Hildegarde's Holiday Part 16

Indeed, Benny was laughing, and patting the cow, and chattering to it, as if no such thing as a gray rubber elephant had ever existed. So fickle is childhood!

CHAPTER XII.

BENNY.

Benny took possession of his kingdom, and ruled it with a firm, though for the most part an indulgent hand. Miss Wealthy succ.u.mbed from the first moment, when he advanced boldly toward her, and laying a chubby hand on her knee, said, "I like you. Is you' hair made of spoons? it is all silver."

Martha was his slave, and lay in wait for him at all hours with gingerbread-men and "cooky"-cows; while the two girls were nurses, playmates, and teachers by turns. Jeremiah wheeled him in the wheelbarrow, and suffered him to kick his s.h.i.+ns, and might often be seen sedately at work hoeing or raking, with the child sitting astride on his shoulders, and drumming with st.u.r.dy heels against his breast. One member of the family alone resisted the sovereign charm of childhood; one alone held aloof in cold disdain, refusing to touch the little hand or answer the piping voice. That one was Samuel Johnson. The great Doctor was deeply offended at the introduction of this new element into the household. He had not been consulted; he would have nothing to do with it! So when Miss Wealthy introduced Benny to him the day after the child arrived, and waited anxiously for an expression of his opinion, the Doctor put up his great back, expanded his tail till it looked like a revolving street-sweeper, and uttering an angry "Fsss! spt!" walked away in high dudgeon.

Benny was delighted. "Funny old kyat!" he cried, clapping his hands.

"Say 'Fsss' some more! Hi, ole kyat! I catch you."

Hildegarde caught him up in her arms as he was about to pursue the retiring dignitary, and Miss Wealthy looked deeply distressed.

"My dears, what shall we do?" she said. "This is very unfortunate. If I had thought the Doctor--but the little fellow is so sweet, I thought he would be pleased and amused. We must try to keep them away from each other. Or perhaps, if the little dear would try to propitiate the Doctor,--you have no idea how sensitive he is, and how he feels anything like disrespect,--if he were to _try_ to propitiate him, he might--"

"Vat ole kyat, He's too fat!"

shouted Benny, stamping his feet to emphasize the metre,--

"Vat ole kyat He's too fat!

_He_ ought to go AND catch a rat!"

"Come, Benny!" said Hildegarde, hastily, as she caught a glare from the Doctor's yellow eyes that fairly frightened her. "Come out with me and get some flowers." And as they went she heard Miss Wealthy's voice addressing the great cat in humble and deprecatory tones. As she walked about in the garden holding the child's hand, Hildegarde tried to explain to him that he must be very polite to Dr. Johnson, who was not at all a common cat, and should be treated with great respect.

But Benny's b.u.mp of reverence was small. "Huh!" he said. "_I_ isn't 'fraid of kyats, sing-girl! You 's 'fraid, but I isn't. I had brown kitties, only I never seed 'em. Dr. Brown is a liar!" he added suddenly, with startling emphasis.

"Why, Benny!" cried Hildegarde. "What do you mean? You mustn't say such things, dear child."

"He _is_ a liar!" Benny maintained stoutly. "He said ve brown kitties was in my froat. Vey wasn't; so he's a liar. P'r'aps he's 'fraid too, but I isn't."

For several days the greatest care was taken to keep Benny out of Dr.

Johnson's way. When the imperious mew was heard at the dining-room door after dinner, the child was hurried through with the last spoonfuls of his pudding, and whisked away to the parlor before the cat was let in.

Nor would Miss Wealthy herself go into the parlor when the Doctor had finished his dessert, till she was sure that Benny had been taken out of doors. Hildegarde was inclined to remonstrate at this course of action, but Miss Wealthy would not listen to her.

"My dear," she said, "it does not do to trifle with a character like the Doctor's. I tremble to think what he might do if once thoroughly roused to anger. He is accustomed to respect, and demands it; and we must remember, my dear, that even in the domestic cat lies dormant the spirit of the Royal Bengal Tiger. No, my dear Hildegarde, we are responsible for this child's life, and we must at any cost keep him out of the Doctor's way."

