Mrs. Molesworth

“ Paula felt herself getting so angry that she was afraid what she mightn't be tempted to say next.
She ran out of the room, banging the door behind her I am afraid, [95] and rushed upstairs, where she burst into tears; for anger makes children cry quite as often as sorrow. But before she had been many minutes in her own room, her tears grew gentler, for she was a kind-hearted and loving little girl, and when she had bathed her face, to take away the redness from her eyes, she ran downstairs again to look for Rosy and make friends. ”

“ She's a goose, and so is Harriot; they make such a fuss about each other. They haven't the least bit of independence. Well, never mind. If they don't like your party, Olive, they needn't come again."
Olive felt consoled. But still—in her heart of hearts there was some misgiving. What should she do if they all wanted to play different games?—or if Bessy Grey tore her frock or spilt her tea and got one of her crying fits, as happened sometimes, and there was no one—no Cara or Louie to pet the nervous little girl into quiet and content again? ”

“ But in a minute or two she said:
"Would you like to hear a story about an idiot, that your grandmother told me? It happened when she was a little girl."
Of course we all said "yes," with eagerness.
And this was the story.
"'Pig-Betty' isn't a very pretty name for a story, or for a person, is it? But Pig-Betty was a real person, though I daresay none of you have the least idea what the word 'pig' added to her own name meant," said mother. No, none of us had. We thought, perhaps, it was because this "Betty" was very lazy, or greedy or even dirty, but mother shook her head at all those guesses. ”

“ So good-night, my dears, for a month or two; the first mild day we shall all rouse up, never fear, and have a good meal before we snooze off again."
And sure enough next morning, when the young people turned out a good deal later than usual, Papa and Mamma were as fast asleep as the seven sleepers in the old story, which had given their name to the German branch of the dormouse family! Fuzz and Brown-ears, Snip and Peepy felt rather strange and lonely; two round furry balls seemed a very queer sort of exchange for their active, bright-eyed father and mother. ”

“ Olive looked very pleased. "I think next Wednesday would do," she said. "It's our half-holiday, and if Cara will help me on Tuesday evening I can get my lessons done, so that I needn't do any on Wednesday. It's howid to have to do lessons after a party," added Olive, with a languid air.
But mamma took her up more sharply than she expected. "Nay, nay, Olive," she said, "that won't do. If your sisters are to have none of the pleasure of your party, you can't expect them to take any trouble. You must manage your lessons as best you can." ”

“ Had some foolish person been putting nonsense in her little girl's head?
"Cara and Louie are always kind to you about your little pleasures, Olive," she said. "I don't understand why you should all at once want to do without them."
Olive wriggled. "But I do," she said. "Lily Farquhar says her big sisters spoil her parties so, and they call her and her friends 'the babies,' and laugh at them."
"Are you going to invite Lily to your party?" asked mamma.
"Yes, of course. She's my best friend, and she knows lots of games." ”

“ The most imposing one is called an "arcade"; in it are the best shops, a bazaar of all sorts of fancy things to delight children's eyes, from tin buckets and spades to dig with in the sands, to rocking-horses, though not of a very expensive kind. At one corner of this arcade is a large, ready-made tailor's establishment ”

“ Lily, who was clever at games, made herself a sort of leader, but she was not sensible enough to fill the post well. She was selfish and impatient, and being only a little girl herself, the others did not care "to be ordered about by her." Then Bessie Grey got knocked down at Blind Man's Buff, and of course she began to cry, and to say she wouldn't play any more if they were so rough. Maggie Vernon tried to soothe her, but Bessie pushed her away saying she didn't "understand," she wanted her mother, or next best, Cara or Louie, who were always "so kind." ”

“ But the handle was still there; perhaps it had been stuck in again on purpose; and all the time, as an accompaniment to the forlorn quaver of the reed pipes, you heard the hollow rattle of the loose boards of what had been the barrel-organ. He kept moving the handle round and round, without ever stopping, except for a moment, when Jack half threw, half reached him the penny, which brought a sort of grin on to his face, as he clutched at the dirty old tuft of shag on the top of his head, which he doubtless considered his cap.
"Poor creature," said mamma, as we turned away. ”

“ And in another instant the deadly fangs would have been in the baby's tender flesh, but for the well-aimed blow which flung the dog back, though only for a moment. It was Betty, dashing at him with her bundle of "pigs," the only weapon at hand—the poor pigs smashing and crashing; but they only diverted Jock's attack. When Sandy and the dog-doctor came rushing up, she was on the ground, and Jock had already bitten her in two or three places. ”

“ But Rosy was not to be found anywhere—her aunt had called her into the conservatory to help her with some flowers she was arranging there, and after searching for her sister everywhere she could think of, Paula had to go upstairs to dress, as the first gong sounded.
"As soon as I have done my hair, I'll run to Rosy's room," she thought to herself, but then another idea struck her, she would give Rosy [96] a pleasant surprise. "I'll put on the pink frock without telling her," she thought, "she will be pleased when she sees me with it on." ”

“ We think mother's stories far the most interesting and nicest of any we hear or read. And we are trying to write them all down, so that our children, if ever any of us have any, may know them too. We mean to call them "Grandmother's Stories." One reason why they are nice is, that nearly all of them are real, what is called "founded on fact." ”

“ Some of them are quite big, like men; and some little boys. They've got one now which they think is dressed like an English sailor-suit boy—you never saw such a costume! [79] And there's a man in a red coat—our boys say he is meant to be an English 'milord' dressed for 'the hunt.'"
When Bessie saw the bazaar she was as full of admiration of it as even Madge and Letty could desire, especially of the big tailor's. There was a brilliant show of figures, from the little wax boy in imaginary English sailor costume, to a moustached gentleman elaborately got up in evening suit, white tie and all. ”

