Chapter 4

Aunt Elsie had taken leave of a most beautiful brown "front" and fourteen luxuriant curls, the absence of which gave her an appearance very like a staid bald-headed owl; particularly as she would keep on her very round spectacles, and wore a pair of extremely long-fingered green cotton gloves. The long ends of the glove fingers, waving about in the water, were not unlike the owl's claws; while her gray woollen bathing dress might have passed for a new sort of flannel feathers. A mortified blue sunbonnet, with all the canes out, was perched lop-sided on her head, and she wore a pair of bathing shoes, like brown poultices. The rest of us were just as bad, though; I was an ogre in green flannel, Tom and Jimmy monkeys in red, Mrs. Lawson tolerably lady-like in blue, with white tape trimmings, and Neighbor Nelly a ridiculous little old jumping Jenny in white, with gorgeous red facings; and all in hats that defied our best friends to know us in.

How we laughed at each other, and then made haste over the sand, which was so hot that it nearly scorched our feet, and plumped into the nice cool ocean, where ever so many other frights were already hopping about.

Now for a rush into the deep water! here comes a big wave! down, down now! and over our heads it went! dousing us as it had Gipsey the Saturday night, only we didn't squeal.

Presently, some people who had come from the next hotel, began dancing the "Lancers" in the water, ducking under instead of bowing, and seeming to have such a good time, that nothing would suit the children but that they must begin dancing, too; in consequence of which a wave twice as high as usual came roaring up, and carried Neighbor Nelly right off her feet. Under the water she went, and for an instant we were quite frightened; but presently up she popped laughing, and trying to squeeze the salt water out of her eyes.

However, that put a stop to the dancing; and here let me tell you, that surf bathing is always a pretty venturesome thing to attempt, unless you grasp the ropes firmly, or have hold of some older and stronger person's hand.

There was one gentleman flourishing about near us, who seemed bent upon trying how many odd things he could do in the water. Presently we saw him going down head first, and then his feet coming up in the air like a duck's! It looked so comical to see any one besides a duck standing upside down in the water, that we all burst out laughing, and just then along came another billow, and treated us each to a mouthful of salt water!

By this time we had been in long enough for one day, for you should always remember to come out before you feel chilled, and so we waded to the shore, looking more outlandish than ever, now the bathing dresses were all soaked, and hurried into the houses to get dry and dressed.

Surf bathing is a famous thing to give you an appetite; and I don't wonder Mr. Laird provides so bountiful and well cooked a dinner, when I think of the famishing five hundred people that were to be fed the day I was there, and every day beside. The "Charge of the Light Brigade" was nothing to the charge we made upon the dishes; and as the dining room is sensibly arranged with tables accommodating about a dozen people each, we all sat together; and had such a merry time that two or three cross old dames looked sharply at our party, very curious to know what all the laughing was about. Our small friend Gipsey was the cause of it, partly, for he posted himself beside each of our chairs in turn, and made such surprising and despairing hops and skips after bits of chicken held up beyond his reach, that he very nearly turned a somerset each time.

We rewarded his patience at last by giving him some bones, which he crunched under the table with perfect satisfaction, while we were discussing the ice cream and other good things.

In the afternoon I was sitting reading the paper on the upper piazza, and the children were amusing themselves in their own fashion near me. Nelly, with another little girl, whose name seemed to be "Baby," for they never called her anything else, were manufacturing a resplendent doll's dress for a waxen angel in a white spencer--or whatever those muslin concerns are called, which the ladies wear with colored skirts nowadays, and a black velvet pointed belt; while the boys, with their arms fraternally entwined, were interchanging confidences on the important subjects of "My peg top," "Don't you think thirty-eight cents is a tremendous price for kites?" "How many glass agates have you got?" and so on--when Tom, looking very mischievous, suddenly lifted up dolly by the toe of her shoe, and asked, "Why, Nelly, what's the matter with this doll; has she got the spinal complaint?"

"No, you goose," said Nelly, laughing. "What makes you ask that?"

"Because she has on a supporter," said Tom, with perfect gravity, pointing to the velvet belt. "Poor thing! why don't you take her in bathing? It would do her health good, I'm sure; she looks fearfully pale."

"Ah, make him put her down, Nelly," said Baby; "he'll break her if he goes on so;" for Tom was now amusing himself by balancing dolly on her head in his hand, making a great display of embroidered trowsers and hoop petticoats; and now, catching her by both hands, he suddenly swung her over the railing. "This is the way she ought to be ducked under the waves!" he added. Nelly sprang forward at the same moment with an "Oh, Tom! please!" and caught his arm rather suddenly. His hold relaxed at the same moment, and crash! down tumbled poor dolly on the ground below, breaking one of her wax arms completely off, and making a fearful cavity in her forehead, which killed her completely! that is, I should think so. I never heard of any one who survived fracture of the skull. Did you?

Poor Nelly! She tried hard not to mind it; but dolly's head was one too many for her, and the tears came rolling quickly down her cheeks as she gazed at the unfortunate waxen damsel below, with quivering lip. Tom turned red and white alternately in silence for a moment, and then began pouring forth apologies and regrets. He called himself all the imps that ever were heard of for being so careless; he offered to go to New York that very day to buy another doll, and have his hair well pulled beside, if she only would forgive him, and say she didn't think he had done it on purpose; and, in short, we had quite a little scene; when, fortunately, there occurred to me a pleasant means of diverting the minds of the party from the accident that had happened. So I laid down my paper, as though I had not been listening, and said:

"Well, little people, I believe I have discovered all the news there is; so what do you say to coming to a party I am thinking of giving in my room?"

