Part 3

The beautiful little creatures were just beginning to see; and what they thought of their large, fat mother and the bottle with a quill in it I cannot say. But they always ate heartily, and afterwards rolled themselves up in little balls close together on a cushion, and went to sleep in the sun, looking perfectly happy.

There was another pet, a playful young kid with a brass collar on his neck, who trotted about on his little black feet, following his mistress everywhere, even into the parlor. He, too, had been brought up on a bottle, and his name was Trot.

Mrs. Chick had two cows, a horse, and many hens and turkeys. She sometimes took the turkeys with her when she went visiting. Then there was a two years’ old baby over the way, who was always dancing in and out, and making a good deal of trouble; so Mrs. Chick was seldom lonely.

The children kept thinking what a lovely time they were having; but after tea they both felt tired, and at seven o’clock Mrs. Chick sent Jimmy to bed. The chamber was unfinished, and had no paper or plaster, and in some places the ceiling was so low that even little Jimmy could hardly stand upright. There was a live-oak tree close to the window, and he had seen a bird’s nest in the branches of the tree.

“I’ll hear the birds singing before I wake up,” thought Jimmy drowsily. “And I’ll go straight to sleep, for I’m going to churn that butter in the morning.”

But Jimmy did not go straight to sleep, nor did he waken early; and I will tell you why.

After he had gone up-stairs Mrs. Chick lighted a lamp and sat down in the kitchen to mend stockings, while Edith sat near her, looking over a picture-book. Presently Mrs. Chick said,—

“Dear me! I forgot to bring down that maple-sirup. I meant to have it for the waffles in the morning. But no matter now; I won’t stop to go after it.”

“Is it up-stairs?” asked Edith, who thought that it would be quite too bad to eat waffles without sirup.

“Yes; up-stairs in the closet in the northeast room. I keep it there because it’s a cool place. I used to keep it in the pantry, but the Morse baby always found out where to look for it. She climbs everywhere.”

“I think that Morse baby is more trouble than the kid,” said Edith. “But can’t I go up and get the sirup, Mrs. Chick? I’d like to so much.”

Mrs. Chick considered. She was tired, and did not wish to go herself; but could Edy be trusted with a lamp?

“Just hand down that candle from the mantel-piece, Edy. There,” said she, after lighting it, “that’s safe enough! The pitcher is right on the closet floor, under the lowest shelf, behind a box. Will you be very sure not to carry the candle into the closet?”

“Oh, no, indeed! Oh, _yes_, indeed, I mean! And I’ll be, oh, so careful!”

“Well, if you’ll remember to set the candle down by the chamber door, I think there’ll be no danger.”

“Yes, Mrs. Chick, I will,” said Edith, and danced away joyfully. It was almost an unheard-of thing for her to be trusted with a light, and she enjoyed it. She held the candle aloft, and peered rather cautiously about the unfinished room next door to Jimmy’s. The whole house was so queer, she thought, and Mrs. Chick put things in such droll places.

“If mamma knew I had this candle she’d be nervous. She talks to me about lamps and things as if I was a baby; but I guess she’ll find out I know as much as Kyzie. Kyzie singed her hair once. Father thinks I can’t take care. I mind all that’s said to me; I mind beautifully.

“Now, I wouldn’t forget what Mrs. Chick told me about this candle, not for anything! She told me to set it down by the closet door!”

Ah, Edith, a mistake already! She told you the chamber door!

“I remember a great deal better than Gertie Mercer. She can’t remember eight times nine to save her life. Let’s see, the pitcher’s on the closet floor behind a box.”

She opened the closet door, the candle still in her hand. What a delicious odor of apricots and peaches! Did Mrs. 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 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; and presently, when Edith by a quick movement thrust her skirt right into the flame of the candle, what could you expect but a blaze?

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!” 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. She heard the first cry, and came at once to her aid, followed by Jimmy.

I rejoice to say that the flames had not reached Edith’s hair. Mrs. Chick wrapped her in her best rug, which was quite spoiled by the means, to say nothing of the little girl’s pretty red frock; but the dear child herself was unharmed.

VI

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. But I thought I was going to be so careful this time.”

“’Twas all my fault, dearie. I knew you weren’t one of the stop-to-think kind. You’ll learn by and by,” replied Mrs. Chick soothingly, as she placed the trembling, exhausted child in bed between lavender-scented sheets, and turned to leave her.

“’Twas all my fault,” repeated the good woman to herself. “Thank Heaven no harm came of it! but I should think I was old enough to know better. 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.”

After this exciting adventure with the candle, it was some time before the children could compose themselves to go to sleep. Mrs. Chick had planned to do an unusual amount of work next day, and wanted an early breakfast; but she had not the heart to waken her young guests.

