Part 1

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Lady Daisy and Other Stories

BY CAROLINE STEWART

Author of "A Kitten's Adventures" &c.

BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED LONDON GLASGOW DUBLIN BOMBAY

CONTENTS.

Page "LADY DAISY," 7 PAPA'S CHRISTMAS STORY, 26 STORY OF A GLOWWORM, 52

"LADY DAISY."

A DOLL STORY.

Little Flora's father gave her a small china doll on her fourth birthday. It was only a little one, but Flora's father said that his little girl was very small too, and he thought she could not carry a big doll yet. When Flora was five years old her father gave her a larger one, and when she was six her father presented her with a beautiful baby doll in long clothes, that was almost as tall as Baby Henry, her brother, in the nursery. Nurse even said the dollie's long gowns would fit Baby if they were only wider, for, of course, Baby Henry was much heavier and fatter than Dollie, though Dollie was almost as tall. Now came the question of a name. Nurse said that in the last house where she lived the little girl had had a doll called Lady Sarah Maria, but Flora said she was not going to call her doll by that name, because the funny old lady who lived opposite was Miss Sarah Maria Higginson, and her doll was far too pretty to be like that old lady. Miss Higginson had once looked very angrily at Flora when her ball had happened to bounce over the wall into her precious flower-garden, so Flora did not like her. Perhaps the old lady did not like Flora for spoiling her flowers! Well, at last, after much thinking, the doll had a name given to it. It was called Lady Emily Mary Julia Gwendoline. Nurse thought it was too long, but Flora reminded her that Emily was after her eldest sister, Mary after the parlour-maid, whom Flora liked very much, Julia after Flora's Aunt Julia, and Gwendoline after Flora's little sister; so that her doll was like them all in something, of course, or she would not have given her so many names. She had Emily's blue eyes, and Mary's pink cheeks, and Aunt Julia's sweet smile, and Gwendoline's pretty light hair.

"And, Nurse, I do think she has fingers like yours, rather stumpy at the ends!" exclaimed Flora, after a pause.

"No, no!" cried Nurse. "I won't have her called Ruth after me, that I won't; and you're a very rude little girl Miss Flora!"

So Flora contented herself with four names, and wrote them in her copy-book lest she should forget them. After a while she grew tired of calling her doll by four names, and changed them all to Daisy, for short, she said; though Nurse said that Daisy was the short name for Margaret, and not for Emily.

Lady Daisy went out for many a long walk in the tender arms of her little mother. Flora hardly ever let her out of her sight, except while she went to dinner and breakfast. At tea-time Lady Daisy always sat on a chair by her little mother, and was quite content to look at her bread and honey without wanting any of it.

The doll led a very happy life till one day when the whole family set off to the seaside, and then her misfortunes began. Flora thought that she was as careful as ever of her dear Lady Daisy, but I am afraid she had grown a little tired of looking after her as much as before. At first she had carefully kept her out of Baby Henry's reach, because he pulled about everything till it was torn or spoiled; and also Snip, the terrier, had such a way of worrying anything that he was never allowed to go near Lady Daisy's cradle. Therefore, when the whole party set off for the seaside the doll was as fresh and beautiful as at first. But, alas, a change came! Little Flora was so excited about going to the seaside, that after she had put her favourite on the cushion of the railway carriage she forgot all about her in the delight of looking out of the window. When they at last came to a large station where the train was going to stop for ten minutes, half the party got out of the carriage to go and have some tea in the refreshment rooms. Little Flora begged to be allowed to go too; and though her mother meant her to stay with Nurse, Charlie, and Baby in the carriage, she let her come as a great treat for once in a way. So Flora jumped out in the highest spirits, and quite forgot Lady Daisy in her hurry.

Nurse put Baby Henry on the cushion, as she wanted to untie the basket that held a bottle of milk and some biscuits. While she was busy doing this Baby Henry looked about him. He soon spied Lady Daisy sitting bolt upright against the cushions, staring with her blue eyes at Charlie. He stretched out his little hand and took her by the arm. Charlie looked up at this moment and saw him do it, and though Charlie was only a little boy himself he felt he ought to look after Baby Henry.