"A party!" cried the children, dropping the subject of the doll to look at me; "why, we should like that very much. What sort of a party is it?"

"A reading party," I answered. "I have some papers I have been thinking of reading to you, to get your opinion of them before I put them in a book; and I shouldn't be surprised if there was a paper of candy in my drawer besides."

"Why, do you write books?" asked Baby, opening her bright eyes very wide indeed, as if to be certain what a real live author looked like.

"To be sure I do," I said, laughing. "Funny stories, and sad ones, too; and some that are every word of them true, and others that are told me by my friends; and you shall tell me whether they are true or not."

So we all made haste into my room--not the same I had when I first came, but one on the front piazza, near Neighbor Nelly's. The papers I meant were my own, Tom's, and the Fat Gentleman's stories, which I had brought down with me, to look over and correct. The candy I had bought for Nelly and Jimmy, as I told you, and forgotten all about to that moment. Little Robby came trotting along just then, so we asked him to be of the party; and Mrs. Lawson, looking out to see why we were in such a bustle, made up the company.

I wish you could have been at Our Party that afternoon. We made a cosey little group, I assure you. Mrs. Lawson sat by the table with her sewing; Tom established himself close to my chair, and Nelly nestled by my other side. Baby and Jimmy sat on hassocks, contrived from carpet bags, at my feet; dear little Robby was lifted to my knee, and the reading began. Oh, the laughter, and comical wonder, and blushes, when my little neighbors found the stories were about them! Nelly burst out with "Oh, Neighbor Oldbird!" and hid her face on my shoulder every time there was some special praise of herself. Tom turned perfectly crimson when we came to his story, and was in and out of his seat twenty times, begging me to stop, during its progress, his splendid black eyes glancing appealingly at me and Nelly by turns. I wouldn't spare him a single word, however; and when I came to his declaration at the end, concerning Nelly, there was a general shout of laughter.

"There's an eligible offer for you, Miss Nell," I said solemnly. "You'd better take it into consideration!" and so on, until Mrs. Lawson begged me to stop. She did not like to have ideas about marriage put into the children's heads; and I, when I reflected, was very sorry I had been so thoughtless. Tom bore my teasing manfully; but Nelly's face was rather grave, as if she did not like such remarks to be made about her; so I hurried on to the Fat Gentleman's story, and brought up at the end, and then handed round the candy, amid general approbation.

How we all passed that evening together on the beach, and had a wildly happy time; how we went in bathing the next day, and the next; and how, on Wednesday afternoon, I bid a most reluctant good-by to my little neighbors, I have not room to tell. I want to write how gladly we met again in the city in the fall; how Tom did come to live in New York, and favored us with his company as often as possible; how we chanced again on the little girl whom we had met in the toy shop, and found her living in a wretched tenement house in Cherry street, whence Mr. Lawson and I, with some other friends, removed them in haste, and established them in a nice little thread-needle store on one of the business avenues not far from our street; but all this would take too long.

I must say, though, what a blessed change it has been for them, particularly for poor little crippled Clara, who never fails to greet us with a smile when we go there to see her, as she sits in her comfortable arm-chair by the window, with her pet spaniel "Dandy" beside her. She is always contented and cheerful, in spite of the sharp pain that often racks her slender limbs; and as I look on her pale face, which is so plainly not long for this earth, and think that now her suffering life will end amid comfort and peace, I whisper to myself with a heart full of love, "All this through thy sweet influence, dear

"NEIGHBOR NELLY!"

FOOTNOTE:

[A] Quarrelling.

CONCLUSION.

AND that was the end of the famous Sock Stories, which had afforded George and Helen so much amusement during nearly three months; for it took all that time for Aunt Fanny's daughter to write, and the children to read them all. They could not tell which they liked the best; for it so happened that the "Funny Little Socks" made their appearance just at the time when some dear little cousins of theirs, only four or five years old, had come to spend a week or two with them, which made baby stories doubly welcome; and I don't know what the good and delightful gentleman to whom the fifth book is dedicated will say about it, when he sees his name at the front; but it was thought very appropriate by Helen's papa; as the very best story in the book is all about philosophers, grave and gay.

One thing in particular I am most happy to record; and that is, that the good habits which keeping mamma's little code of rules had engendered, were not broken off at the close of the readings; but instead, were formed more lastingly with every week; until now every one who knows George and Helen says, the first thing, "What good children they are! and yet, they never have to be whipped, or shut up in a dark closet to make them so." No! they are good from a higher motive than the dread of punishment; for they are inspired with the sincere desire to make their dear mother as happy as they can; and it would not surprise me at all if Santa Claus, who is a very discerning old gentleman, were to put something very nice indeed in both socks and stockings this Christmas--in spite of the hard times!

And now, one last word, before Aunt Fanny's daughter bids you good-by, little reader. She hopes and prays, in all sincerity, that she has succeeded not only in amusing you, but in giving you some lessons which will sink into your hearts for your real good. And if in the shadowy train of personages who have moved before you in these Sock Stories, there is one who has pleased you especially, from Colonel Freddy and little tender-hearted Greta, to Little Mother and the Old Bachelor, Neighbor Nelly, with her bright eyes and merry ways, or Gipsey, of the cork-screw tail and yap! yap! bark, the knowledge of this fact will give _her_ what she wishes for you all, a very

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

THE END OF THE SIXTH AND LAST BOOK.

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Transcriber's Notes:

Page 026, "anx" changed to "any" (him any more)

Page 32, "eat" changed to "ate" (We ate the)

Page 086, "found" changed to "fond" (fond of tops and marbles)

Page 126, "copmany" changed to "company" (made up the company)