The Thirteen Little Black Pigs Part 6

And by good luck, the old woman who kept the flower-stall, had some beautiful purple pansies, none of the paler ones were half so pretty that day, so the choice was not so difficult after all. Mamma picked out a beauty, with two flowers on it, one almost full blown, and the other not far behind, and a proud little girl was Pansy, as, after having paid her sixpence she trotted home again, her precious namesake tightly clasped in her arms.

"I don't think I've ever had such nice birthday presents, have I, mamma?" she said, as she lifted up her own soft little face, as sweet and as soft as the flower, for a kiss, before hurrying upstairs to the nursery to show her treasure.

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And it made her mother very happy to see that her little daughter had that best of all fairy gifts, a grateful and contented heart.

But Pansy had her troubles like other people, as you will hear.

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PANSY'S PANSY PART III--

The pansy was installed in state on its little owner's window-sill. For there were deep old-fas.h.i.+oned window-sills in the vicarage that served in turn both as tables and seats for the children. So Pansy warned her brother and sister that they must be very careful now not to climb up on to _her_ window-sill without asking her first, so that she could move the flower-pot out of the way.

Bob and Ruth both promised. And indeed they were very nearly quite as much taken up with the pretty flower as Pansy herself. If she _could_ have forgotten to water it, she would have been well reminded to do so.

I don't think there was ever a plant more watched, and cared for. It was Pansy's first thought in the morning and last at night. Every little speck of dust was tenderly wiped off its leaves, it was moved from one part of the room to another to get the suns.h.i.+ne, of which, as I have told you, there was seldom more than a scanty amount at Northclough, and the window-sill, its own particular home, was kept as clean as if the pansy was a fairy princess who got out of her flower-pot at night to take a little exercise on her terrace.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bob had an inspiration]

And very soon the two flowers were at their perfection; they were very fine ones really, and I think Pansy knew every mark on their faces as well as a mother knows the dimples in her darling's cheeks, even the freckles on her darling's forehead. Truly the little girl had got a good sixpenceworth of pleasure out of her purchase.

The weather grew warmer, early in June it was really sultry for a few days. Pansy began to be careful in a new way for her pet. It must not be allowed to get _too_ hot, or to be broiled up by the sun, so a shady corner was chosen for the flower-pot during the middle of the day. And it really seemed grateful for the care bestowed upon it. Never did a pansy prosper better, or lift itself up in fresher beauty to greet its little gardeners.

But one day, unfortunately, Bob had an inspiration, if you know what that is.

[Ill.u.s.tration: no Pansy, no flower-pot, nothing to be seen!]

"Pansy," he said to his sister, "I've been thinking if you want the flowers to last as long as they possibly can, you must really give them a little more fresh air. It's all very well in the daytime when your window's open, but at night I'm sure the pansy feels choky and stuffy.

You see flowers aren't like us, except hot-house ones of course, they're used to live out-of-doors."

Pansy looked very anxious.

"I wonder if it's that," she said. "I noticed, though I tried to think it was fancy, that one of the biggest flower-leaves," (she meant "petals," but she was too little to know the right word), "not the _leaf_-leaves you know, was a tiny atom of a bit crushed up, almost like," and here Pansy dropped her voice, as if what she was going to say was almost _too_ dreadful to put in words, "almost like as if it was beginning to--to wither a little."

Bob nodded his head.

"That's it," he said, "I bet you anything that's it. It's want of fresh air. Well, Pansy, I've measured the ledge outside, it's quite wide enough to hold the flower-pot and the saucer, and though it slopes downwards a very little, it's nothing to make it stand unsteady. Now suppose, last thing at night, we put it outside, I'm sure it would freshen it up, and flowers are just as used to night air as to day air."

Pansy agreed; she examined the outer sill with Bob, it seemed all right.

So that evening when the children's bedtime came, pansy flower was told by Pansy little girl what her kind mamma and uncle had planned for her benefit, and with what Pansy called a kiss, a very b.u.t.terfly kiss it was, for the little girl was as afraid of hurting the pansy as if it had been a sensitive plant, the flower-pot was placed on the ledge outside.

First thing next morning Pansy flew to look at the flower.

