Sophie May

“ Jimmy pitied himself as he heard his own words.
“Yes, Lucy Lyman Dunlee, you’re the awfulest acting-est child!
“If you don’t stop picking cake, and spoiling things, and breaking things, I’ll—I’ll—why, they’ll think it’s me! and I’ll grow up to be despised!”
Lucy sprang away from the table in alarm. What it was to “grow up to be despised” she had no idea. Something bad, if it made Jimmy look like this!
“There comes Judy! What has she got in her mouth?” cried Jimmy, forgetting his fear of being “despised.” “It can’t be one of Polly’s chickens?” ”

“ Jimmy felt that life had nothing grander to offer him than the honor of being “best man” at a wedding. It was as if he was about to become a king, and wear a royal crown.
As for Lucy, she was in such a flutter of [147] delight, that Kyzie had to watch her, lest she should run all over town to say to people,— “What you fink? I’se going to be mallied to Aunt Vi.”
Mr. Sanford arrived from Washington the very day before Christmas. Lucky for him that he was in season for the wedding!
“May I tell him about it, mamma?” asked Lucy. ”

“ JIMMY’S BUTTER
“Don’t cry so, you dear little girl; there is no harm done,” said Mrs. Chick. “Why, Jimmy-boy! I wish you were asleep. Run right back to bed, and don’t be so scared. Sister wasn’t hurt a bit.”
All this while Mrs. Chick, having undressed Edith, was rocking her in her arms like a baby.
“I was a naughty, heedless girl,” said Edith. “I ought to have told you mamma never trusts me with any kind of a light except a taper in a tumbler. ”

“ MRS. BIDDY CHICK
When Quon Wo decided that the ducklings were old enough, they were allowed to swim. But Polly never let them go to the pond alone. She went with them, and stood on dry land, watching their graceful motions. She seemed to feel ashamed not to swim herself; but she knew there was something the matter with her feet, so she never tried to learn.
“I don’t want Judy to catch any of those ducklings,” said Jimmy; “Judy’s horrid sometimes.”
“Will Punch catch any, do you think?” asked Mr. Sanford.
“Punch!” cried Jimmy indignantly. “Punch isn’t horrid; he’s good.” ”

“ Gilbert Irwin appeared at Mr. Dunlee’s next morning, holding in his hand a tiny lizard-skin purse, containing a dime and a nickel.
“Come, Jimmy,” said he; “let’s go get our candy.”
Before Jimmy could answer, the Chinese vegetable man, Quon Wo, drove up to the back door, calling out in a high, squealing tone.—
“Platoes, sleet corn, cabbagee, spinny-gee!”
“What’s a spinny-gee? Give us a spinny-gee!” laughed both the boys, running up to Quon Wo, whom they knew very well.
“Go ’way! Too much, talkee, talkee! [23] ” replied the Chinaman, grinning, and showing nearly all his white teeth. ”

“ Chick,” said Jimmy.
He supposed it would be nothing but fun to make butter, and secretly hoped he might be allowed to pat it into balls.
After breakfast he followed his kind hostess into the shed, and saw her pour a jar of rich cream into the green churn. She placed a chair for Jimmy beside the churn.
“All you’ve got to do,” said she, “is to turn the handle of the churn ’round and ’round and ’round.”
“Oh, that’s nothing; I can do it just as easy,” replied Jimmy.
Mrs. Chick laughed.
“It’s harder than you think, little dear. But when you are tired of it you can let me know. ”

“ As Vendla left the dining-room, Kyzie looked up quickly, exclaiming, “O mamma, don’t look so! I can’t believe it was Jimmy!”
“Neither can I,” said Aunt Vi, forgetting to eat her bread and butter.
“It doesn’t seem in the least like him,” returned Mrs. Dunlee.
[110]
But she had grown quite pale, and was going toward the study when her husband entered the dining-room. He had overheard part of the conversation, and looked as amazed and distressed as his wife.
“Why, my dear,” said he, “it is incredible!”
“So it is, James. The boy is too old to do such a thing; he has too much conscience. ”

“ Vendla put on her sweeping-cap, and began to sweep the chambers, while Jimmy and Lucy strayed off to the kitchen.
On the long table against the kitchen wall stood an elegant china fruit-dish which Vendla had brought out from the parlor to wash.
“Pretty dish,” said Lucy, fingering the edges lovingly.
“Let that alone, or you’ll break it,” said Jimmy, in the tone of command he often used when speaking to his little sister.
Lucy did not obey at once.
“You’re the naughtiest child, Lucy Lyman Dunlee! You’ll go and break that, and then [56] they’ll go and blame me! I always get punished for you!” ”

