Young Folks Treasury Volume 3 (of 12) by Hamilton Wright Mabie (best romantic novels to read .txt) 📕

I did that, for she mostly taught it to herself; but I taught her a few sums, as far as I knew, on winter nights when I had nothing else to do."

"Your daughter shows that she has been well taught," said Sir Arthur; "and her good conduct is a credit to you and her mother."

"You are very good, very good indeed, sir, to speak in this way," said the delighted father.

"But I mean to do more than pay you with words," said Sir Arthur. "You are attached to your own family, perhaps you may become attached to me, when you know me, and we shall have many chances of judging one another. I want no one to do my hard work. I only want a steady, honest man, like you, to collect my rents, and I hope, Mr. Price, you will do that for me."

"I hope, sir," said Price, with joy and gratitude glowing in his honest face, "that I'll never give you cause to regret your goodness to me."

"And what are my sisters about here?" said Sir Arthur, entering the cottage and going behind the two ladies, who were busy measuring a pretty colored calico.

"It is for Susan, my dear brother. I knew she did not keep that guinea for herself," said Miss Somers. "I have just asked her mother to tell me what became of it. Susan gave it to her father; but she must not refuse a gown of our choosing this time; and I am sure she will not, because her mother, I see, likes it. And, Susan, I hear that instead of becoming Queen of the May this year, you were sitting in your mother's room as she was ill. Your mother has a little color in her cheeks now."

"Oh, ma'am," said Mrs. Price, "I'm a different being. Joy, I think, has done it."

"Then," said Miss Somers, "I hope you will be able to come out on your daughter's birthday, which, I hear, is on the twenty-fifth of this month. Make haste and get quite well before that day, for my brother means that all the boys and girls of the village shall have a dance on Susan's birthday."

"Yes," said Sir Arthur, "and I hope on that day, Susan, you will be very happy with your little friends upon their play-green. I shall tell them that it is your good conduct which has won it for them; and if you have anything to ask, any little favor for any of your friends, which we can grant, ask now, Susan."

"Sir," said Susan, after glancing at her mother, "there is, to be sure, a favor I should like to ask; it is for Rose."

"Well, I don't know who Rose is," said Sir Arthur, smiling; "but go on."

"Ma'am, you have seen her, I believe; she is a very good girl indeed," said Mrs. Price to Miss Somers.

"And works very neatly, ma'am," continued Susan eagerly, "and she and her mother heard you were looking out for some one to wait upon you."

"Say no more," said Miss Somers; "your wish is granted. Tell Rose to come to the Abbey to-morrow morning, or rather come with her yourself, for our housekeeper, I know, wants to talk to you about a certain cake. She wishes, Susan, that you should be the maker of the cake for the dance, and she has good things looked out for it already, I know. It must be large enough for everybody to have a slice, and the housekeeper will ice it for you. I only hope your cake will be as good as your bread. Good-by."

"How I do wish, now," said Farmer Price, "how I do wish, wife, that our good friend the harper was only here at this time. It would do his warm old heart good. Well, the best of it is, we shall be able next year, when he comes his rounds, to pay him his money with thanks, being all the time and for ever as much obliged to him as if we kept it. I long to see him in this house again, drinking, as he did, a glass of Susan's mead, just on this spot."

"Yes," said Susan, "and the next time he comes, I can give him one of my guinea-hen's eggs, and I shall show him Daisy."

"True, love," said her mother, "and he will play that tune and sing that pretty ballad. Where is it? I have not finished it."

"Rose ran away with it, mother, but I'll run after her, and bring it back to you this minute," said Susan.

Susan found her friend Rose at the hawthorn, in the midst of a crowd of children, to whom she was reading "Susan's Lamentation for her Lamb."

"The words are something, but the tune-the tune-I must have the tune," cried Philip. "I'll ask my mother to ask Sir Arthur to try and find out which way that good old man went after the ball; and if he's to be found, we'll have him back by Susan's birthday, and he shall sit here-just exactly here-by our bush, and he shall play-I mean, if he will-that same tune for us, and I shall learn it-I mean, if I can-in a minute."

The good news that Farmer Price was to collect the rents and that Attorney Case was to leave the parish in a month soon spread over the village. Many came out of their houses to have the pleasure of hearing the joyful tidings from Susan herself. The crowd on the play-green grew bigger every minute.

"Yes," cried Philip, "I tell you it's quite true, every word of it. Susan's too modest to say it herself, but I tell you all, that Sir Arthur has given us this play-green just because she is so good."