“Let ’em have a good rest, poor little things! I remember how I used to hate to be called up when I was a child; though, to be sure, I knew I’d got to work, and that makes a difference. Bless me! how I did have to work!”

It was eight o’clock, and the sun was quite high, when the children sat down to their breakfast of omelet and waffles. The maple-sirup had been forgotten after all, and Mrs. Chick had to go up-stairs for it.

“I’ve saved the cream for you to churn, Master Jimmy,” said she, watching his smiles as she spoke.

“I ought to have got it out of the way by half-past five, and all made into balls; but I don’t have a nice little boy like you come visiting me every day, and I can’t bear to disappoint you.”

“Thank you, Mrs. 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. I shall be close by in the kitchen, making pies.”

“Look here! see what I’m doing! You never churned any butter, now did you, Edy?”

“No,” said Edith; “and I don’t want to. I’d rather help Mrs. Chick make pies.”

For two minutes Jimmy was triumphant.

“How easy it goes! How well I do it!” he thought. “My arms must be pretty strong.”

But nobody was there to hear or see him. Mrs. Chick had gone into the kitchen, and was talking to Edith about buttering the plates for the pies. Through the open shed door he espied the kid nibbling leaves from some low bushes. The little Morse baby, who never stayed at home if she could help it, had brought her black doll just inside Mrs. Chick’s yard, and was rolling her in the sand.

“What a dirty baby to do that!” thought Jimmy.

Still he almost wished she would come into the shed; he did not enjoy being alone.

He turned the handle of the churn ’round and ’round and ’round. He was growing tired.

“Mrs. Chick!” he called out, “I think the butter is done.”

But Mrs. Chick paid no attention. She was telling Edy how hard she used to work when she was a little girl named Biddy Roberts, and lived in England.

“Perhaps,” said she to Edy, “they wouldn’t have called me Biddy if they had known I was going to marry a man by the name of Chick!”

“Mrs. Chick!” called Jimmy again.

“Well, what is it, dear?” said she from the kitchen.

“The butter’s done, I guess. Will you please come and see if the butter is done?”

Mrs. Chick was very busy. She had put some pie-crust on a deep plate, and was scalloping the crust into a kind of high wall all around the plate, ready to hold a rich custard.

“I think it’s done; I do truly,” repeated Jimmy.

“No, sonny; the butter can’t have come yet. What are you doing? Don’t take off the cover of the churn, Jimmy-boy. Only keep on turning the handle ’round and ’round and ’round.”

“Why, that’s just what I did do! Why, I’ve turned it ’round forty-two hundred times. I know I have. Can’t I stop now and get a drink of water?”

Mrs. Chick laughed. She was a woman who laughed very easily.

“Yes; get some water if you like.”

There was a large olla (oya) in one corner of the shed, covered by a white soup-plate. The water in it was always cold. Jimmy left the churn at once, and went to the olla, and stood to take a long breath. Then he ran to the pantry for a tumbler; he did not like to drink from the tin dipper which sat in the soup-plate.

But while he was gone for the tumbler, the Morse baby slipped into the shed, making hardly any noise. She came in with that dirty, dirty doll, as full of sand as a pepper-box is full of pepper. She climbed into Jimmy’s chair, lifted the cover off the churn, which was only set on edgewise, and said, “Diny, oo go in dare!”

And then she plumped Dinah head-first into the churn.

Nobody heard or saw her. What made her do it? It is of no use trying to guess. She might have thought such a sandy doll ought to have a bath. Or perhaps she was making believe Dinah had been naughty, and she was shutting her up in the closet.

At any rate, as soon as the miserable black object was safe in the churn, Baby Morse ran away to chase the kid, and forgot all about her doll.

When Jimmy had drunk two tumblers of water, and rested a long while,—for he was not in the least haste,—he went back to the churn.

The cover was off.

“I did not know I took that off,” said he. And he put it on again quickly.

Then he turned the handle ’round and ’ro-ound and ’ro-o-ound. But how ha-rd it went! Much harder than before. How heavy the cream had grown all at once! Mrs. Chick had warned Jimmy that it would seem to grow very heavy at the last.

“Do come, Mrs. Chick!” he cried eagerly. “The butter’s done now. I know it’s done. It breaks my arm off to turn it ’round.”

Mrs. Chick had just put her second pie into the oven. She went out to the shed, wondering what Jimmy meant, for she was sure the butter had not come. She took off the cover of the churn and looked in.

“Why! what’s this?” cried she.

She put in her hand then, and drew out that dirty, dirty doll.

She could not help laughing, though she was very sorry. It was quite too bad to spoil so much cream, and she was by no means a rich woman.

