Child Life in Prose Part 2

This was Baby Number Two, and she stayed in camp several weeks, the two innocents meeting each other every day in the placid indifference that belonged to their years; both were happy little healthy things, and it never seemed to cross their minds that there was any difference in their complexions. As I said before, Annie was not troubled by any prejudice in regard to color, nor do I suppose that the other little maiden was.

Annie enjoyed the tent-life very much; but when we were sent out on picket soon after, she enjoyed it still more. Our head-quarters were at a deserted plantation house, with one large parlor, a dining-room and a few bedrooms. Baby's father and mother had a room up stairs, with a stove whose pipe went straight out at the window. This was quite comfortable, though half the windows were broken, and there was no gla.s.s and no glazier to mend them. The windows of the large parlor were in much the same condition, though we had an immense fireplace, where we had a bright fire whenever it was cold, and always in the evening. The walls of this room were very dirty, and it took our ladies several days to cover all the unsightly places with wreaths and hangings of evergreen. In this performance Baby took an active part.

Her duties consisted in sitting in a great nest of evergreen, pulling and fingering the fragrant leaves, and occasionally giving a little cry of glee when she had accomplished some piece of decided mischief.

There was less entertainment to be found in the camp itself at this time; but the household at head-quarters was larger than Baby had been accustomed to. We had a great deal of company, moreover, and she had quite a gay life of it. She usually made her appearance in the large parlor soon after breakfast; and to dance her for a few moments in our arms was one of the first daily duties of each one. Then the morning reports began to arrive from the different outposts,--a mounted officer or courier coming in from each place, dismounting at the door, and clattering in with jingling arms and spurs, each a new excitement for Annie. She usually got some attention from any officer who came, receiving with her wonted dignity any daring caress. When the messengers had ceased to be interesting, there were always the horses to look at, held or tethered under the trees beside the sunny piazza.

After the various couriers had been received, other messengers would be despatched to the town, seven miles away, and Baby had all the excitement of their mounting and departure. Her father was often one of the riders, and would sometimes seize Annie for a good-by kiss, place her on the saddle before him, gallop her round the house once or twice, and then give her back to her nurse's arms again. She was perfectly fearless, and such boisterous attentions never frightened her, nor did they ever interfere with her sweet, infantine self-possession.

After the riding-parties had gone, there was the piazza still for entertainment, with a sentinel pacing up and down before it; but Annie did not enjoy the sentinel, though his breastplate and b.u.t.tons shone like gold, so much as the hammock which always hung swinging between the pillars. It was a pretty hammock, with great open meshes; and she delighted to lie in it, and have the netting closed above her, so that she could only be seen through the apertures. I can see her now, the fresh little rosy thing, in her blue and scarlet wrappings, with one round and dimpled arm thrust forth through the netting, and the other grasping an armful of blus.h.i.+ng roses and fragrant magnolias. She looked like those pretty French bas-reliefs of Cupids imprisoned in baskets, and peeping through. That hammock was a very useful appendage; it was a couch for us, a cradle for Baby, a nest for the kittens; and we had, moreover, a little hen, which tried to roost there every night.

When the mornings were colder, and the stove up stairs smoked the wrong way, Baby was brought down in a very incomplete state of toilet, and finished her dressing by the great fire. We found her bare shoulders very becoming, and she was very much interested in her own little pink toes. After a very slow dressing, she had a still slower breakfast out of a tin cup of warm milk, of which she generally spilt a good deal, as she had much to do in watching everybody who came into the room, and seeing that there was no mischief done. Then she would be placed on the floor, on our only piece of carpet, and the kittens would be brought in for her to play with.

We had, at different times, a variety of pets, of whom Annie did not take much notice. Sometimes we had young partridges, caught by the drummer-boys in trap-cages. The children called them "Bob and Chloe,"

because the first notes of the male and female sound like those names.