But fate, which rules both cats and tigers, had ordained otherwise. One day Hildegarde had gone out to the stable to give a message to Jeremiah, and had left Benny playing by the back door, where Martha had promised to "have an eye to him" as she sh.e.l.led the peas.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'OH, SUCH A DEE OLE KITTY!'"]

On her return, Hildegarde found that the child had run round to the front of the house; and she followed in that direction, led by the sound of his voice, which resounded loud and clear. Whom was he talking to?

Hildegarde wondered. Rose was upstairs writing letters, and Cousin Wealthy was taking a nap. But now the words were plainly audible.

"Dee ole kitty! Oh, _such_ a dee ole kitty! Ole fat kyat, I lubby you."

Holding her breath, Hildegarde peeped round the corner of the house.

There on the piazza, lay Dr. Johnson, fast asleep in the suns.h.i.+ne; and beside him stood Benny, regarding him with affectionate satisfaction. "I ain't seed you for yever so long, ole fat kyat!" he continued; "where has you been? You is _so_ fat, you make a nice pillow for Benny. Benny go to sleep with ole fat kyat for a pillow." And to Hildegarde's mingled horror and amus.e.m.e.nt, the child curled himself up on the piazza floor, and deliberately laid his head on the broad black side of the sleeping lexicographer. The great cat opened his yellow eyes with a start, and turned his head to see "what thing upon his back had got." There was a moment of suspense. Hildegarde's first impulse was to rush forward and s.n.a.t.c.h the child away; her second was to stand perfectly still. "_Dee_ ole kitty!" murmured Benny, in dulcet tones. "P'ease don't move! Benny _so_ comfortable! Benny lubs his sweet ole pillow-kyat! Go to s'eep again, dee ole kitty!"

The Doctor lay motionless. His eyes wandered over the little figure, the small hands nestled in his own thick fur, the rosy face which smiled at him with dauntless a.s.surance. Who shall say what thoughts pa.s.sed in that moment through the mind of the representative of the Royal Bengal Tiger?

Presently his muscles relaxed. His magnificent tail, which had again expanded to thrice its natural size, sank; he uttered a faint mew, and the next moment a sound fell on Hildegarde's ear, like the distant muttering of thunder, or the roll of the surf on a far-off sea-beach.

Dr. Johnson was purring!

After this all was joy. The barriers were removed, and the child and the cat became inseparable companions. Miss Wealthy beamed with delight, and called upon the girls to observe how, in this most remarkable animal, intellect had triumphed over the feline nature. She was even a little jealous, when the Doctor forsook his ha.s.sock beside her chair to go and play at ball with Benny; but this was a pa.s.sing feeling. All agreed, however, that a line must be drawn somewhere; and when Benny demanded to have his dinner on the floor with his "sweet ole kyat," four heads were shaken at him quite severely, and he was told that cats were good to play with, but not to eat with. In spite of which Rose was horrified, the next day, to find him crouched on all-fours, lapping from one side of the Doctor's saucer, while he, purring like a Sound steamer, lapped on the other.

Benny did another thing one day. Oh, Benny did another thing! Rose was teaching him his letters in the parlor, and he was putting them into metre, as he was apt to put everything,--

"_A_, B, _C_, D, _Fiddle_, diddle, _Yes_, I see!"

And with each emphasis he jumped up and down, as if to jolt the letters into his head.

"Try to stand still, Benny dear!" said gentle Rose.

But Benny said he couldn't remember them if he stood still. "_A_, B, _C_, D! _E_, F, _jiggle_ G!" This time he jumped backward, and flung his arms about to ill.u.s.trate the "jiggle;" and--and he knocked over the peac.o.c.k gla.s.s vase, and it fell on the marble hearth, and broke into fifty pieces. Oh! it was very dreadful. Mrs. Grahame had brought the peac.o.c.k vase from Paris to Miss Wealthy, and it was among her most cherished trifles; shaped like a peac.o.c.k, with outspread tail, and s.h.i.+ning with beautiful iridescent tints of green and blue. Now it lay in glittering fragments on the floor, and timid Rose felt as if she were too wicked to live, and wished she were back at the Farm, where there were no vases, but only honest blue willow-ware.