“ THE CHRISTMAS GUEST.
FROM A TRUE INCIDENT. She was a very poor little girl, very poor indeed; often—indeed almost always—hungry, and thinly-clad, and delicate, but yet not altogether miserable. No, far from it, for she had a loving mother who did her poor best for her children. There were three or four of them and Emmy was the eldest. She was only six, but she was looked upon as almost grown-up, for father had died last year, and Emmy had to help mother with "the little ones," as she always called them.
They lived in a single room in one of the poorest and most crowded parts of great London ”

“ Eleanor hurried away to write her letter to Charley, for to-morrow would be Indian mail-day, and she had put it off too late the week before.
"Now I must give the pound to Theresa at once," she said, again depositing it in her pocket when she changed her dress for dinner. Something or other put it out of her head in the drawing-room—poor Eleanor's head was not a very secure place to keep anything in for long! It was not till she and her mother and Theresa and her seventeen-years' old brother Mark were at table, and half way through dinner, that the unlucky coin again returned into her memory. ”

“ Long ago then, when my mother was a little girl, she and her brothers and sisters used to spend some months of every year in [34] a rather out-of-the-way part of Scotland. There was no railway and no "coach," that came within at all easy reach. The nearest town was ten or twelve miles away, and even the village was two or three. And a good many things, ordinary, common things, were supplied by pedlars, who walked long distances, often carrying their wares upon their backs. These pedlars came to be generally called by what they had to sell, as a sort of nickname. ”

“ This was much better for me than always getting new tales and galloping through them, as I see many children do now-a-days, but still I think I lived too much in story-book world, and it was well for me when other things forced me to become more, what is called, "practical."
My cousin Meta was full of life and activity, and after awhile she grew tired of always finding me buried in my books.
"It isn't good for you, Addie," she said. "Such a dot as you are, to be always poking about in a corner reading." ”

“ There were wonderful tales of gnomes and kobolds, of the strange adventures of the charcoal-burners in lonely forests, of water-sprites and dwarfs. But none of all these made quite as great an impression on me as one which Meta called "The Man with the Pan-pipes," a story which, much to my surprise, I found years after in a well-known poem called "The Pied Piper of Hamelin." It was the very same story as to the facts, with just a few differences; for instance, the man in the poem is not described as playing on pan-pipes, but on some other kind of pipe. ”

“ They like to ask big ones, and I want a party for my own self, and no big ones. I want to fix everything myself, and I won't have Cara and Louie telling us what to eat at tea, and what games to play at. You may tell aunty to 'avite them to her house that day, mamma, and let me have my own party; else I won't have it at all."
Olive was eight. She was the youngest of three. It oftens happens that the "youngest of three" fancies herself "put upon," especially when the two elders are very near of an age and together in everything. But this sudden stand for independence was new in Olive. ”

“ Tiny, as they called the baby but one, was very ill with bronchitis, the doctor could not say if she would get better, and sometimes it seemed to the poor mother as if it was hardly to be wished that she should.
"She suffers so, poor dear, and seeing to her hinders me sadly with [62] my work. I do feel as if I'd break down at last altogether," she said one evening—it was Christmas Eve—to a neighbour who had looked in to see how things were going on.
"And Emmy's looking pale," said the visitor, "she wants cheering up a bit too. Let her come to church with me for a change. ”

“ My mother and the other children used always to ask as one of their first questions when they arrived at Greystanes—that was the name of their uncle's country house—on their yearly visit, if Pig-Betty had been there lately, or if she was expected to come soon. One or other was pretty sure to be the case.
They had several reasons for their interest in the old woman. One was that they were very fond of blowing soap-bubbles, which they seldom got leave to do in town, and they always bought a new supply of white clay pipes the first time Pig-Betty appeared ”

“ There'll be such a many, and He'll have such a deal to do. But it wouldn't take Him that long to come round with me to see Tiny, and if He does, like in the story, He'll cure her in 'alf a minute. I know what I'll do"—and a little scheme formed itself in the childish mind—"though I'll not tell mother," thought Emmy, "just for fear like, I should be too late to catch Him."
[64]
"'Twas a lovely sermon, and so touchin' too," said Emmy's friend to another woman as they walked home.
"It strengthens one up a bit, it do," agreed her companion. ”

“ And one summer there came some "new folk" to live in one of the cottages inhabited by Uncle James's farm-labourers. This did not often happen, as he seldom changed his people. These strangers were from some distance, and had never happened to come across the poor half-witted old woman, and there were two or three rough boys in the family who were spoilt and wild, and who thought themselves far above the country people, as they had lived for some time in a small town. And so one day—Oh, dear! I am getting this chapter of mother's story too long. ”

“ I remember quite well what made mother tell it us. It was when we were staying in the country one year, and Francie had been frightened, coming through the village, by meeting a poor idiot boy who ran after us and laughed at us in a queer silly way. I believe he meant to please us, but Francie's fright made her angry, and she wanted nurse to speak to him sharply and tell him to get away, but nurse wouldn't.
"One should always be gentle to those so afflicted," she said. ”

“ One of his little kindnesses to her was the cause of a good deal of excitement to the children when they were with Uncle James. At that time gentlepeople dined much earlier than they do now, especially in the country. At Greystanes four o'clock was the regular dinner hour. The children used always to be nicely dressed and sent down "to dessert." And when Pig-Betty was there, Uncle James [40] never failed to pour out a glass of wine and say, "Now, who will take this to the old woman?" ”

“ But I know about that boy in the village. He is perfectly harmless, even gentle and affectionate. He has been at a school for such as he, and has learnt to knit—that is the only thing they could succeed in teaching him. ”