The Thirteen Little Black Pigs Part 7

A little girl I once knew, who was called "Pet," (though of course she had a proper name as well,) was one of these. She was a gentle little thing, with large soft rather anxious-looking blue eyes; eyes that filled with tears rather _too_ easily, perhaps, both for her own troubles and other people's.

But she got more sensible as she grew older, and by the time she was ten or so she had found out that there are often much better ways of showing you are sorry for others than by crying about them, and that as for crying about _ourselves_, it is always a bad plan, though I know it can't quite be helped now and then.

Pet was the eldest, and a very useful "understanding" little eldest she was. _She_ knew that her mother had troubles sometimes, and she did her best to smooth them away whenever she possibly could.

One of the things she was often able to do to help her mother was by keeping her little brothers and sisters happy and amused when they came down to the drawing-room in the evening, and now and then, if it were a rainy day, earlier. For mamma felt sorry for the children if they were shut up in the nursery for long, and as all little people know, a change to the drawing-room is very pleasant for them, though sometimes rather tiring for mammas.

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It happened one afternoon, a very wet and cold afternoon in January, when there was no possibility of going out, that _all_ the children were downstairs together. There were four of them besides Pet, and it was not very easy to amuse them all. But Pet was determined to do her very best--for she knew that mamma was _particularly_ busy that day, as she had all her accounts to do. And indeed poor mamma would have been very glad to have a quiet afternoon, but nurse had a headache, and baby, who had had a bad night, was sleeping peacefully for the first time, and must not be disturbed. There was nothing for it but to bring the little troop downstairs.

"We will be very good and quiet, mamma dear," said Pet. "You can go on doing your accounts, for I know you can't do them this evening, as aunty is coming. Charley and I,"--Charley was the next in age to Pet--"will show all our best picture-books to the little ones."

Charley was very proud to hear himself counted a big one with Pet, and he did all he could to help her. They really managed to keep the others quiet, and Pet was hoping that mamma was getting on nicely with her long rows of figures, and that soon she would be calling out gladly, "All right. I can come and play with you now," when to her distress she heard her mother give a deep sigh.

"Oh, dear mamma, what's the matter?" she said, "are we disturbing you?"

"No, darling, you are as quiet as mice," her mother replied. "But I don't know how it is--I have counted it all up again and again, and I am _sure_ I have put down everything I have spent, but I am half-a-crown wrong. Dear, dear--what a pity it is! Just as I thought I had finished."

And again mamma sighed. She did not like to think she had perhaps lost half-a-crown, for she and Pet's father had not any half-crowns to spare.

"I will just go and see if possibly it is in my little leather bag that I always take out with me," she said. And she rose as she spoke and left the room.

Pet felt sure it was not in the little bag, for she had been standing by when her mother emptied it.

"Poor mamma," she said softly. "I can't bear her to be troubled."

Then the colour rose into her face and her eyes sparkled.

"Charley," she whispered, "keep the little ones quiet for one minute,"

and off she flew.

She was back in _less_ than a minute, though she had found time to run up to her room and take something out of a drawer where she kept her treasures. Then she ran across to her mother's writing-table and slipped this something under the account-books, lying open upon it.

And almost immediately mamma came back.

"No," she said sadly, "it was not in my bag. I fear I have lost it somehow, for I am sure my accounts are right. I must just put it down as lost."

But in another moment came a joyful cry.

"Pet," she exclaimed, "_would_ you believe I could be so stupid? Here it is--the missing half-crown--slipped under my account book! I _am_ so pleased to have found it. Now, children dear, mammy can come and play with you with a light heart."

"I am so glad you are happy again, mamma darling," said Pet; and if her mother noticed that her little girl's cheeks were rosier than usual, and her eyes brighter, no doubt she only thought it was with the pleasure of all playing together. For I don't think they had ever had a merrier visit to the drawing-room.

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You have guessed the secret before this, I am sure? That little Pet had fetched her own half-crown to play a loving trick with it. It was her only half-crown, her only money, except one sixpenny-bit and two pennies! But she gave it gladly, just saying to herself that it was a very good thing Christmas-time was over and no birthdays very near at hand.

And she kept her secret well. So well, that though a great many years have pa.s.sed since then, it was only a _very little while ago_ that her mother heard, for the first time, the story of her child's loving self-denial. The smile on mamma's face, and the knowledge that she had brought it there were Pet's only reward.

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A CATAPULT STORY.

"Oh, well, you can have a catapult if you like," said Hector, with lordly disdain. "It doesn't matter to _me_, and it certainly won't matter to any one or anything else. You'll never hit anything--girls never do. They can't throw a stone properly."

"You're very unkind, and--and--very horrid," said Dolly, nearly crying.

"It's very mean and un--it's not at all like knights long ago, always to be saying mocking things of girls."

"Rubbish," said Hector. "Besides, if you come to that, girls or ladies long ago didn't want to do things like--like men," the last word with a little hesitation, for he knew Dolly was sharp enough to be down on him if he talked big. "They stayed at home and did sensible things, for women; cooking and tapestrying, and nursing wounded soldiers."

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"They had to go out to the battle-fields sometimes to get the wounded soldiers--_there_!" said Dolly triumphantly. "And what's more, some of them _did_ know how to fight, and did fight. Think of Jeanne d'Arc, and--and--somebody, I forget her name, who defended her husband's castle."

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"All right," said Hector. "I'm not quarrelling with your having a catapult, and you can defend your husband's castle with it if you like--that's to say if you ever get a husband. _I_ should think a girl who knew how to sew nicely, and to keep her house very neat and comfortable, a much nicer wife than one who went about catapulting and trying to be like a man. And you know you're not really so grand and brave as you try to make out, Dolly. You screamed like anything the other day when I threw a piece of wood that looked like a snake at you."

"It was very mean and cowardly of you to try to frighten me," said Dolly. "And I know somebody that needn't boast either. Who was it that ran away the other day when Farmer Bright's cow got into our field?

Somebody thought it was a bull, and was over the hedge in no time, leaving his sister to be gored or tossed by the terrible bull."

Hector grew red. He was not fond of this story, which had a good deal of truth in it. It seemed as if a quarrel was not very far off, but Hector thought better of it.

"I was very sorry afterwards that I ran away," he said. "You know I told you so, Dolly, and I really thought you were close beside me till I heard you call out. I don't think you need cast up about it any more, I really don't."

Dolly felt penitent at once, for she was a kind little girl, and Hector's gentleness touched her.

"Well, I won't, then," she answered, "if you'll teach me how to catapult."

Hector did his best, both that day and several others. But I must say I have my doubts as to whether catapults are meant for little girls. Dolly tried over and over and over again, but she never could manage to hit anything she aimed at. And at last her patience seemed exhausted.

"I'm tired of it," she said. "I'll give it to Bobby. I shan't try to catapult any more."

And it would have been rather a good thing if she had kept to this resolution.

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But the next day when she was out in the garden with her brothers, admiring Hector's good aim and the wonderful way in which he hit a little bell which he had hung high up on the branch of a tree as a sort of target, it came over her that she would try once again.

"Look at that bird, up on the top of the kitchen-garden wall," she said.

"I'll have a go at it."