his back visible, ready to be poured out again. ”

“ Death has no lasting reign!
“HOW MAMA USED TO PLAY.” IV.—THE LITTLE BROOK. We had a merry playmate in a little brook that ran down through the sunny meadows! It slipped and slid over little mossy pebbles and called to us, “Follow, follow, follow!” in the sweetest little voice in the world!
Sometimes, I would kneel down on the little low bank, and bend my head down close, and ask, “Where are you going, little brook?” ”

“ VI—THE LILACS. There was a great clump of lilac bushes out by the garden wall. These lilacs grew close together and made a thick hedge nearly around a little plot of ground, where the grass grew so thick and velvety that it was like a great green rug, and they bent their tall heads over this little green plot, and so formed a lovely summer-house.
Here we used to sew for our dolls, and here we used to give tea-parties. Raspberry shortcake was one of the dainties we used to have. This is the way we made it: Take a nice clean raspberry leaf, heap it with raspberries, and put another leaf on top. ”

“ But Tom was too clever to be troubled at the narrow neck of the milk or cream jug, and one day when his mistress was coming towards the parlor through the garden, she saw Tom on the table from the window, dipping his paw into the jug like a spoon and carrying the milk to his mouth. ”

“ It always took a long time to find nurse’s spectacles; and Rosie, after a frantic search, in which she was joined by all the other nursery children, discovered them at last at the bottom of Alec’s cot. She rushed with them to the old woman, who put them on her nose, and began deliberately to read the contents of her telegram. ”

“ I so often have to tell my children “how mama used to play”—for I was that very happy little girl—that I think other “little women” of these days will enjoy knowing about those dear old simple play-times.
I.—THE LITTLE STUMP-HOUSE. One of my pet playhouses was an old stump, out in the pasture. Such a dear, old stump as it was, and so large I could not put my arms more than half way round it!
Some of its roots were partly bare of earth for quite a little distance from the stump, and between these roots were great green velvety moss cushions. ”

“ There were several children who lived in this pleasant farmhouse, for Tic-tac-too had many brothers and sisters. The old-fashioned nursery was all that a modern nursery should be; it had deep cupboards for toys, and each child had his or her wide shelf to keep special treasures on ”

“ There was once a very happy little girl who spent her childhood on an old green farm. She had a little sister, and these two children never knew what it was to possess toys from the stores, but played, played, played from dawn till dark, just in the play-places they found on that green farmstead. ”

“ Gran’ma said she would, and the hutch was wheeled round by the stables, Grant following and looking very much puzzled, for though he never hunted the cats now, rabbits did seem the right things to kill. ”

“ He met her at the fence, and asked if she would go around by our house and say to Mrs. Pingry that Mr. Pingry had left the drafts all open. She agreed, and Mr. Pingry ran to his train, a happy man.
“Now Madam Morey felt anxious about the furnace, and stepped often to the window, and at last spied a small boy with a sled, and finding he knew where we live, told him Mr. Pingry went away and forgot to shut the furnace drafts and wished to send back word, and would the boy coast down that way and tell Mrs. Pingry? The boy promised, and coasted down the hill. ”