Bessie on Her Travels

“See here, baby. Who is this?” said Mrs. Bradford, wishing to see if she would recognize it, and she held up the doll before the eyes of her by no means gratified baby daughter.

The pet drew up her rose-bud of a mouth into the most comical expression of astonishment and disgust at the sight of the old object of her dislike; for, as was quite natural, she took it to be the very same Peter Bartholomew. Then, taking him from her mother’s hand, she gravely marched with him to the hearth-rug, and, tucking him beneath it, sat down upon it, saying, “Tit on Peter,” in a tone of triumph, as though she thought she had now altogether extinguished the unlucky offender. Great was her indignation when, later in the day, she was brought in from her drive, and found Peter Bartholomew No. 2 had reappeared. Finding the hearth-rug was not a safe hiding-place, she was from this time constantly contriving ways and means for putting him out of sight; but only to find that he as constantly turned up again. In vain did she throw him out of windows, and behind doors; poke him through the banisters, and let him fall in the hall below: tuck him behind sofa-cushions, and squeeze him into the smallest possible corners, with all manner of things piled on top of him: he still proved a source of trouble to her. The other children found great amusement in this, and in pretending to hunt for Peter, while they knew very well where he was.

But on the third day they really hunted in vain. Peter Bartholomew the second seemed to be as thoroughly “all don,” as his namesake who had been left on the far-away Southern railroad; and the nurses joined in the search with no better success. Annie seemed to have accomplished her object this time; and the little one herself could not be persuaded to say where she had put him. Her mother tried to make her tell; but the child seemed really to have forgotten, and the matter was allowed to rest.

However, Peter came to light at last, to light very nearly in earnest. In Mrs. Rush’s nursery was a large, open fireplace, where wood was always laid ready for lighting when a fire should be needed for the baby. One cool morning, about a week after Peter’s disappearance, May Bessie’s nurse lit the fire, when Annie, who sat upon Mammy’s knee, suddenly exclaimed, as the smoke began to curl up the chimney, —

“Oh, dear, dear! Peter ’moke.”

“You monkey,” said nurse, “I believe you’ve put him behind the wood;” and the two nurses hastened to scatter the fire, when, sure enough, Peter Bartholomew was drawn forth, slightly scorched and smelling somewhat of “’moke,” but otherwise unhurt. Annie took it hard, however, and was so grieved at his reappearance that Mrs. Rush, who was in the nursery, said he had better be put away while she stayed. Probably the lighting of the fire recalled to baby’s mind where she had put the lost Peter.

But we must go back to the first morning of their stay at Newport. The ladies were all rather tired with their journey and were disposed to rest; but the children, refreshed by a good night’s sleep, were quite ready to start out with the gentlemen for a ramble on the beach.

“Do you like this as well as Quam Beach?” asked the Colonel of Bessie, as she sat beside him on a rock, with his arm drawn close about her, as in the old days of two summers since: those days when she had come, a little Heaven-sent messenger, across his path, to guide his wandering feet into the road which leads to Eternal Life. Was it any wonder that, thinking of this, he looked down with a very tender love on the dear little one, over whose work the angels of Heaven had rejoiced?

They had both sat silent for some time, the rest of the party having wandered to a short distance, when the Colonel asked this question, —

“Do you like this as well as Quam Beach, Bessie?”

“Oh, yes, sir! better,” said Bessie. “I never did see such a lovely, lovely place as this, or feel such nice air. It’s the best place we went to in all our travels; and then we have you and most all the people we love here. I am so very contented.”

She looked so indeed, as she sat smiling and happy, looking out over the sapphire blue waters, and watching the white-capped waves which broke almost at her feet.

“Yes,” said the Colonel, smiling. “I thought it would add to your contentment to have all your people here to meet you, if I could bring it about.”

“Yes,” said Maggie, who came dancing up in time to hear these last words. “It was so very considerate of you and Aunt May. Oh! this is the very happiest world I ever lived in. I wish, I wish, I could live a thousand years in it.”

“But Maggie,” said Bessie, “then you’d be so very long away from heaven.”

“Well, yes,” said Maggie; “but then I’d hope to go to heaven after the thousand years, and I’d try to be very good all the time.”

“But long before the thousand years were past, all whom you love would have gone away to that still happier home our Lord has prepared for us,” said the Colonel, “and then you would be lonely and wish to follow, would you not, Maggie?”