One day I brought home an opossum, with her blind bare little young clinging to the droll pouch where their mothers keep them. Sometimes we had pretty green lizards, their color darkening or deepening, like that of chameleons, in light or shade. But the only pets that took Baby's fancy were the kittens. They perfectly delighted her, from the first moment she saw them; they were the only things younger than herself that she had ever beheld, and the only things softer than themselves that her small hands had grasped. It was astonis.h.i.+ng to see how much the kittens would endure from her. They could scarcely be touched by any one else without mewing; but when Annie seized one by the head and the other by the tail, and rubbed them violently together, they did not make a sound. I suppose that a baby's grasp is really soft, even if it seems ferocious, and so it gives less pain than one would think. At any rate, the little animals had the best of it very soon; for they entirely outstripped Annie in learning to walk, and they could soon scramble away beyond her reach, while she sat in a sort of dumb despair, unable to comprehend why anything so much smaller than herself should be so much nimbler. Meanwhile, the kittens would sit up and look at her with the most provoking indifference, just out of arm's length, until some of us would take pity on the young lady, and toss her furry playthings back to her again. "Little baby," she learned to call them; and these were the very first words she spoke.

Baby had evidently a natural turn for war, further cultivated by an intimate knowledge of drills and parades. The nearer she came to actual conflict the better she seemed to like it, peaceful as her own little ways might be. Twice, at least, while she was with us on picket, we had alarms from the Rebel troops, who would bring down cannon to the opposite side of the Ferry, about two miles beyond us, and throw shot and sh.e.l.l over upon our side. Then the officer at the Ferry would think that there was to be an attack made, and couriers would be sent, riding to and fro, and the men would all be called to arms in a hurry, and the ladies at head-quarters would all put on their best bonnets, and come down stairs, and the ambulance would be made ready to carry them to a place of safety before the expected fight. On such occasions Baby was in all her glory. She shouted with delight at being suddenly uncribbed and thrust into her little scarlet cloak, and brought down stairs, at an utterly unusual and improper hour, to a piazza with lights and people and horses and general excitement. She crowed and gurgled and made gestures with her little fists, and screamed out what seemed to be her advice on the military situation, as freely as if she had been a newspaper editor. Except that it was rather difficult to understand her precise directions, I do not know but the whole Rebel force might have been captured through her plans. And, at any rate, I should much rather obey her orders than those of some generals whom I have known; for she at least meant no harm, and would lead one into no mischief.

However, at last the danger, such as it was, would be all over, and the ladies would be induced to go peacefully to bed again; and Annie would retreat with them to her ign.o.ble cradle, very much disappointed, and looking vainly back at the more martial scene below. The next morning she would seem to have forgotten all about it, and would spill her bread and milk by the fire as if nothing had happened.

I suppose we hardly knew, at the time, how large a part of the suns.h.i.+ne of our daily lives was contributed by dear little Annie. Yet, when I now look back on that pleasant Southern home, she seems as essential a part of it as the mocking-birds or the magnolias, and I cannot convince myself that, in returning to it, I should not find her there. But Annie went back, with the spring, to her Northern birthplace, and then pa.s.sed away from this earth before her little feet had fairly learned to tread its paths; and when I meet her next it must be in some world where there is triumph without armies, and where innocence is trained in scenes of peace. I know, however, that her little life, short as it seemed, was a blessing to us all, giving a perpetual image of serenity and sweetness, recalling the lovely atmosphere of far-off homes, and holding us by unsuspected ties to whatsoever things were pure.

_T. W. Higginson._

[Ill.u.s.tration]

PRUDY PARLIN.

Prudy Parlin and her sister Susy, three years older, lived in Portland, in the State of Maine.

Susy was more than six years old, and Prudy was between three and four. Susy could sew quite well for a girl of her age, and had a stint every day. Prudy always thought it very fine to do just as Susy did, so she teased her mother to let _her_ have some patchwork too, and Mrs. Parlin gave her a few calico pieces, just to keep her little fingers out of mischief.

But when the squares were basted together, she broke needles, p.r.i.c.ked her fingers, and made a great fuss; sometimes crying, and wis.h.i.+ng there were no such thing as patchwork.

One morning she sat in her rocking-chair, doing what she thought was a _stint_. She kept running to her mother with every st.i.tch, saying, "Will that do?" Her mother was very busy, and said, "My little daughter must not come to me." So Prudy sat down near the door, and began to sew with all her might; but soon her little baby sister came along looking so cunning that Prudy dropped her needle and went to hugging her.

"O little sister," cried she, "I wouldn't have a horse come and eat you up for anything in the world!"