"Have you had a good night, my darling? oh, yes, I think so. You look very fresh and well, though a _little_ wet." For a gentle shower had fallen in the night. "Perhaps the rain will have done you good."

Bob was quite sure it had, certainly the crumply look on the purple petal was no _worse_, so the plan was kept to, and every night the pot was carefully settled on the ledge.

I think it was on the third morning that the dreadful thing happened which I must now tell you of.

When Pansy opened the window to draw in her dear flower and bid it good morning, there was no pansy, no flower-pot, _nothing_ to be seen!

With a sort of shriek Pansy flew across the day nursery to the bedroom where nurse was dressing baby Charley, while Bob, all ready, was giving the last touch up to his curly hair.

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"Nurse, Bob," she cried, "have you _possibly_ brought the pansy in while I was asleep?"

But nurse and Bob shook their heads. Then they all hurried back to Pansy's room, and nurse, bidding the children stand back, peered out of the window. There was a tiny strip of ground railed in between the house and the street. Nurse drew her head in again.

"Master Bob," she said, "run down and ask cook to let you out by the back-door. I think I see the poor flower down there. It must have fallen over."

Yes, _knocked_ over by a stray cat, most likely. The children had never thought of cats. There it lay! Bob and the cook did their best, but there was little to do. It was a poor little clump of green "leaf-leaves" only that remained, when the sad procession from the nursery tapped at their mother's door, Pansy's face so disfigured by crying that you would _scarcely_ have known her.

Mamma was very sorry for her, very, _very_ sorry. She knew that to Pansy it was a real big sorrow, trifling as some people might think it. But, still, as she told the little girl, sorrows and troubles _have_ to come, and till we learn to bear them and find the sweet in the bitter we are not good for much. So she encouraged Pansy to be brave and unselfish and not to make the nursery life sad and miserable on account of this misfortune. And Pansy did her best. Only she begged her mother to take the flower-pot away.

"I think I would like it to be buried," she said with a sob. "It's like when Bob's canary died."

But two or three days after that, it may have been a week even, one morning mamma came into the nursery looking very happy and carrying something in her hand over which she had thrown a handkerchief.

"Pansy dear," she said, "I waited to tell you till I was quite sure. I did not 'bury' your pansy root, and I have been watching it. And do you know there is another bud just about to burst, and a still tinier one, all green as yet, but which will come on in time. In a week or two you will have two new flowers quite as pretty, I hope, as the other ones."

"Oh mamma," said Pansy, clasping her hands together. Her heart was too full to say more.

And the buds did blossom into lovely flowers, even lovelier, the children thought, than the first ones. For there was the intense delight of watching them growing day by day, the gardener's delight which no one can really understand who has not felt it.

No accident happened this time, and when the season was over, the pansy root was planted in a corner of the little strip of flower border at the side of the house, where it managed to get on very well, and perhaps will have more buds and flowers for several springs to come.

There is one thing more to tell. Pansy's G.o.dmother was so touched by the story of the pansy, that she sent an "extra" present to the vicarage children that summer, though it wasn't any "birthday" at all. The present was a beautiful case of ferns, with a gla.s.s cover, so that it could stand in the house all the year round. It was placed in the window of the landing on to which the nursery opened, and there, I hope, it stands still. For it would be impossible to tell the delight this indoors forest gives to the children, who have grown so clever at managing it, that Bob really thinks they should try for a prize at the next "window gardening" exhibition.

For there _are_ such cheerful things as that, one is glad to know, even at smoky Northclough!

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PET'S HALF-CROWN

Mammas have troubles sometimes, though you mightn't think it. They have indeed. I remember when I was a little girl that it seemed to me big people _couldn't_ have real troubles; that only children had them. Big people could do as they liked, get up when they liked, not go to bed _till_ they liked; eat what they chose, dress as they pleased, do no lessons, and were never scolded. Things do not look quite like that to me now, when for many many more years than I was a child I have been a big person. However, as each of you will find out for himself or herself all about big people in good time, I won't try to explain it to you.

Only, I do think the world might get on better if little people believed that big ones _have_ their troubles, and--if big people believed and remembered the same thing about little ones.

Some children seem wise before their time. They early learn what "sympathy" means--they begin almost before they can talk to try to bear some part of other people's burdens.