“Yes,” answered Maggie, a shade of thoughtfulness coming over her sunny face. “I’m sure I would if all my dear friends went to heaven, and maybe some of them wouldn’t want to live a thousand years.”

“And it’s so hard always to be good,” said Bessie, “and sometimes even we have troubles, and are sick, even though we are so happy ’most all the time.”

“Yes,” said Maggie, “so we do. I’m not sick much ’cept when I have the earache: but maybe I’d be lame and deaf and blind and hump-backed, and all kind of things, before I was a thousand years old; and that would be horrid. I wouldn’t like to have a great many troubles either; so I guess it’s better it is fixed for me just as God chooses.”

“We may be sure of that, dear,” said the Colonel. “God knows what is best for us, and rules our lives for our good and His glory.”

“I’m not sure I mind so very much about the being naughty now and then,” said Maggie. “I know I ought to, but I’m afraid I don’t. I s’pose when I have so much to make me happy I ought to be full of remorse all the time for ever being naughty, but somehow I can’t be. And I do have afflictions sometimes. Oh!” she added, as the thought of her last severe trouble came over her, “we forgot to give Uncle Horace the things we prepared for him. You see, Uncle Horace, one day I found such a very nice proverb, ‘though lost to sight to memory dear;’ and Bessie and I thought we would like to practise it on you; so I finished up that poem I began, and Bessie drew a picture for you, and here is the poem,” and Maggie drew from her pocket the poem, nicely finished and copied out.

“Thank you very much, dear,” said the Colonel. “I am very much pleased; but I thought that the poem was lost, or that you had been robbed of it.”

“Papa got it back for me,” said Maggie.

“Yes,” said Bessie; “and I was with papa when he asked Mr. Temple for it; and I was sorry for Mr. Temple, even though he did tease you so, Maggie.”

“Why, papa didn’t scold him, did he?” asked Maggie.

“No,” answered Bessie; “he only said, ‘Mr. Temple, may I trouble you for that paper belonging to my little girl;’ but he mannered him, and I wouldn’t like papa to have such a manner to me, and Mr. Temple looked ashamed. He is a very unpleasant gentleman; but I was sorry for him.”

“But where is the picture?” asked Colonel Rush.

“Here,” said Bessie, and in her turn she produced a paper from her pocket and unfolded it before the Colonel’s eyes. “It is Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden,” she went on to say: “here they are, and there is the tree with the serpent on it, and there is another with birds and squir’ls on it. The squir’ls are eating nuts, and the birds are pecking peaches, and they are having a nice time.”

“This is very interesting,” said the Colonel, not thinking it necessary to tell her that peaches and nuts did not usually grow on the same tree; “and what is this in the corner, Bessie?”

“That is the bower they made for a home to live in,” said Bessie; “and there is Adam’s wheelbarrow and Eve’s watering-pot. I s’pose she helped Adam take care of the garden: don’t you, sir?”

“And this?” asked the Colonel, pointing to another object which he had vainly been endeavoring to make out. “It is a pigeon house, I think.”

“Oh, no, sir!” said Bessie, rather mortified. “It is a flag, the flag of England. I was going to put the ’merican flag: but I thought it would be more a compliment to you to put your own country’s; and so I did. There’s the lion;” and she pointed out something which looked rather more like a spider than a lion; feeling the while, poor little soul, rather hurt that her compliment had not been appreciated without explanation.

Now Maggie had had her doubts as to whether a flag was altogether a suitable ornament for the garden of Eden, but she had not chosen to say so to Bessie, who had taken great pains with her picture; and she watched the Colonel’s face closely to see if she could find any sign of amusement or surprise.

Not the slightest. He sat gravely smoothing down his moustache, as Bessie explained the picture to him, not a smile disturbing the lines of his face, not a twinkle breaking into those black eyes, looking only interested and pleased; and Maggie dismissed her fears and satisfied herself that the flag was not at all out of place.

“This is a compliment, indeed,” said the Colonel with the utmost gravity. “You were very, very kind to think of it, Bessie; and Adam and Eve were, as Maggie says, extremely considerate to allow the flag of my country to be planted in the garden of Eden. I must show this to Aunt May, and shall certainly keep it for May Bessie when she is old enough to understand it. But see, who is coming here?”