After this, of course, her mother had to get her another needle, and then thread it for her. She went to sewing again till she p.r.i.c.ked her finger, and the sight of the wee drop of blood made her cry.

"O dear! I wish somebody would pity me!" But her mother was so busy frying doughnuts that she could not stop to talk much; and the next thing she saw of Prudy she was at the farther end of the room, while her patchwork lay on the spice-box.

"Prudy, Prudy, what are you up to now?"

"Up to the table," said Prudy. "O mother, I'm so sorry, but I've broke a crack in the pitcher!"

"What will mamma do with you? You haven't finished your stint: what made you get out of your chair?"

"O, I thought grandma might want me to get her _speckles_. I thought I would go and find Zip too. See, mamma, he's so tickled to see me he shakes all over--every bit of him!"

"Where's your patchwork?"

"I don't know. You've got a double name, haven't you, doggie? It's Zip c.o.o.n; but it isn't a _very_ double name,--is it, mother?"

When Mrs. Parlin had finished her doughnuts, she said, "p.u.s.s.y, you can't keep still two minutes. Now, if you want to sew this patchwork for grandma's quilt, I'll tell you what I shall do. There's an empty hogshead in the back kitchen, and I'll lift you into that, and you can't climb out. I'll lift you out when your stint is done."

"O, what a funny little house!" said Prudy, when she was inside; and as she spoke her voice startled her,--it was so loud and hollow. "I'll talk some more," thought she, "it makes such a queer noise. 'Old Mrs.

Hogshead, I thought I'd come and see you, and bring my work. I like your house, ma'am, only I should think you'd want some windows. I s'pose you know who I am, Mrs. Hogshead? My name is Prudy. My mother didn't put me in here because I was a naughty girl, for I haven't done nothing--nor nothing--nor nothing. Do you want to hear some singing?

"'O, come, come away, From labor now reposin'; Let _busy Caro, wife of Barrow_, Come, come away!'"

"Prudy, what's the matter?" said mamma, from the next room.

"Didn't you hear somebody singing?" said Prudy; "well, 't was me."

"O, I was afraid you were crying, my dear!"

"Then I'll stop," said the child. "Now, Mrs. Hogshead, you won't hear me singing any more,--it _mortifies_ my mother very much."

So Prudy made her fingers fly, and soon said, "Now, mamma, I've got it done, and I'm ready to be _took out_!"

Just then her father came into the house. "Prudy's in the hogshead,"

said Mrs. Parlin. "Won't you please lift her out, father? I've got baby in my arms."

Mr. Parlin peeped into the hogshead. "How in this world did you ever get in here, child?" said he. "I think I'll have to take you out with a pair of tongs."

Prudy laughed.

"Give me your hands," said papa. "Up she comes! Now, come sit on my knee," added he, when they had gone into the parlor, "and tell me how you climbed into that hogshead."

"Mother dropped me in, and I'm going to stay there till I make a bedquilt,--only I'm coming out to eat, you know."

Mr. Parlin laughed; but just then the dinner-bell rang, and when they went to the table, Prudy was soon so busy with her roasted chicken and custard pie that she forgot all about the patchwork.

Prudy soon tired of sewing, and her mother said, laughing, "If Grandma Read has to wait for somebody's little fingers before she gets a bedquilt, poor grandma will sleep very cold indeed."

The calico pieces went into the rag-bag, and that was the last of Prudy's patchwork.

One day the children wanted to go and play in the "new house," which was not quite done. Mrs. Parlin was almost afraid little Prudy might get hurt, for there were a great many loose boards and tools lying about, and the carpenters, who were at work on the house, had all gone away to see some soldiers. But at last she said they might go if Susy would be very careful of her little sister.

Susy meant to watch Prudy with great care, but after a while she got to thinking of something else. The little one wanted to play "catch,"

but Susy saw a great deal more sport in building block houses.

"Now I know ever so much more than you do," said Susy. "I used to wash dishes and scour knives when I was four years old, and that was the time I learned you to walk, Prudy; so you ought to play with me, and be goody."

"Then I will; but them blocks is too big, Susy. If I had _a axe_ I'd chop 'em: I'll go get _a axe_." Little Prudy trotted off, and Susy never looked up from her play, and did not notice that she was gone a long while.