"Give Dollie to me, Baby," he said sharply. "You're not to have her, bad boy!"

But Baby only clasped Lady Daisy tighter by the arm.

Charlie stretched out his hand and caught hold of Dollie by the hair and tried to pull her away from Baby. Charlie pulled and Baby pulled. They pulled and pulled, till poor Lady Daisy's hair came off in Charlie's hand and her arm broke off in Baby's hand, and then she tumbled right down on to the floor!

"Oh, Nurse, see how naughty Baby has been!" cried Charlie.

Nurse turned round, and when she saw the mischief that they had both done she gave Charlie a good shaking that made him cry, and scolded Baby Henry well till he roared out loudly.

"Now, stop that noise, you bad children!" said Nurse angrily. "I can't do anything for a minute but directly my back is turned you behave as bad as bad can be. And now, what Miss Flora will say when she comes back I don't know. I think I had better hide away Dollie till we get to the seaside, and then we can get her mended, and trust to Miss Flora forgetting all about her till then."

So Nurse picked up the bits of arm and all the small pieces of yellow hair, and stuffed them all together, with Lady Daisy, under the cushion of the railway carriage; and then she looked out of the window and said, "Here they all come back again. Ah, Master Charlie, you may well look ashamed!"

Charlie was very much frightened at what he and Baby had done; but, of course, he thought it was all Baby's fault, being like so many people who prefer to put the blame on others, instead of bravely bearing a share of it themselves. He did so hope Nurse wouldn't tell. I think he ought to have told himself; don't you? But he did not. Just then Flora came running up to the carriage door with a huge Bath bun in her hand.

"Oh, Charlie, it's so nice out here!" she cried; "and I've had a lot of refreshment. And, oh, I've bought you a big bun with my own money!"

Charlie was just putting out his hand for the bun when his conscience pricked him, and told him he hardly deserved to take Flora's gift after what had happened.

He suddenly withdrew his hand and said, "I'm not hungry, Flo, thank you."

"Oh, but do take it!" cried Flora. "It cost twopence."

Charlie put out his hand slowly and took the bun; but it tasted heavy to him, as he was not happy. Soon the rest of the party were settled back in their former seats, and the engine steamed on again. And poor Lady Daisy was quite forgotten! One by one the children dropped off to sleep, and only once did little Flora murmur her doll's name in her dreams. At last they came to the end of their journey, and everyone had to bustle out so quickly. Nurse had to carry the sleepy children into the waiting-room whilst the luggage was being got out, and in five minutes the engine gave a puff and a shriek and the train rolled on somewhere else, with Lady Daisy crushed under one of the cushions of a carriage. Nurse had quite forgotten her!

Poor thing, she hardly deserved such a fate! I think we must follow her on her journey, for somebody must look after her. Well, at the next station an old gentleman got into that very carriage, and he sat down at the end by the window and began to curl himself up comfortably in the corner. But somehow something prevented him. He thought the cushion edged up-hill very oddly, and the seat seemed very hard. So he threw off his travelling rug again, in which he had wrapped himself, and stood up to search, thinking it might be crackers or squibs or something horrid. When he pulled up the seat and found poor Lady Daisy he was very angry.

"I'll speak to the guard!" he muttered to himself, while he held the battered, crushed doll at arm's length. "Some wretched child has left this here for I don't know how long, and they never take the trouble to settle the cushions properly, these railway people. Lazy set!"

By which remark he did the hard-working railway people a great injustice, so I am glad there was no one in the carriage to hear.

He threw the doll roughly down on the opposite side, and composed himself once more to rest. When people are angry they are very often unjust. _We_ know--you and I--that it was not the guard's fault nor the porter's fault that poor Lady Daisy disturbed the rest of this grumbling old gentleman. _We_ know that she had only been left in that carriage ten minutes by herself. However, at the next station the guard was called to the door and shown the poor battered doll, and angrily asked why the cushions were not made smooth before the train started on its journey?