“I’m glad I didn’t put in all my cream,” she thought. “I had sense enough to save out half of it.”

But she was just as much amused as either of the children. She never was cross or sad, whatever happened.

“Of course Baby Morse has been here,” said she; “nobody else would cut up such a caper. But I haven’t seen her or heard a sound of her all the morning.”

“I saw her,” said Jimmy. “She was playing in the dirt with that horrid black thing; but who’d ’a’ thought of her dropping it in the churn?”

Then they had another hearty laugh, all three of them; and Jimmy never dreamed that he had been at all to blame. The cream was the color of Mrs. Chick’s gray gown. She poured it into a pan, to save it for the animals, and then washed the churn.

“I won’t scold the boy; it was all my own fault,” thought she. “It’s well I’m going to take these children home to-day. If they were to stay here much longer, I should let ’em pull the house down over my head.—Do you hear what I say, Biddy Chick?”

Mrs. Dunlee was very much surprised that afternoon to see Edy walk into the house wrapped in an old shawl of Mrs. Chick’s, which almost tripped her up at every step.

“O mamma!” she cried, throwing up her arms, “my dress was just burnt off me! The back of it, I mean.”

And while Mrs. Chick was trying to tell the story, Edith began to laugh and cry wildly.

“O mamma!” said she, casting herself on her mother’s neck, “you always did just right with me; you knew best when you wouldn’t trust me with candles and things. I _am_ the careless-est girl!”

“There! I’m glad you’ve found it out,” retorted Kyzie. “You never believed it when anybody else said so.”

Mamma raised a warning finger, and Kyzie was ashamed, and held her peace. She was the dearest girl in the world, but liked to lecture Edith; and Mrs. Dunlee thought Edith did not need any lectures now. She was feeling very humble.

“O mamma!” she went on, “I should think you’d tie my feet and hands with a rope! yes, I should! Too bad I burnt up Mrs. Chick’s pretty rug! But then, oh, dear! just think, you know, if there hadn’t been any rug!”

To divert their minds, Mrs. Chick told the story of Jimmy’s butter. They were much amused; but the funniest part of it was to hear her say,—

“But it was all my fault. I needn’t have been so weak-minded.”

When she left next morning there was a roll under the wagon-seat done up in brown paper. She had not known that the roll was there till she got home, when she found it contained a beautiful rug—a far better one than had been burned.

“Just like Mrs. Dunlee! She knew if I should see it before I came away I should hate to take it. And what’s this? A bran new shawl! Well, well, well! She’s a good woman, if there is one. Do you hear what I say, Biddy Chick?”

VII

THE BOY FROM NEW YORK

IN October a little boy came from New York with his father to visit Major Irwin. It was Gilly’s cousin, Dick Somers; and Dick was destined to get Jimmy into trouble.

He was a boastful boy. He told wonderful stories about the city of New York, where the houses went as high as Jack’s beanstalk, and the people had so much money that they almost threw it away.

Dick had left a dog at home which seemed to him now as large as a small burro. Yes, he was sure of it. A dog much brighter than Punch Dunlee, as well as vastly handsomer.

Dick had a beautiful sister; there was no one like her in California. She had been married six weeks before this in church; and “I tell you what, they spread carpets all over the streets for Maggie to walk on; yes, they did!”

Gilbert only laughed at these remarkable tales; but they annoyed Jamie, because they made him feel so very inferior.

He tried in his turn to remember and relate strange things that had happened to him or that he had seen; but he did not succeed very well. 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 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. To-day papa was visiting a sick man just out of town; Mrs. Porter, over the way, had borrowed the baby; Kyzie and Edith were having a botany lesson with Aunt Vi somewhere in a canyon; and Lucy had gone to Lincoln Heights to spend the day.

“What a merry time the little boys seem to be having in the stable!” remarked Mrs. Dunlee to Vendla, as they heard the sound of childish laughter floating in on the air.

She had asked Jimmy to get some hens’ eggs; for she and Vendla were to make some cake for tea by a new recipe. There was no haste about the eggs, however. Vendla stood by the pantry window rolling out pie-crust with a glass rolling-pin, and would not be ready to begin upon the cake till her four pies had gone into the oven.

Ah, that cake which had not been baked yet, that cake by the new rule! If Mrs. Dunlee and Vendla had only known what strange thing would happen to it that afternoon they certainly would not have made it at all! But they did not know; and Mrs. Dunlee very soon took down a large baking-pan and buttered it, saying to herself all the while that she hoped the baby was behaving well at Mrs. Porter’s. She missed him, and missed her three girls, and thought what a happy mother she was with five such dear children. Yet, after all, she was not sorry to have them out of the house for once on a Saturday morning.