The children followed the direction of his eye. Two figures were coming down the beach, – a tall one, and a little one. Was it possible? Yes; it really was Mr. Powers and Belle, dear little Belle, whom Bessie had been longing to see.

A shriek from Maggie, who went tumbling over a rock in her haste to reach them, but picked herself up and rushed on, regardless of grazed knees and elbows; an exclamation, less noisy, but quite as full of pleasure, from Bessie, – and the three little friends had met again. There was Frankie too, who had been carting sea-weed, but had dropped spade and wagon-tongue at sight of Belle, of whom he was very fond; and then there was such a hugging and kissing, such an interlacing of heads and arms and feet, that it would have been difficult to tell to which little person each set belonged. Belle did not object to the smothering she received; on the contrary, she seemed to enjoy it, and Frankie soon relieved her from his share, saying in a tone of great importance, —

“I have bis-er-ness to ’tend to,” and marched off to his sea-weed.

“I shall call Newport the ‘Country of Happy Delights’ when I write about it in the ‘Complete Family,’” said Maggie. “I never did see such a place. Did you happen here, Belle, or did you know you were coming?”

“We happened,” said Belle, “least Daphne and I did; but I think papa knew we were coming when he brought us.”

“That was just the way with us,” said Bessie: “all the big people knew we were coming; but Maggie and I were so glad and surprised. How long have you been here, Belle?”

“Oh! about half a year,” said Belle.

“Why, no,” said Maggie; “for it’s only a month since we left you in New York.”

“Is it?” said Belle. “Well, we came last Friday; and then papa brought me here to see Aunt May. We live in the hotel; but Aunt May says I must come over every day and play with you. It was so lonesome wifout you,” and Belle put an arm about the neck of each of her little playmates, looking from one to the other with loving, satisfied eyes. “You see, Bessie, I grew to love you and Maggie so much, I can’t very well stay away from you; and so I wasn’t very patient till you came.”

“Did you know we were coming?” asked Maggie.

“Yes, Aunt May told me I was so homesick for you; and papa said he brought me here so I could see you sooner. Wasn’t it good of him?”

“Yes,” said Maggie. “Now let’s go and have a good play. Aunt May gave us pails and spades to play in the sand with, Belle, and I will lend you mine.”

But there proved to be no need of this; for Belle had been furnished with a spade and pail of her own, and Daphne now appeared with them; so the little girls joined Frankie.

“What are you doing, Frankie?” asked Belle.

“Helpin’ Dod,” said Frankie.

“Why, Frankie!” said Bessie, rather shocked: “it’s not respectful for you to say you’re helping God. He can do every thing Himself, without any one to help Him.”

“Well,” said Frankie, taking up another spadeful of sea-weed and tossing it into his wagon, “maybe so; but I dess He has too much trouble to make so much waves, and keep pushing dis sea-weed up all de time; so I jest putting it a little way farder for Him,” and away he went with another wagon-load of sea-weed, which he was carting higher up the beach.

The three little girls did not know whether to laugh or not; but, presently, Maggie said, —

“I guess we need not be shocked at him. He thinks he’s doing something right, and we won’t disturb his mind about it. He’s such a funny child.”

He was a droll fellow, to be sure, that Frankie; always making odd speeches; and like Maggie in one thing, that one never knew which way his ideas would turn. Like Maggie, also, he would never allow that he could not reply to any question which might be put to him; but, if he had not the right answer, would contrive one which would fit the occasion more or less well.

He now came running up to his father, who, with the other gentlemen, had joined Colonel Rush, and exclaimed eagerly, —

“Papa, papa, tome quit. I taught a nassy lobster; let’s tate him to the house and eat him.”

This was not a very inviting proposal, certainly; but the little boy was so anxious that some one should see his “nassy lobster,” that Mr. Bradford and Mr. Stanton went with him; the little girls also running to see.

The “nassy lobster” proved to be one of those ugly shell-fish called horseshoes, which had been left there by the tide, and which Frankie had contrived to turn over on its back. He was rather disgusted with his prize, however, now that he had captured it; and, in spite of his request that it should be taken home and cooked, looked very scornfully at it, and pronounced it “degusting as any sing.”

Talking of cooking his fish had put him in mind that he was hungry, after his play in the fresh sea-air; and now, coming back and standing at his father’s knee, he said rather plaintively, —

“I wish Jesus was here.”