The guard said he was sorry for any discomfort the gentleman might have had, but explained that he remembered a party of children had only just got out at the last station, so he was sure they must have left it there. In the meantime he would take "Miss Doll," as he called her, into his own van; and he lifted her up, and picked up the broken arm and all the yellow hair and rolled them into a big bundle, and went off to his part of the train.

"It'll do for my little Polly," thought the guard to himself.

All this while what was Flora doing? Hard-hearted little girl, she was thinking how hungry she was as they rolled along the streets in a cab to their lodgings. When the family were all seated at tea, and Flora was busy with a plateful of bread and jam, Nurse suddenly came into the room looking rather sad, and she whispered something to Flora's mother. Flora heard some of the words. They were, "Break it to her, please, ma'am; I'm afraid."

All at once, like a flash, Flora remembered Lady Daisy. She darted up from her chair, crying out, "Oh, Nurse, where _is_ my doll? I've left her in the train! Oh, Mother, please send to the station and ask them for her! Oh, Mother, how could Nurse forget her? Nurse, Nurse, are you sure you haven't got her? I heard you say you were afraid! I know you've left her behind!" And thus Flora ran on--now accusing Nurse, now mourning the loss of her doll, now asking her mother to send for her--till her mother drew her calmly to herself, and said, "Flora, dear, do not blame Nurse for forgetting your doll when she had a hundred other things to think of. If you forgot her, don't accuse others of it. I am afraid my little girl forgot her Lady Daisy for many hours, too, in the train. Nurse tells me you left your dollie all alone when you got out of the train at B---- Station, and that Charlie and Baby Henry got hold of her, and pulled her very much about, so that she had to put the poor broken thing under the seat lest you should see it, and it would grieve you. She meant to act kindly to you, and it was hardly her fault if, when we got out, she should forget Lady Daisy was still there, since Lady Daisy's own mistress, my little Flora, never missed her at all; was it?"

Flora hung her head. "No, Mother," she whispered. "But I _did_ love her."

"Then my little girl must be more thoughtful," said her mother; "and I am afraid, as the train has gone on a long way, that Lady Daisy must have gone too, so she won't be at the station. But think of this: perhaps some other little girl may find her, and take care of her, and love her too."

At which Flora burst into a flood of tears, and it took a long time for her to get over the idea that Lady Daisy was lost for ever!

They stayed at the seaside for six weeks, and one day Nurse packed up all their things and said they were going home again. Flora watched her fastening all the boxes and bags. She had a sorrowful look on her face. Even now she had not forgotten Lady Daisy.

"Nurse, I've nothing to carry in my hands _this_ time," she said, and then turned away to look out of the window. She did not try to blame anyone else now for her forgetfulness of her poor Lady Daisy. She saw it was her own fault having left her, alone and forgotten, so long that day when they first came to the sea.

When they got to the station they had to cross over to the other side of the railway. There was a train just coming up, and they waited till it should go by. However, it was going to stop there altogether, and the guard got out and was walking towards them, when suddenly Nurse recognized his face as being that of the same man who had been with them in the train when they came down to the sea. She remembered faces very well, and as she was still sorry for poor Flora, she ran up to him, and said hastily:

"Please, sir, did you happen to find a doll in your train some six weeks ago? My little lady's doll, that was!"

The guard stood still with a puzzled face for a moment, then suddenly a smile lit up his face, and he answered quite briskly:

"Oh! are _you_ the party as got out of my train about that time and left a doll under the seat?"

"Yes, sure enough!" exclaimed Nurse.

"Ah! I see _'twas_ you now!" replied the guard. "You know where it was; and there is the little missy, too, whom I remembers lifting out dead-asleep in my arms that day. Yes, yes. I found it right enough; not but what it were a bit crushed through an old party sitting on it at the next station; but, bless you, I took it home all right, and give it to my poor Poll in hospital. Not afore I'd mended it, though. I'm a good hand at carpentering, though sticking on the yellow hair was a bit of a puzzle." And he laughed loud.

Flora had ran up to her nurse at this moment.

"Dollie's found," said Nurse, quickly turning round to her.