“ Jimmy-boy lingered about the pantry. The frosted cake “made by a new rule” sat cooling [102] on a platter, and the flies outside on the window-screen were wildly longing to get in and have a share; but the wire they beat against was hard and strong, and would not let them in.
Jimmy did not blame the flies for desiring the cake. It was certainly beautiful to behold. Could Dick Somers ever have seen anything more spotlessly fair, even in the great city of New York?
“Mamma, is this a wedding-cake?”
“No, dear; we only have wedding-cake when people are married.” ”

“ Jimmy was to be groomsman at the wedding, and Lucy was to be bridesmaid! Somebody had been making a beautiful white frock for little Lucy, all embroidered with silk apple-blossoms. Some one else had been making a charming blue suit for Jimmy, all spangled with silver.
Why shouldn’t these two children go nearly wild with rapture? Why shouldn’t they think [146] the wedding was made on purpose for themselves, and that Aunt Vi had little to do with it, except to look on and admire their new clothes? ”

“ It was pretty warm that Saturday afternoon, but a strong southerly breeze was blowing. Vendla had just set the last clean dishes on the pantry shelf, and gone up-stairs, when her mistress heard the sound of something falling, and, going into the pantry, found that the screen had fallen out of the window. Jimmy stood just outside, talking with John, and the screen had fallen close to Jimmy’s feet.
“Here, little one,” said John, “if you’ll hand that up to me, I’ll pound it in so it won’t come out. But what made you ask about quicksands?”
“Oh, to tell Dick Somers! He won’t believe a word I say.” ”

“ Before Edith could explore the closet floor and take out the sirup pitcher, the blaze was creeping up the back of her frock. She knew nothing about it till the smell of burning woollen reached her nostrils; and at the same instant she felt a dreadful sensation of heat, and knew that she was on fire! She screamed in horror,—
“Mrs. Chick! Mrs. Chick! Fire! Fire!” [76] Oh, how far it was down-stairs! Could Mrs. Chick hear?
But Mrs. Chick was not in the kitchen. Feeling rather uneasy about Edith, she had followed her up-stairs, and was on the upper landing when the child called. ”

“ Gilly whistled. Perhaps he felt that there was some truth in this.
“Your mamma punishes you more’n you are naughty,” he said.
“Now you stop!” cried Jimmy. “My mamma always finds out things. She isn’t talking all the time with ladies in the parlor, the way your mamma is.” ”

“ Chick keep her fruit here too? Such a funny woman!
Edith set her candle down by the closet door, and knelt just in front of it, the bottom of the candlestick almost touching the skirt [75] of her frock! But as she peered into the closet she forgot there was anything in the world but a sirup pitcher and some apricots and peaches. That candlestick with the candle in it was as far away from her thoughts, to say the least, as the moon in the sky.
But the candle did not forget. It is the duty of a lighted candle to set fire to anything that is put in its way ”

“ WAS IT JUDY?
For a week or two after Polly White had begun to sit on the ducks’ eggs, Lucy asked every day,—
“Where’s my little duckies?”
And then she forgot all about them.
But Polly White was still sitting. It takes only three weeks to hatch chickens; but it takes four weeks to hatch ducklings, and poor Polly did not understand it, and was growing very tired. To keep up her spirits John and Vendla gave her all sorts of nice things to eat. ”

“ You think you have the best mamma and best papa and best everything!” exclaimed Gilly.
“So I have!” said Jimmy confidently.
This was more than even the mild-tempered Gilly could bear.
“What you mean? My papa is a major, and yours isn’t!”
“H’m! My papa doesn’t want to be a major, [27] and that’s why! Some people perfers to be ministers!” Jimmy’s eyes were growing fiery. “Don’t you know,” he went on, “ministers are the nicest men there is in this world?”
But Gilly refused to be crushed.
“Has your papa got a coat with gold cushions on the shoulders, Jimmy Dunlee? ”

“ Dick considered a moment.
“Apple-pie and cream candy and wedding-cake. [98] Sometimes I eat bread and butter—if there’s jelly on it.”
“Oh!” said Jimmy with great respect, mingled perhaps with a little envy.
Did this come of living “back East” in New York? What more delightful than to be Dick Somers, and live where you have wedding-cake every day of your life!
“But,” ventured Jimmy with rising courage, “maybe this will be wedding-cake that mamma’s going to make. She didn’t say.” ”

“ Each firework was a picture all by itself; and such shouting and clapping you never heard. But last and best of all was a picture, in gold and silver fire, of a large, grand man in a soldier’s uniform and cocked hat. ”