“Why, Frankie?” asked Mr. Bradford.

“’Tause He would dive me some fish and bread lite He did all those many people,” replied Frankie, who had lately heard the story of Christ feeding the multitude with the five loaves and two fishes. He was very fond of Bible stories, this little boy, and liked to apply them to himself and those about him.

“Tell me about that, Frankie, while Daphne goes to the house for some biscuits for you,” said the Colonel; and Frankie repeated in a droll, but still sweet and simple way, the story of the grand miracle.

“But how was it that there was enough for so many people when there was so little food, Frankie?” asked Mr. Powers, wishing to hear what the child would say.

The little fellow looked thoughtful for a moment, and stood rubbing up his hair with his hand; but he was not to be conquered even by a question hard as this, and presently, seeing a way out of his difficulty, his face lighted up as he exclaimed, —

“Betause our Lord did not dive ’em dood appetites. You ought to know dat yousef, sir;” and, with this, he ran away to meet Daphne, whom he saw coming with his wished-for biscuits.

XIII

LITTLE ACTS OF KINDNESS; LITTLE DEEDS OF LOVE

Aunt May’s invitation to come every day and play with Maggie and Bessie was never once lost sight of by Belle, who was only too glad to accept it, and be with her beloved little playmates as much as possible.

It was surprising to see how much Belle had improved during these months she had been so much with Maggie and Bessie: no, not surprising either to any one who knew how much a good example can do; at least when it shines before eyes which are willing and ready to profit by its light.

And this was so with dear little Belle. She was not naturally an obstinate or selfish child; and her faults had come chiefly from the over-indulgence of her father and Daphne, who seldom or never contradicted her, but allowed her to think that she must always have her own way. She had never been taught the duty and pleasure of yielding to others, until she was thrown so constantly with our little girls; and then the lesson came to her almost without words. She could not have better teaching than she found in the grave surprise in Bessie’s sweet eyes when she worried her father, and fretted herself for some forbidden pleasure, or when she was wilful and imperious with her devoted old nurse; or in her gentle, “You wouldn’t tease your father when you’re his little comfort: would you, Belle?” She could not but learn ready obedience, generosity, and thoughtfulness for others, when she saw them put in daily practice even by Maggie, who had so much natural heedlessness to struggle with; and, almost without knowing it, she strove to copy her little friends, and to put away the old self-will and impatience.

“Why! how obedient and good my little daughter is growing,” said her father, one day, surprised at her ready submission when he was obliged to refuse her some pleasure she had begged for.

“’Cause Bessie says mamma and Jesus will be glad when I’m good,” Belle answered, laying her cheek against her father’s; “and she said that was the best way to make you happy too, papa. She says when we love um we try to please um. Isn’t that true, papa?”

“Very true, my darling. Bessie is a dear little girl, and I am glad that you remember when she tells you what is right.”

“She does it more than she tells it, papa: that’s why I ’member so much. It makes me feel ’shamed when Maggie and Bessie see I am naughty.”

“I won’t go to Aunt May’s this morning, papa,” she said another day when her father told her to go and be made ready.

“What! stay away from your dear Maggie and Bessie?” said Mr. Powers. “How is that?”

“Daphne is sick, papa: she has such a hegget” – Belle meant headache – “she could hardly dress me this morning, and had to lie right down. If she has to get up again, I’m afraid she will be more worse, so I will stay home to-day.”

But Belle’s voice shook as she proposed this, for it was a great sacrifice for her. Six months since she would not have thought of denying herself any thing for the sake of her old nurse, and her father was both pleased and touched.

“Then papa’s unaccustomed fingers will see what they can do,” he said, unwilling that his little girl should lose her day’s pleasure; and, if Belle were not quite as neatly dressed as usual, no fault was found, and “Aunt Margaret” soon remedied all that was wrong.

But another bit of self-denial came in Belle’s way that day, and that she carried out.

Coming in with two or three bunches of fine hot-house grapes, – the first of the season, – in his hand, Colonel Rush found the children on the piazza, playing “party” with their dolls’ teacups and saucers. Two other little girls, the children of a neighbor, were playing with them. He stopped and gave Maggie a bunch to divide amongst them. They were greatly pleased with this little treat; but Maggie and Bessie were rather surprised to see Belle put hers aside on one of the doll’s plates, as if she did not intend to eat, or even play with them.