"Did you find her, please, guard?" inquired Flora rather shyly.

"Yes, missy; and if I'd known where you lived I'd have fetched her back to you. As it is, my Poll's had a lot of fun out of her; but you shall have her back--you shall have her back."

As Flora's mother just then came out of the ticket-office and joined the group, she heard the whole history. The end of it was that she gave the guard sixpence to send Lady Daisy back by parcel post, as he declared he wouldn't let his Polly keep her a day longer, no, "not if the lady wished it ever so." I think he had seen Flora's sorrowful face turn quite joyful when he had mentioned Lady Daisy.

"And, Mother," whispered Flora, "if he so kindly sends dear Daisy back, will you take my four-and-sixpence out of my money-box and buy Polly another great big doll instead. You see, it won't matter to _her_ losing Daisy as it mattered to me, and if I buy her another doll she will be just as happy; don't you think so? You see, she didn't have her _always_, as I did."

And so it was settled; and when poor little Poll in the hospital with the broken leg one day received a lovely new doll by the post, she said wonderingly to her father:

"I can't think, Father, why that little lady liked that battered old thing instead of keeping this here lovely new one!"

But you and I know why. We all like our old favourites best, don't we? And so Lady Daisy came back after all safe and sound to her first home at the Grange, and you may be sure Flora never lost sight of her again.

PAPA'S CHRISTMAS STORY.

"Papa, do please tell us one of your nice stories," said Clement Percival to his father, as the family drew their chairs round the fire after dinner one bitterly cold winter's evening just before Christmas Day.

"Oh, do, do!" struck in a chorus of youthful voices.

"I should like a funny tale," said Clement.

"I don't mind rather a sad one," said Lucy. "I mean one about naughty children."

"I like just what Papa likes to tell," said George, who had set himself down on a footstool at his father's feet.

"Mamma, dear," said little Nelly, the youngest of the party, "do please shut your eyes and go to sleep, that you mayn't be able to say, 'Nelly, it's time for you to go to bed' _just_ in the middle."

"Well," said Mr. Percival laughing, "I will try what I can do to please you all. Let me think a minute. Oh, I know!

"Once upon a time--"

"_Once upon a time!_ That is the way you _always_ begin, Papa," said Lucy.

"Well, then, will this do for you, young lady?"

* * * * *

It was getting dusk on a September evening when a young traveller entered the village of Seely. Foot-sore and weary, he sank upon a grassy bank to rest.

He had not been there long before a strange sound met his ears. At first it seemed to be nothing but one continued buzz. He listened closely.

What could it be?

The noise came from behind a garden wall at his back. He rose quietly, and climbing up into an oak-tree from which he could look over into that garden, he seated himself safely amongst the branches and held his breath, for--the fruit-trees and vegetables were talking! and he wished to hear what they could be saying.

"It is no use asking me this evening," said a portly Cauliflower. "My head is so heavy I cannot take my turn. Ask the Scarlet-runner."

"Me!" said the Scarlet-runner. "Don't ask me! I've been running all day, and have got to run all night, to get up to the top of these sticks. You may see by the colour of my flowers how hot and tired I am! Try the Parsley."

"I'm sure _I_ have not a moment to tell a tale," said the Parsley. "I'm _so_ busy curling my leaves ready to make the dishes to-morrow, for I heard the gardener tell the cook I should have a place on the table, and I like to be pretty."

"Vain creature!" said the Cauliflower. "Black Currant! what say you to taking your turn now?"

"Better not ask me," drawled the Black Currant. "You see by my dress how dismal my story would be, and as for my sisters Red and White, the birds have been pecking at them all day, till there is nothing but their stalks left. It is no use to ask _them_."

"I _would_ take my turn," said a large Pear hanging against the brick wall, "but I'm _so_ sleepy I am sure I should fall down with the exertion."

"I am longing to speak," cried a Potato from under the ground, "but I can't make my voice heard through the mould. There are many wonderful things going on down here which I, with eyes about me, can see, that you have no idea of, but I must wait till I am dug up to take my turn."