LIMBY LUMPY

I


LIMBY LUMPY was the only son of his mother. His father was called the "Pavior's Assistant," for he was so large and heavy that, when he used to walk through the streets, the men who were ramming the stones down with a large wooden rammer would say, "Please to walk over these stones, sir," and then the men would get a rest.

Limby was born on April 1-I do not know how long ago; but before he came into the world such preparations were made! There was a beautiful cradle, and a bunch of coral with bells on it, and lots of little caps, and a fine satin hat, and tops and bottoms for pap, and two nurses to take care of him. He was, too, to have a little chaise, when he grew big enough; after that, he was to have a donkey, and then a pony. In short, he was to have the moon for a plaything, if it could be got; and, as to the stars, he would have had them, if they had not been too high to reach.

Limby made a rare to-do when he was a little baby. But he never was a
little baby-he was always a big baby; nay, he was a big baby till the day of his death.

"Baby Big," his mother used to call him; he was "a noble baby," said his aunt; he was "a sweet baby," said old Mrs. Tomkins, the nurse; he was "a dear baby," said his papa-and so he was, for he cost a good deal. He was "a darling baby," said his aunt, by the mother's side; "there never was such a fine child," said everybody, before the parents; when they were at another place they called him, "a great, ugly fat child."

Limby was almost as broad as he was long. He had what some people called an open countenance-that is, one as broad as a full moon. He had what his mother called beautiful auburn locks, but what other people said were carroty-not before the mother, of course.

Limby had a flattish nose and a widish mouth, and his eyes were a little out of the right line. Poor little dear, he could not help that and therefore it was not right to laugh at him.

Everybody, however, laughed to see him eat his pap, for he would not be fed with the patent silver pap-spoon which his father bought him, but used to lay himself flat on his back, and seize the pap-boat with both hands, and never let go of it till its contents were fairly in his dear little stomach.

So Limby grew bigger and bigger every day, till at last he could scarcely draw his breath, and was very ill; so his mother sent for three apothecaries and two physicians, who looked at him, and told his mother there were no hopes: the poor child was dying of overfeeding. The physicians, however, prescribed for him-a dose of castor-oil.

His mother attempted to give him the castor-oil, but Limby, although he liked tops and bottoms, and cordial, and pap, and sweetbread, and oysters, and other things nicely dished up, had no fancy for castor-oil, and struggled and kicked and fought every time his nurse or mother attempted to give it him.

"Limby, my darling boy," said his mother, "my sweet cherub, my only dearest, do take its oily-poily, there's a ducky-deary, and it shall ride in a coachy-poachy."

"Oh, the dear baby!" said the nurse; "take it for nursey. It will take it for nursey, that it will."

The nurse had got the oil in a silver medicine-spoon, so contrived that, if you could get it into the child's mouth, the medicine must go down. Limby, however, took care that no spoon should go into his mouth, and when the nurse tried the experiment for the nineteenth time, gave a plunge and a kick, and sent the spoon up to the ceiling, knocked off the nurse's spectacles, upset the table on which all the bottles and glasses were, and came down whack on the floor.

His mother picked him up, clasped him to her breast, and almost smothered him with kisses.

"Oh, my dear boy!" said she; "it shan't take the nasty oil! it won't take it, the darling! Naughty nurse to hurt baby! It shall not take nasty physic!"

And then she kissed him again.

Poor Limby, although only two years old, knew what he was at-he was trying to be the master of his mother. He felt he had gained his point, and gave another kick and a squall, at the same time planting a blow on his mother's eye.

"Dear little creature!" said she; "he is in a state of high convulsions and fever. He will never recover!"

But Limby did recover, and in a few days was running about the house, and the master of it. There was nobody to be considered, nobody to be consulted, nobody to be attended to, but Limby Lumpy.


II


Limby grew up big and strong; he had everything his own way. One day, when he was at dinner with his father and mother, perched upon a double chair, with his silver knife and fork, and silver mug to drink from, he amused himself by playing drums on his plate with the mug.

"Don't make that noise, Limby, my dear," said his father.

"Dear little lamb!" said his mother; "let him amuse himself. Limby, have some pudding?"

"No, Limby no pudding!"

Drum! drum! drum!

A piece of pudding was, however, put on Limby's plate, but he kept on drumming as before. At last he drummed the bottom of the mug into the soft pudding, to which it