“ The first hole had been no deeper than the dimple in Lucy’s cheek; the next hole went farther in. She was ready for the third nibble when her brother entered the pantry.
“Lucy Lyman Dunlee!” he exclaimed; [15] “that’s a Fourth o’ July Washington-pie! Made for company! Now you’ll catch it!”
“I wasn’t hurting Wash’ton’s Fourthy July pie; ’course I wasn’t,” returned the little mischief very innocently.
“I never saw such a girl. You’re as bad as the captain’s monkey,” said Jimmy severely. But he was not looking at Lucy; he was looking at the pie. “Go right away and let it alone! ”

“ Wish I had a piece this minute to carry to the boys! Dick Somers thinks we don’t have anything good out here. Why, mamma, he just makes fun of everything in California!”
“You may give him a piece to-morrow, Jamie.”
“May I?”
The little boy gazed wistfully at the cake. He knew mamma had frosted it on purpose to please her children; she and papa never ate any frosting.
“It does look so smooth and nice before it is cut up. If Dick could only see it all whole!”
Jimmy seemed to be talking to himself, rather than to his mother, and Mrs. Dunlee [104] did not answer him. ”

“ I’m so weak-minded about children; can’t deny ’em anything they ask for!
“Now, there’s that cream. I’ve no business to let Jimmy churn it to-morrow morning. Something will happen to it, as sure as my name’s Biddy Chick; and I can’t afford to lose the cream. It needs a steady hand to bring butter, and I’ll do the churning myself before he wakes up.” ”

“ Dick despised rattlesnakes, horned toads, gophers, and road-runners. He wouldn’t believe there are quicksands in California, where you can “slump down, down, clear out of sight.”
“Pooh! you needn’t tell me!”
It was very discouraging to talk to Dick; still Jimmy was always ready to talk.
One Saturday morning, Dick and Gilbert came over to the Dunlees’ to play with Jimmy, who was glad to see them. It was very still in [92] and about the house that morning. Mr. Sanford had been gone to the city of Washington for many weeks, and it always seemed odd without Mr. Sanford. ”

“ There was [152] a buzz of pleasant talking all through the room. People here and there laughed softly; but mamma and one or two other ladies put their handkerchiefs to their eyes. It couldn’t be that they were crying? How strange! how very strange! Grown-up ladies crying at a party!
And people were coming up to kiss Aunt Vi, and shake hands with Mr. Sanford. What was that for? If they had only kissed Jimmy and Lucy, and said how spl-en-didly they looked, and how well they had behaved, there might have been some sense in it. ”

“ Jimmy followed her out of the pantry, and she shut the door.
“Where are you going, my son?” asked papa a little later, coming home from his ride, and meeting Jimmy running off at full speed.
“To Gilly Irwin’s, papa; mamma said I might.”
Jimmy was in a hurry,—Mr. Dunlee observed it,—in an unusual hurry. And, as he rushed away like a whirlwind, he paused an instant to pick up a basket which stood under the large pepper-tree.
“I wonder what scheme the boy has in hand now,” said Mr. Dunlee to himself. “There’s [105] not a man in town who carries on so much business as our James.” ”

“ The “new ladies,”—really quite old ones,—had lately bought it to live in; and of course it was not a shop, and they kept nothing to sell. Only, as it happened, they had given Gilly a cake of maple-sugar the Thursday before, when he called there with his mamma.
“It doesn’t look a bit like a shop,” said Jimmy, as they walked up to the front door [29] of this quiet house, and Gilly pounded on the screen-door. There was an electric bell at the side. Jimmy did not think candy-shops generally had electric bells. ”

“ They heard music, and, keeping step to it, marched gayly down-stairs. The parlor was full of people, all richly dressed, but none of them so fine as the little groomsman and bridesmaid—oh, by no means!—or half so well pleased with their clothes! ”

“ I must confess that mamma and Aunt Vi fell to laughing in the most unfeeling manner. Each tried in turn to soothe poor Edith; and mamma said that even if Mrs. Phillips’s window had been wide open,—and Jimmy was sure it was shut,—that even with the window open it was hardly probable that Lucy had been exposed in so short a time.
“And whooping-cough is nothing very serious [139] here in California, my daughter. Children suffer very little from it in this mild climate. I wouldn’t mind Lucy’s having it some time, say next spring ”

“ Well, you tell him it’s all true. He can sink up to his ears in a quicksand, and he may try it if he wants to.”
“There! there! I knew it all the time,” cried Jimmy. “I wish you’d tell him I did see two live rattlesnakes, and I did see—oh, lots of road-runners! He thinks I’m a pretty nearly fool! Almost!”
Mrs. Dunlee heard this scrap of conversation as Jimmy was entering the house. He came along to the pantry, looking rather vexed and discontented. ”