"You are all very tiresome to-night," said the Cauliflower. "I _would_ ask the Cabbage, because I know it has a good heart, but I heard the Fig-tree say the other day it wouldn't give a fig for its stories, they are so vulgar. Who is that coughing?"

"I," said the Artichoke. "I was thinking I might be the speaker to-night; but you see I could only get half through what I had to say before I was stopped by coughing, so it's no use _my_ trying."

"French Bean! could not _you_ oblige us?"

"If so, I must speak in French," said the French Bean.

"Oh, that will never do!" cried several voices at once; "we cannot understand that language."

The French Bean hung its head and was silent.

"Did I not see a head peeping from that tall red pot?" said the Cauliflower. "Sea-kale! is that you? Come! it is really your turn to-night."

"No, no!" said the Sea-kale. "The gardener can force me to grow; but you can't force me to tell a story. My stories are only fit for the shells and fishes to listen to. None of you land creatures would understand them."

"_I_ could, for I--I have relations amongst the shells," said the Crab-apple proudly.

"And I'm sure I'm _well_ known to one of the fishes," said the Fennel, "for whenever the Mackerel comes to dinner I'm always asked to meet him."

"I see we must fall back upon the Mustard and Cress," said the Cauliflower.

"Us, indeed!" cried hot angry voices from a box in a corner, "what could _we_ tell of, who live only for a few days, and can never look over the wall? Surely the old Apple-tree who has lived for so many years, and can stretch out its branches far enough to see what is going on outside, is the one to tell us something worth listening to."

"Yes! yes! the Apple-tree!" cried all the vegetables at once, making a very loud confused noise.

"My friend," said the Apple-tree, "my fruit is blushing rosy red with the compliment you pay me. What the Mustard and Cress say is quite true. I _can_ see the world beyond, and I have a tale to tell. It is not a merry one; but if you like to hear it you shall."

"I'm quite ready to cry," said the Onion, "so pray begin."

The Apple-tree shook off a few dead leaves and two over-ripe apples, and began as follows:--

"The earliest thing that I can remember is standing in a neat row of young apple-trees in a nursery-garden. An old gentleman came and bought me, carried me off in his carriage and had me planted here. He lived in the house you see over the wall. No, by the by, you can hardly any of you see the house till your heads are cut off and the gardener carries you through the gate; but there _is_ a house, and I will tell you what it is like.

"It is a large white house, with a roof of gray slates. There are only three windows on this side, but then this is not the grand side. I only saw the other sides once, and that was when I was taken out of the carriage and brought round here, and I passed plenty of windows and a large house-door then. Well, for many a long year I lived a dull quiet life, seeing nobody but the gardener. When first I had apples, beautiful rosy apples, I was in hopes the old gentleman would come and see them, but no--as soon as they were ripe the gardener took them all from me, or else they fell upon the grass below, and the slugs came and ate them. At last the old gentleman died.

"I heard the gardener tell the bees this one fine morning, and he wiped the corner of his eyes with his coat sleeve as he did so, which showed he had been a good master to him. After this the place looked very lonely, with the windows of the house closed and not a creature to be seen about except the gardener, and he seldom appeared.

"A fine battle with the wind now and then was the only fun I had. It would come gently at first and rock me to and fro as if it would lull me to sleep, then, suddenly it would rush at me in all its fury and try to tear me to pieces; but although it used to bend me down almost to touch the ground, I would start up again as if I didn't mind it a bit. Somehow or other I always gained the victory, for the poor wind died away while I was the stronger and better for the fight.

"In course of time I became so stout and firm it couldn't shake me at all. When it did rise up and try to do its worst, it could only whistle round me and make my branches dance. Late one evening I was surprised by seeing a small head peering over the wall. At first there was only a pair of eyes, presently the whole head, and then the body of a small boy, who scrambled over and crept up to me.

"He got up into my branches and filled his pockets as full as they could hold. Then he slid down and climbed back over the wall by which he came.

"The next day the gardener happened to pay me a visit."

"'Holloa! who's been here?' he said; 'this won't do!' and he went to his toolhouse and took out something which he laid in the grass at my roots, and went away.