MIXED PICKLES.

A STORY FOR GIRLS AND BOYS.

By MRS. E. M. FIELD.

WITH THIRTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS BY T. PYM.

A. L. BURT COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Idle Hands

CHAPTER II.

A Princess

CHAPTER III.

Another Terrible Scrape

CHAPTER IV.

What Can I Do?

CHAPTER V.

Old Roger

CHAPTER VI.

Uncle Jack's Story

CHAPTER VII.

Beppo

CHAPTER VIII.

The Rest of the Story

CHAPTER IX.

A Prince in Disguise

CHAPTER X.

Beppo's Friend

CHAPTER XI.

Dreadfully Frightened

CHAPTER XII.

Some Use for Moll

CHAPTER XIII.

More About Beppo

CHAPTER XIV.

Beppo in Trouble

CHAPTER XV.

Up a Tree

CHAPTER XVI.

Poor Moll

CHAPTER XVII.

Where Thieves Break Through

CHAPTER XVIII.

Friend, Go Up Higher

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

"Pussy, Pussy! Come here, Puss."

Maurice Gray, with his queer little Scotch Terrier, Toby

Maurice fills the Syringe and sets to work

Timidly walking up to the door Bryda tapped gently

And where the water fell this Spring rose up

For a whole week there were Games

The Fairy came flying over the Town

"Little Boy," said Bryda shyly, "where do you live?"

"Our Father," Bryda prayed, "let me help Beppo."

Tom, who had now become a Poet

Bryda after looking around for Beppo, seized the Cat

Bryda and Beppo amuse themselves walking about the Field

Only one word, too—"Speranza."

Bryda appeared to have thrown the Reading Book to the other end of the room

Bryda called to the old woman, who laughed and shook her fist

Bryda laughed, and then looked solemn

MIXED PICKLES.

CHAPTER I. IDLE HANDS.

Bryda was very lonely! Not because she was alone, for she was rather fond of wandering off by herself, away from every one else, and talking to herself and to the birds and flowers, and still more to any little stream that came in her way. But then to be alone because you fancy it, and to be alone because there is no one to play with, are two very different things, and the last was Bryda's case.

"If I had even a kitten," she said aloud, standing before the sundial in her grandmother's old-fashioned garden, and looking at the shadow that did not seem to move at all. Bryda had read of King Hezekiah, for whom the shadow moved backward; she wished it would move a little forward for her, and bring tea time, after which meal she might go and sit by the couch of her invalid cousin, Salome, who had soft fingers that rested soothingly on her rumpled hair, and a soft low voice that told pleasant stories pleasantly, and good long ones, too.

"If I had only a kitten!"

Why, only yesterday, before Uncle Jack went away and took all the brightness of the house with him, he said he thought there were kittens in a loft over the stable, and he would try and catch one for Bryda. But he had gone off on a shooting expedition, and would not be home for days and days. And he did not know how lonely Bryda was.

You see her father and mother had gone abroad a fortnight before this lonely day, and had left her in charge of grandfather and grandmother. They were very kind, but they were so old, and so fond of going to sleep in their chairs with very grave books before them, always open at the same place, that Bryda thought they looked more like two wax figures from Madame Tussaud's—put, one on either side of the fire in winter and of the big window in summer—than like real people.

They had lived so long, probably, that they could not care much about anything. If you told any striking piece of news to grandmother she only said, "Say it again, my dear. I'm a stupid old woman. Sit down beside me, speak slowly, and always remember to wipe your shoes on the mat."

If you had just rushed in full of the great news that the robin's blue eggs in that dear little nest by the garden door were gone, and four gaping, featherless darlings were there instead, you felt that it was much worth while to try and make grandmother enter into the delight of the surprise. And when you had told her, she would only say, "Very nice, my dear; very charming, I'm sure. Now run out again, and don't get freckled." After which she would smooth down her heavy watered-silk gown, and doze over the big grave book again.

And grandfather was worse. He had long white hair, and a very long white beard, and bushy white eyebrows; so that there were only two round spots on each cheek bone, and a very narrow strip of forehead—unless you included his nose—on which to kiss him, without burying your face in white hair dusted with snuff. For grandfather took a great deal of snuff, and if you—that is, if Bryda—went to talk to him, he would say, when he was awake enough to listen, "Yes, yes, my dear, quite so, exactly so. Give me a kiss, my dear; give me a kiss. I want a bite from those cherries on your cheeks."