“Are you not going to play with yours?” asked Maggie, rather reproachfully.

Belle colored a little, and said with some hesitation, —

“I wanted to save them.”

Belle was not like some children who would rather enjoy a nice thing by themselves, and the others were surprised.

Now Belle would have been ready enough to tell Maggie and Bessie why she wanted to keep the grapes, but she did not care to do so before the young visitors; lest as she afterwards said, they should think she was “proud of herself for doing it.”

“She thinks we’ll give her some of ours, and then she’ll eat up her own afterwards,” said Minnie Barlow, one of the little guests.

“I don’t either,” said Belle, flushing angrily: “I wouldn’t eat one of your old grapes, not if you begged and begged me to.”

“No,” said Bessie, putting her arm about Belle’s neck: “Belle never does greedy things. I know she has a very excellent reason if she don’t eat them. Are you sick, Belle?”

“No,” said Belle; and then she whispered in Bessie’s ear, “but poor Daphne is sick, and I am going to keep my grapes for her. She likes them very much.”

“And I’ll give you mine for her too,” said Bessie, “yours make only a few for her when she is sick.” Then she said aloud: “I’m going to keep my grapes too; and Maggie, I think you’d keep yours, if you knew the circumstance.”

“Then I will,” said Maggie; and turning to the little strangers she added, “Bessie knows what’s inside of my mind most as well as I do myself; so if she tells me I would do a thing, I just know I would.”

So Maggie, too, put by her share of the grapes, till the company had gone, and Belle felt free to tell what she wanted to do with them; when she agreed that Bessie was right, and she was quite ready to save her grapes for such a “circumstance.” It was but a small act of self-denial for these little girls to make out of their abundance; but who can tell the pleasure the gift gave to old Daphne. And verily Belle had her reward.

“Now Heaven bress my child,” said the old woman, when Belle offered the grapes, and told that she and her young friends had kept them from their play: “if she ain’t growin’ jes like her dear mamma, who was allus thinkin’ for oders.”

Nothing could have pleased Belle more than to be told she was like her dear mother; but she said, —

“I didn’t used to think for ofers much, Daphne; not till I saw Bessie do it, and Maggie too. They taught me.”

“Never min’ who taught ye, so long as you’re willin’ to learn,” said Daphne. “But I say Heaven bress them dear little girls too, as I knows it will.”

Pleased as Daphne was, she would have been better satisfied if her little mistress had taken back her gift for her own use; but Belle insisted that she should eat the grapes herself, and indeed climbed on her lap and stuffed them one after the other into her mouth, refusing to taste one herself.

“What is that, Uncle Horace?” asked Maggie, one afternoon when she and Bessie were out driving on the Avenue with Colonel Rush, Aunt Bessie, and the boys.

The object of her interest was certainly of a nature to excite curiosity. It was a round building of stone, supported by eight pillars, with open arches between. In the wall, above the pillars, were three narrow loop-holes or openings. It could scarcely have been told, however, that it was built of stone; for pillars and round walls were alike covered with beautiful green vines, just now in all their summer glory. It stood in the centre of a small park or common, where children and nurses were playing and wandering about.

“That,” said Colonel Rush, “is the old stone mill.”

“I don’t think it looks much like a mill,” said Bessie: “it don’t have any things to go round.”

“Probably it had things to go round, as you call them, once upon a time,” said the Colonel.

“I thought it was a tower built by the early settlers to defend themselves from the Indians,” said Harry. “Willie Thorn told me so.”

“Many people think so,” said the Colonel, “and some still believe that it was built by the Danes, hundreds of years ago.”

“Oh!” said Fred, “this is the tower Longfellow wrote about in his ‘Skeleton in Armor,’ isn’t it, sir?”

“The very same,” said the Colonel; “but, I believe, Fred, that it has been pretty well proved, from old papers, that it had no such romantic beginning, but was really and truly a windmill.”

“Tell me about the skeleton, Fred,” said Maggie.

So Fred told how a skeleton in armor, having been found in a place called Fall River, some miles from Newport, the poet, Longfellow, had written a ballad about it; telling how a viking, or Norwegian sailor of the olden time, had fallen in love with the daughter of a prince, who refused to give his child to the roving sailor; but they had run away together, and crossing the sea had come to this spot, where the viking had built this tower for his wife to live in.