At this very moment the door opened, and Miss Wealthy came in. Rose shrank back for a moment behind the tall j.a.panese screen; not to conceal herself, but to gather her strength together for the ordeal. Her long years of illness had left her sensitive beyond description; and now, though she knew that she had done nothing, and that the child would meet only the gentlest of plaintive reproofs, her heart was beating so hard that she felt suffocated, her cheeks were crimson, her eyes suffused with tears. But Benny was equal to the emergency. His cheeks were very red, too, and his eyes opened very wide; but he went straight up to Miss Wealthy and said in a clear, high-pitched voice,--

"I've broke vat gla.s.s fing which was a peac.o.c.k. I'm sorry I broke vat gla.s.s fing which was a peac.o.c.k. I shouldn't fink you would leave gla.s.s fings round for little boys to hit wiv veir little hands and break vem.

You is old enough to know better van vat. I know you is old enough, 'cause you' hair is all spoons, and people is old when veir hair is spoons,--I mean silver." Having said this with unfaltering voice, the child suddenly and without the slightest warning burst into a loud roar, and cried and screamed and sobbed as if his heart would break.

Rose was at his side in an instant, and told the story of the accident.

And Miss Wealthy, after one pathetic glance at the fragments of her favorite ornament, fell to wiping the little fellow's eyes with her fine cambric handkerchief, and telling him that it was "no matter! no matter at all, dear! Accidents _will_ happen, I suppose!" she added, turning to Rose with a sad little smile. "But, my dear, pray get the dust-pan at once. The precious child might get a piece of gla.s.s into his foot, and die of lockjaw."

CHAPTER XIII.

A SURPRISE.

It was a lovely August morning. Hildegarde and Rose had the peas to sh.e.l.l for dinner, and had established themselves under the great elm-tree, each with a yellow bowl and a blue-checked ap.r.o.n. Hildegarde was moreover armed with a book, for she had found out one can read and sh.e.l.l peas at the same time, and some of their pleasantest hours were pa.s.sed in this way, the primary occupation ranging from pea-sh.e.l.ling to the paring of rosy apples or the stoning of raisins. So on this occasion the sharp crack of the pods and the soft thud of the "Champions of England" against the bowl kept time with Hildegarde's voice, as she read from Lockhart's ever-delightful "Life of Scott." The girls were enjoying the book so much! For true lovers of the great Sir Walter, as they both were, what could be more interesting than to follow their hero through the varying phases of his n.o.ble life,--to learn how and where and under what circ.u.mstances each n.o.ble poem and splendid romance was written; and to feel through his own spoken or written words the beating of one of the greatest hearts the world ever knew.

Hildegarde paused to laugh, after reading the description of the first visit of the Ettrick Shepherd to the Scotts at La.s.swade; when the good man, seeing Mrs. Scott, who was in delicate health, lying on a sofa, thought he could not do better than follow his hostess's example, and accordingly stretched himself at full length, plaid and all, on another couch.

"What an extraordinary man!" cried Rose, greatly amused. "How could he be so very uncouth, and yet write the 'Skylark'?"

"After all, he was a plain, rough shepherd!" replied Hildegarde. "And remember,

'The dewdrop that hangs from the rowan bough Is fine as the proudest rose can show.'

Leyden was a shepherd, too, who wrote the 'Mermaid' that I read you the other day; and Burns was a farmer's boy. What wonderful people the Scots are!"

"On the whole," said Rose, after a pause, "perhaps it isn't so strange for a shepherd to be a poet. They sit all day out in the fields all alone with the sky and the sheep and the trees and flowers. One can imagine how the beauty and the stillness would sink into his heart, and turn into music and lovely words there. No one ever heard of a butcher-poet or a baker-poet--at least, I never did!--but a shepherd!

There was the Shepherd Lord, too, that you told me about, and the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, in a funny little old book that Father had; by Hannah More, I think it was. And wasn't there a shepherd painter?"