And then came the difficulty of kissing grandfather (who did not like to be refused) without kissing the white, snuff-scented beard, which was only to be avoided by a sudden and rapid peck at the two rosy circles on his cheeks, or the little bits of forehead between the long locks.

When Bryda's mother went away her last words were:

"Be good to the grannies, my darling, and do all they tell you; and don't forget father and mother."

Here the mother's voice trembled and broke, and she got very quickly into the carriage.

Forget! Oh, no, Bryda could not forget And she tried "to be good to the grannies" by kissing grandfather whenever he wished, much as she disliked the operation, and trying to remember all grandmother said about dry shoes, and sitting in draughts, and eating slowly, and putting on pinafores, and various other little matters we are all familiar with.

Uncle Jack was quite different. We shall hear more of him. But perhaps the house was a little too quiet for him; he was so often away.

The dullness did not matter to Cousin Salome. She lay in bed all the morning, and was carefully wheeled into a little sunny sitting-room in the afternoon; and there, when the pain was not too bad (for she had hurt her back, and would never be well again), she was always ready to welcome Bryda with that quiet smile on her white, loving face, that was like moonlight on a sea that sings low and sadly on a summer night.

Uncle Jack was away, and Cousin Salome worse, and the governess who was to come and teach Bryda had not arrived; and so, as we have seen, Bryda was very lonely, and very much in want of a kitten. She looked herself rather like a kitten that has got wet, for a kitten never looks so forlorn as she did unless it is quite wet, and perhaps muddy too.

But in two minutes after this bright idea had struck her Bryda looked much like the same kitten when it has been dried by a nice warm fire, and fed on creamy milk, and has licked its paws and washed its face, and is ready for the next ball of wool that some one will be kind enough to throw on the floor for it to play with.

Gathering some ripe summer pears, and hastily stuffing them into the pockets of her pinafore, Bryda, hurried off to the stable. It was locked, but the key was in the door; it turned easily, and she found herself as she entered rather near the heels of the fat old carriage-horses, Gog and Magog. But they would not kick; they were, or seemed, as old and sleepy as their master and mistress. Gog in particular would really rather be stung by a horsefly than take any particular trouble about brushing it away. They were not animals suited to Bryda's taste, however much grandmother might appreciate their steady ways, They were like those horses of whom the little girl in the poem could find nothing more interesting to tell than that

"The tails of both hung down behind, Their shoes were on their feet."

And John, the coachman, was as fat, and old, and lazy as they were. Altogether the family coach, when the dear old folks were in it, was quite a curiosity. They went for a short drive every day, one day along one of the roads outside the lodge gates, and the next day along the other, turn about, and always to the same distance, which Uncle Jack called "going to there-and-back-again." Only on Sunday they went to church, which was a very short way indeed, only just outside the gates in fact, and on that day they did not sleep in the carriage as they did on the other six days.

But if Bryda was, as a treat, taken for a drive, it really was a little dull. Both the grannies went to sleep, and nodded so that poor Bryda was really afraid their heads might come off; and John the coachman looked as if he were asleep, and Gog and Magog went along at such a slow, solemn trot that they might well be walking in their sleep, too.

So Bryda was not much afraid that either of these grave old horses would take the trouble to kick her. But she had not the same confidence in Uncle Jack's high-spirited hunter, Paddy, who lived in a big stall with a bar at the end, called a loose box, in which he could walk about; and now he put his handsome head with the white star on the forehead over this bar, and looked at Bryda as much as to say, "What business have you here?"

Next to Paddy's loose box there was a ladder, which went up through a hole in the ceiling into the loft where hay was kept, and where Uncle Jack said kittens lived.

Carefully closing the stable door, Bryda, with her heart certainly beating unusually fast, climbed the ladder without stopping to think what grandmother would say, and was soon up in the loft—a delightful place, with a raftered roof, and little windows with sprays of Ivy pushing their way in, as if to remind the scented hay that it once grew outside and was called green grass.

