Nelly's Silver Mine Part 8

"Clear out!" said Rob, roughly, taking hold of one of them by the shoulder and giving her a shove. No sooner had the words pa.s.sed his lips than he felt himself lifted by the nape of his neck as if he had been a little puppy: he was in the hand's of a great red-faced German, who looked like a scarlet giant to poor Rob, as he gazed up in his face. This was the father of the two little girls; he had seen the shove that Rob gave his little Wilhelmina, and he was in a great rage; he shook Rob back and forth, and cuffed his ears, all the time talking very loud in German. All he said was:--

"You are a good-for-nothing: I will teach you manners, that you do not push little girls who are doing you no harm;" but it sounded in the German language like something very dreadful.

Poor Nelly clung to him with one hand, and tried to stop his beating Rob.

"Oh, please don't whip my brother, sir!" she cried. "He did not mean to hurt the little girl. She was going to s.n.a.t.c.h my doll away from me."

But the angry German shook Nelly off as if she had been a little fly that lighted on his arm. Rob did not cry out, nor speak a word. He was horribly frightened, but he was too angry to cry. He said afterwards:--

"I thought he was going to kill me; but I just made up my mind I wouldn't speak a single word if he did."

All this that I have been telling you didn't take much more than a minute; but it seemed to poor Nelly a thousand years. She was crying, and the little German girls were crying too: they did not mean to do any harm, and they did not want the little boy whipped.

Some rough men and women who were looking on began to laugh, and one man called out:--

"Go it, Dutchy, go it!"

Mr. March, who was just walking up the platform, heard the noise; and, when he looked up to see what it meant, what should he see but his own Rob held away up in the air, in the powerful grip of this tall man, and being soundly cuffed about the ears. Mr. March sprang forward, and, taking hold of Rob with one hand, caught the angry man's uplifted arm in the other.

"Stop, sir," he said; "this is my little boy. What has he done?

Leave him to me. What has he done?"

"Nothing, papa," called poor Rob, the tears coming into his eyes at the sight of a protector; "nothing except push that ugly little yellow-haired girl: I guess she is his; she was going to s.n.a.t.c.h Nell's doll."

The German set Rob down; and, turning towards Mr. March, began to pour out a torrent of words. Luckily, Mr. March understood most of what he said, and could speak to him in his own language. So he explained to him that his little daughters had tried to take Nelly's doll away from her, and that Rob had only intended to protect his sister, as was quite right and proper he should do. As soon as the man understood this, he turned at once to his little girls who stood by crying, and asked them a short question in German.

They sobbed out, "ja, ja" (that means "yes, yes"). In less than a minute he caught up first the elder one, just as he had caught up Rob, and boxed her ears; then the smaller one, and cuffed her also; and set them both down on the ground, as if he were used to swinging children up in the air and boxing their ears every day. Then he turned to Rob, and taking him by the hand, said to Mr. March,--

"Explain to your little boy that I ask his pardon. He was doing the right thing: he is a gentleman; and I ask that he accept this horn from me and from my very bad little girls."

So saying, he took out of a great wallet that hung across his back a beautiful little powder horn. It was a horn of the chamois, the beautiful wild deer that lives in the mountains in Switzerland. It was as black as ebony, and had a fine pattern cut on it, like a border round the top; then it had a scarlet cord and silver buckles, to fasten it across the shoulders. Rob's eyes glistened with delight as he stretched out his hand for it.

"Oh, thank you, thank you!" he said. "Oh, papa! please thank him, and tell him I don't mind the whipping a bit now. And," he added, "please tell him, too, that I didn't mean to shove his little girl hard, only just to keep her off Nell."

Mr. March interpreted Rob's speech to the German, who nodded pleasantly and walked off, leading his two little sobbing children by the hand. He was so tall that the little girls looked like little elves by his side, and he looked like the picture of the Giant with his seven-league boots on. When Rob turned to show his beautiful powder horn to Nelly, she was nowhere to be seen.

"Why, where is Nell, papa?" he exclaimed.

Mr. March looked around anxiously, but could see nothing of her.

They hurried back into the waiting-room, and there to their great relief they saw Nelly sitting by her mother's side. Rob rushed up to her, holding up his powder horn, and exclaiming,--

"Why, Nell, what made you come away? That old thrasher was a splendid fellow: see what he gave me, as soon as papa made him understand; and he cuffed those girls well, I tell you,--most as hard as he did me. Why, Nell, what's the matter?" Rob suddenly observed that Nelly was crying.