“There’s Jimmy laughing again, above the other boys. He’s a noisy child; I wonder if Baby Eddy will be as fond of fun as Jimmy? Well, at any rate, I hope they’ll both grow up to be good.

“‘And if they fall, or if they rise, Be each, pray God, a gentleman.’”

Now it was time for the cake.

“Jimmy, Jimmy!” called Mrs. Dunlee from the window. “You may bring the eggs now.”

All this while the little boys in the stable had been chatting, and had hardly thought of the eggs.

“Billy Dow thrashed me last night,” said Gilbert, shaking his fist at the rafters. “But I tell you I paid him off.”

“Paid him off, that big fellow?” said Jimmy.

“Of course! Did you s’pose Gilly was going to forgive him?” cried the little cousin from New York contemptuously. “Would you forgive a boy that thrashed you, Jimmy Dunlee?”

“Ye-es,—if I couldn’t catch him! If he was ever so much larger’n me!” was Jimmy’s candid reply.

Gilly laughed. “_I_ don’t forgive ’em ’cause they’re big! If I didn’t dare hit Billy, I could call him awful names, and run out my tongue at him; couldn’t I? Guess he won’t try to thrash _me_ again!”

“What did you call him?” asked Jimmy, much interested.

“‘Billee! Billee!’ says I, as loud as I could screech; ‘Billee, you’re an old monkey-wrench!’ says I.”

“Why!” exclaimed Jimmy, struck by Gilly’s boldness. “Why-ee! I’ve had some o’ those big boys call me a monkey; that’s bad enough!”

“Yes; but I said monkey-wrench,” said Gilly proudly.

“I was the one that told him the word!” cried Dick, eager to share in the praise; “it’s a word they have in New York.”

Not one of the three little boys thought of asking, “What is a monkey-wrench?” It sounded like something too bad to be talked about.

“What’s that queer noise?” asked Dick.

It was John laughing all by himself in the stall at what the boys were saying. But when Jimmy peeped through the slats of the stall at the pretty chocolate-and-white cow, John stood there looking as solemn as an owl.

“We’ll get our eggs first, and then go in and play with Jessie,” said Jimmy, thinking this a great pleasure. But Dick, who had hardly ever seen a cow, was secretly afraid of Jessie’s “hooks.”

“Let’s see which’ll get the most eggs,” said he, beginning to climb the ladder to the mow.

And now began a hand-and-knee exploring-expedition after eggs.

“Needn’t dig so deep,” said Jimmy, as Dick thrust both arms up to the elbows in the straw.

“Well, but I’ve found an egg, Jimmy Dunlee, and you haven’t! Just as yellow! Do you keep yellow hens?”

The laugh was now against Dick, who “didn’t know everything,” so Gilly said, “even if he did come from New York.”

“I’ve found two eggs,” said Gilly, “so, now, what you think?”

“And I’ve found four,” cried Jimmy, trying to pitch his voice on a subdued key. Too much triumph might be impolite to his guests.

“Why, here are two more, makes four. I found ’em myself,” said Gilbert grandly. “What does your mamma do with so many eggs?”

“She’s going to put these in a cake.”

“I like mince-pies better’n cake,” returned Gilbert.

“I don’t eat ’em,” responded the boy from New York disdainfully, “and my mamma’s fankful I don’t!”

“What _do_ you eat?” asked Jimmy.

Dick considered a moment.

“Apple-pie and cream candy and wedding-cake. 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.”

The other boys laughed, and Dick said,—

“Pooh! I know better’n that! Say, none of your sisters ever went and got married, did they, Jim?”

Went and got married! His little sisters! Jimmy pondered on this foolish question. Dick meant it as an insult to his mamma’s cooking, no doubt, though he could not see how. Making sport of her cake, indeed, and before it was baked!

Jimmy had tried to be polite to the boys as his guests; but boys who go visiting ought to be polite too.

“Dick Somers!” cried Jimmy in a towering rage, “you stop that! I don’t care if you did come from New York, you don’t know any more about my mamma’s cake than you do about—about horned toads, so there!”

It was just here that the pleasant voice called from the pantry window,—

“Jimmy, Jimmy, you may bring the eggs now.”

It was well that something should cut short Jimmy’s angry speech. It was not safe to discuss horned toads above all things with Dick. Jimmy always grew furious to hear Dick talk so wisely about them, when, as Gilly said, “he wouldn’t know one from a caterpillar;” whereas Jimmy had raised a whole family of the queer little creatures, and knew them like A B C.

VIII

THE MISSING CAKE

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.”

“That’s the little fellow from New York, is it? 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.”