It was a nice place! and, oh, joy! from a dark corner came the sound Bryda longed for, a kitten's "mew!" It was not the voice of an elderly cat, but the plaintive little "mew" of a kitten, and Bryda, as she went toward the sound, could see a pair of very round, bright eyes. Carefully, not to frighten the little creature, she went toward it; but, alas! kittens born in lofts are apt to be wild and shy, and in spite of all her coaxing, "Pussy, pussy! Come here, puss!" the round, bright eyes went further off, and finally the kitten took refuge in the darkest corner of all. But Bryda was not going to be beaten by a kitten. Treading carefully and slowly, she came nearer; one step more and she would reach the soft, furry thing. Another moment, and it was in her arms; and Bryda, delighted, sat down on a heap of hay, and hugged it, saying, "Now, kitty, let's pretend!"

"Pussy, pussy! Come here, puss!"

What fun the games are that begin "Let's pretend!" Why, one can be a king, a queen, a judge, or a lord chancellor. We can grow up in two minutes into happy people, who do no lessons, and can order exactly what they like for dinner every day, and need not go to bed at the dreadfully early hour we young folks must.

Then, merely to eat a pear is so dull! Grown people have parties to amuse them at dinner, the very dogs growl and play with their bones, and the cats act a little play over every mouse they catch.

So Bryda would be Queen Elizabeth seated on a throne, dining off goose on that Michaelmas day when news came of the defeat of the great Spanish Armada. The kitten should be the messenger, a pear should be the goose. Bryda had just read this story in her English history. Hay makes a capital throne; Bryda piled one up, and had just sat down with much dignity, when——

Have you ever heard people say, when something awkward happened, they would like to go through the floor? Poor Bryda did! She suddenly tumbled right through the scattered hay—right through the ceiling!

She was not really hurt, only a little bruised, after all; for she had fallen into a sort of deep cage with strong wooden bars, into which hay was pushed down from the loft, and the bottom of this cage was inside Paddy's loose box, close to the manger. So that the first thing Bryda knew, when she recovered herself enough to look round, was that Paddy was standing looking at her, and seemed very much surprised, as well he might be, for little girls were not generally kept in the loft along with the hay, or poked into his stall for him to make his dinner off.

In fact, it is very likely that, if she had only known it, the big, beautiful creature was much more afraid of her than she of him.

Indeed, she was very much afraid, and grew more and more frightened as the horse, finding she did not move, came a few steps nearer, and then began snuffing at her. If she were to try to climb into the loft again, which did not seem very easy, he might—he probably would—bite her long black legs, she thought.

It would not be very easy to climb into the loft either; the cage was so very deep. What was the unfortunate child to do? Paddy kept on sniffing at her, the real reason being that he could smell the pears in her pinafore pocket. Bryda could smell them too, and a bright idea struck her. She remembered a fairy tale about a princess who softened the hard heart of a lion by feeding him with cake. Perhaps this nice juicy fruit would have the same good effect on Paddy. Perhaps, too, while he was eating it she might escape. Cautiously she drew one out, and it went into the horse's big mouth as a gooseberry would have gone into her own, and was as quickly swallowed. That was a bad plan; he wanted more at once. The next she threw on the ground; and while Paddy stooped his sleek curved neck to pick it up, she made a desperate effort to escape.

In vain! Hardly had she risen from her cramped position and made a struggle to get her hands up to the floor of the loft, when the bright eyes and big mouth were back again, and dreadfully near her legs!

"Oh, don't! don't! Paddy!" cried Bryda. "Here, you may eat all my pears, but really I know I should not taste nice; so please don't bite me."

The remaining pears were soon gone; but when they came to an end the difficulty still remained, and Paddy could not be brought to see that he could have no more simply because there were no more. So he sniffed and sniffed, poking his nose more and more between the bars, and showing those dreadful teeth. He only wanted pears; but Bryda grew perfectly wild with fright, and finally, when Paddy actually touched her hand with a hot nose, she could bear it no longer, but gave first one wild shriek and then another, and another, till the spirited horse, terrified by the noise, plunged about in the loose box, adding still more to her dismay; and even Gog and Magog pricked up their ears, and looked round, as if they would say, "Please don't spoil our digestion by this dreadful screaming."

To Bryda's joy, however, the stable door opened, and old John came tottering slowly in.

"Oh, John! John! save me! Don't let me be eaten up!" implored Bryda, as soon as she saw him; while Paddy became more composed, and stopped prancing.

Old John scratched his head; that was natural. Then he very deliberately walked toward the ladder, muttering:

"Well, I'm blessed if this 'ere ain't the rummiest go as ever I see!"

Which, you will observe, was not the sort of English one finds in the dictionaries; but then John was born before the days of school boards.