"Don't talk to Nelly just now," said Mrs. March: "she is in trouble." And she put her arm round Nelly tenderly.

"But what is it, mamma?" exclaimed Rob; "tell me. Is she hurt?"

"What is it, Sarah?" said Mr. March. By this time Nelly was sobbing hard, and her head was buried on her mother's shoulder. Mrs. March pointed to Nelly's lap: there lay a shapeless and dirty little bundle, which Nelly held grasped feebly in one hand. It was the remains of Mrs. Napoleon. The blue waterproof was all torn and grimed with dirt; a broken wax arm hung out at one side; and when Rob cautiously lifted a fold of the waterproof, there came into view a shocking sight: poor Mrs. Napoleon's face, or rather what had been her face, without a single feature to be seen in it,--just a round ball of dirty, crumbling wax, with the pretty yellow curls all matted in it. Mr. March could not help smiling at the sight; luckily, Nelly did not see him.

"Why, how did that happen?" he said.

"What a shame!" exclaimed Rob. "Say, Nell, you shall have my powder horn;" and he thrust it into her hand. Nelly shook her head and pushed it away, but did not speak. Her heart was too full.

Then Mrs. March told them in a low tone how it had happened. When Nelly caught hold of the German's arm, trying to stop his beating Rob, she had forgotten all about Mrs. Napoleon, and let her fall to the ground. n.o.body saw her, and, in the general scuffle, the doll had been trampled under foot. Really, if one had not been so sorry for Nelly, one could not help laughing at the spectacle. The scarlet feather and the bright blue cloak, and the golden curls, and the dark blue veils, and the red and white wax, all mixed up together so that you would have hardly known that it was a doll at all,--except that one blue eye was left whole, with a little bit of the red cheek under it. This made the whole wreck look still worse.

"Our first railroad accident," said Mrs. March, laughingly. Nelly sobbed harder than ever.

"Hush," said Mr. March, in a low tone to his wife. "Don't make light of it."

"Nelly, dear," he said, taking hold of the doll gently, "shall not papa throw the poor dolly away? You don't want to look at her any more."

"Oh, no, no!" said Nelly, lifting up the bundle, and hugging it tighter.

"Very well, dear," replied her father, "you shall keep it as long as you like. But let me pin poor dolly up tight, so that n.o.body can see how she is hurt."

Nelly gave the doll up without a word, and her kind papa rolled the little waterproof cloak tight round the body and arms; then he doubled up the blue veil and pinned it many thicknesses thick all round the head; and then he took a clean dark-blue and white silk handkerchief of his own and put outside all the veil, and made it into a snug little parcel, that n.o.body would have known was a dolly at all.

"There, Nelly," he said, putting it in her lap, "there is dolly, all rolled up, so that n.o.body can look at her."

Nelly took the sad little bundle, and laid it across her knees.

"Can she ever be mended, papa?" she said.

"No, dear, I think not," said Mr. March; "I think the sooner you put her out of your sight the better; but now we must go into the cars."

Poor Nelly! she walked slowly along, carrying the blue and white package as if it were a coffin,--as indeed it was, a kind of coffin, for a very dead dolly.

As they were going into the car, Mr. March said to his wife:--

"There is no drawing-room in the sleeping-car which goes through to-day. I have had to take two sections."

Mrs. March had never travelled in a sleeping-car before, and she did not know how much nicer the little room was than the "sections." So she replied: "They'll do just as well, won't they?"

"I think you will not like them quite so well," replied Mr. March; "you cannot be by yourself with the children. But it is only for one night; we will make the best of it. There are our sections, one right opposite the other; so you will not have strangers opposite you."

They put their lunch-basket and bags and bundles down on the floor, and sat down on the two sofas, facing each other. Nelly put her blue and white parcel in one corner of the sofa, lay down with her head on it, and was soon fast asleep. There were tears on her cheeks.

"Poor child!" said Mr. March; "this is her first real grief."

"I'm glad I ain't a girl," said Rob, bluntly; "I don't believe in dolls, do you, papa?"

Mr. March answered Rob's question by another.

"Do you believe in babies, Rob?"

"Why, of course, papa! What a funny question! I think babies are real nice. They're alive, you know."

"Yes," said his father; "but dolls are just the same to little girls that babies are to grown-up women. Nelly felt just like a mother to Mrs. Napoleon. She was a very good little mother too."