My Young Days. UnknownЧитать онлайн книгу.
bear it no longer. He gave a great loud bark, and flew along the road after the wretched, flying cat. Silly dog! while he was gone after puss, and just as he had his fore-paws quite over her back, up comes a sly thief to the hut door, quietly unhooks the bird, and runs off the other way, with its head hanging over his shoulder. "And, so, you see, Sissy," said Uncle Hugh in his funnily grave way, "poor Jack and I came back to find our dinner all gone!" But they got scent of the thief, and they caught him and shut him up in their little hut, and locked him in, and left him with nothing but bread and water. "For there was no policeman there, Sissy; we had to play policemen ourselves."
THE DREAM THAT HAUNTED THE THIEF.
And there they left him all night. And the poor thief thought about his little hungry children at home, till he fell asleep and dreamt (I wonder how Uncle Hugh knew that?) that he saw the goose all smoking hot, gravy and all, and a knife and fork all ready to cut it up.
But they didn't mean to be cruel—I don't believe Uncle Hugh could be! So they had a nice, hot supper themselves on board the big ship, and plenty of fun, and lots of merry songs. And then they cut three big slices and put them aside.
And don't you think the thief-man must have been surprised when he saw the nice breakfast that Jack brought him next morning? I think Uncle Hugh said that he wrapped it all up and took it home to his children. How queer he must have felt as he slunk off, the sailors standing round and giving him three cheers and plenty of jokes!
III.
THE LITTLE STOWAWAY
One of my earliest friends at the Park was a little French boy, a kind of page of my uncle's. Shall I tell you about him? You will think it very funny that a servant-boy should be allowed to be my friend, so I must explain.
Little Gus, as my uncle called him—though his real name was Gustave—was altogether a little foreigner. He couldn't talk English at all properly; in fact, the greater part of our conversation was carried on by signs. He was very much afraid of everybody in the house, except Uncle Hugh. He thought there was nobody in all the world like the Captain, as he called him. His bright eyes used to twinkle and his white teeth shine whenever he could find a chance of running an errand, or doing any little job for the Captain; and I think it was, perhaps, because he took me for the Captain's little pet that he grew so fond of me.
He would follow me all about the garden, and watch me as I talked away to Jane, and be ready to find my ball or fetch my hoop the minute I wanted them.
Now, after we had been a little while at the Park, I found that Jane had got very fond of flowers, and was always anxious to go to the glass-houses directly we came out into the garden.
"Why, Miss Sissy," she would say, "there never was anything like the ferns, and the orange-trees, and the cactuses in them houses; and Mr. Owen so civil-like in showing them to us, too."
So off we went to the hot-houses, and there Mr. Owen and Jane talked and talked till I got tired of the hot air, and went to play outside; and there just outside was Gus, always waiting to pick me the prettiest flowers, and find me the first sweet violets. But I was shy, and his words were so foreign that they frightened me; nor did I like at all being called "Petite mademoiselle," which was not my name, and couldn't mean anything that I could think of. At last I grew braver, and one day I ventured to ask—
"Who is your papa?"
"Me hab no papa, no mamma!" he said, looking very full at me.
"Where do you live then?" I asked. "You're not a bit like Bobbie!"
"Me live wid de Capitaine; me never will leaf de Capitaine—never, never, never!" he answered eagerly.
This made me feel very queer, and I think I looked half-frightened, for his look changed quickly, and he said, smiling his own sunny smile—
"Me fetch petite mademoiselle somet'ing nice; me fetch de puss dat de Capitaine just bring home!"
A pussy! That sounded pleasant, and I waited eagerly for his return. I waited a long time, as it seemed, and I had grown tired, and was looking for daisies on the grass, when I heard his step and the tap of his favourite holly-stick on the gravel. What a funny boy he was to call that "something nice"!
There he stood, his eyes and mouth all one smile, and held out at arm's length by the ears a dead rabbit. My look and exclamation of horror made him grave at once.
POOR DEAD PUSSY!
"Oh, the poor little rabbit!" I cried. "Has Uncle Hugh killed him quite dead?"
"Yes, yes, he quite dead! De Capitaine's gun kill him quite, de small dog pick him up. Petite mademoiselle not frighten, he quite dead!"
Ah, that was just the reason of my fright! Away I ran to Jane, and hid my face in her gown; and a very vigorous scolding did she give the French boy when she found what he had done.
Poor fellow! he was very much disconcerted, and did not know what to say. Two hours after he came back, and finding me alone just going for a drive, he said softly—
"Little puss all alive now, run away in de voods. Petite mademoiselle, come see?"
What did he mean? The rabbit could not be "quite dead" at one time, and "all alive" afterwards. But grandmamma was coming downstairs, and I had no time to answer him. By and by, when I was lying back on the soft cushions stroking grandmamma's pretty white fur, I told her all my puzzle.
"Ah, my pet," she said, "poor Gus had a very cruel French father, and doesn't know any better. He ran away from home when your uncle's ship was touching at Marseilles, and hid himself in the hold. They found him when they got out to sea—a little stowaway the sailors called him—and your uncle liked his dark, pitiful eyes, and was very kind to him; but he has not learnt much yet that's good. Don't have too much to say to him, my darling!"
Well, it wasn't very likely I should, for he and I found it not very easy to understand each other; yet he liked to do anything he could for me, and was always watching to see what I wanted.
Nearly a year after that, I remember, it was very cold, and the little southern boy felt it especially. He had grown ever so tall and thin, but not strong, and he went about looking blue and shivery. How I came to be still at the Park I will tell you in another place, but there I was, and my friend Gus won my pity by his wretched looks. I used to look at his blue hands, and wonder what could be done. At last I remembered a pair of warm knitted gloves, that had been given me, which I never wore. They had no fingers, only a thumb, and I doubted whether Gus would wear them; but I made up my mind that he would be glad anyhow to keep his chilblains from the wind.
I don't think I shall ever forget his look when I presented them to him, holding them by the pretty blue wool which fastened them together. That his "petite mademoiselle" should think of him, and make him a present, too! and then that that present should be one that he could not anyhow use! It was fairly too much for him; he looked at them, he looked at me, turned furiously red, stammered, stuttered, turned round, and literally ran away!
I never tried to make him a second present.
IV
MY HOME, AND WHAT IT WAS LIKE
Now, do you know, I feel rather ashamed of myself that I have not all this while told you in the least who I was, or where I came from. I began in the middle by saying, "I want to go home," but never told you in the least where my home was, nor what it was.
Well, to tell you the truth, I did not know much about my family history in those early days. I knew that my name was Mary Emily Marshall, commonly called Sissy, and I knew that my papa was "the gentleman that makes all the sick people well,"—"or tries to," Jane would add. I never did. Of course, if my papa tried to do anything he did it. That was my doctrine. We lived quite down in the country among the poor people, and we were not rich ourselves. Mamma had been born in this beautiful park, and I know now, though I did not then, that it was a great trouble at the Park when she married the country doctor, who loved the poor people so much that he would