"Oh, John! make haste!" cried Bryda again.

But really it was a terribly long time before John climbed the ladder, and gave his hands to the frightened child, who was soon safe on the floor of the loft.

"Be you hurt, miss?" asked old John, looking at her as if she were a china figure that might have lost an arm or a leg in the fall.

But Bryda was not hurt; only she trembled from head to foot, and, after thanking John, turned away and walked with a grave face into the garden again, and to the foot of the old sundial.

The shadow had only moved on half an hour. Bryda tried to hold her hand in such a way as to make another shadow, that should come further over the dial. But that was a bad imitation of the real thing, and made her think of one evening when Uncle Jack had told her, with such a serious face, to take a candle, and go to see the time by the old sundial; how she had actually gone, and had only remembered when she got there that the sun was in bed, and therefore could not tell her what she wanted to know.

Up the pillar on which stood the dial two very large snails were crawling—oh, so slowly! They seemed to go even more slowly than the long hot hours.

How amusing it would be to make them run, or rather crawl races! Bryda gathered a nice fresh leaf, and put it at one edge of the dial. Then she startled the two snails at the ether end, and for the next hour or so was perfectly happy watching them, and starting them again and again.

But at the end of that time the biggest and fattest snail gave up the game in disgust, finding he never could enjoy his leaf quietly when he had got it, because a giant hand always came, and would put him back at the starting-place.

So he drew in his horns first, and then went bodily into his house, which those gentlemen conveniently carry on their backs. There he sulked, and would come out no more; so Bryda threw him into a cabbage-bed, and went indoors.

Bryda had so many funny ways of amusing herself that Uncle Jack, who was very fond of making jokes, declared she "lived in a jar of mixed pickles." Indeed, these same amusements often ended by becoming small scrapes, which he called Bryda's pickles; and we shall see that they were of all sorts, and really "mixed."

None are very wise at eight years old, and many of us are, like my little Bryda, very anxious to do right and be of some use in the world. So we will follow her as she goes into the house.

CHAPTER II. A PRINCESS.

Cousin Salome would see her now, and so Bryda went to the invalid's room.

"You look very miserable, darling," said the soft voice compassionately, as Bryda, after kissing her cousin, stood looking dolefully out of the window.

"I am very miserable, Cousin Salome," she answered, feeling that she had good cause for misery.

"Very miserable, when you can run about and be out of doors with the sunshine and the birds and the flowers! There must be something very bad the matter. Come and tell me all about it."

Bryda knelt by the couch, a little ashamed of herself. Cousin Salome might well be miserable, so ill that she could never again hope to walk in the sunny, scented garden.

"It's easy for you to be good, I suppose, cousin," she said. "You lie here all day, and don't find any mischief to get into."

The last words were said as if mischief was a sort of thing that came to you, and asked you to get into it—in the same way as roast pigs run about in the fairy country, holding out a knife and fork and crying, "Eat me, do! please!"

"So mischief is the cause of the great misery!" said Cousin Salome, smiling, and drawing the little girl nearer to her. "Tell me what was the last piece of mischief."

Bryda told all about her adventure with Paddy, and ended:

"Oh, Cousin Salome, I've nothing to do!"

"That's the beginning of all mischief, I am afraid, darling. Do bees and birds get into mischief? Not they, they are too busy."

"Well, I would make honey or a nest if I knew how," said Bryda, laughing. "If I could paint a picture like this, I should be happy."

Cousin Salome had been painting. She could only do a little at a time and that with difficulty; but she had drawn a very beautiful figure of a young girl in a rich, old-fashioned dress, sitting by an open window, through which could be seen a great plain and a large town some way off. The girl's face was full of wonder, and rather sad, and she looked away at the sunset sky, as if she were thinking of something very puzzling. Bryda took up the picture and looked at it.

"That is Princess Isabel of Montenaro; she is doing what you are doing now, Bryda."

"What I am doing, cousin?"

"Yes; wondering what she ought to do. Do you see the town beyond the green park? That was her father's capital, and a dreadful sickness broke out there, so that people died by hundreds. But the king was a hard-hearted man, and spent the days in feasting and hunting, and paid no heed to the people's sufferings."

"Oh, do tell me the story!" cried Bryda eagerly.

Cousin Salome smiled.

"The story, as I have it, is in verse. You would not like that, Bryda?"