The pink parasol had tender whalebone ribs and a slender stick of cherry-wood. It lived with the wilful child in the white-house, just beyond the third milestone. All about the trees were green, and the flowers grew tall; in the pond behind the willows the ducks swam round and round and dipped their heads beneath the water.
Every bird and bee, every leaf and flower, loved the child and the pink parasol as they wandered in the garden together, listening to the birds and seeking the shady spots to rest in, or walking up and down the long trim pathway in the sunshine. Yet the child tired of it all, and before the summer was over, was always standing by the gate, watching the straight white road that stretched across the plain.
"If I might but see the city, with the busy streets and the eager crowds," he was always saying to himself.
Then all that lived in the garden knew that the child would not be with them long. At last the day came when he flung down the pink parasol, and, without even one last look at the garden, ran out at the gate.
The flowers died, and the swallows journeyed south; the trees stretched higher and higher, to see the child come back across the plain, but he never came. "Ah, dear child!" they sighed many a time, "why are you staying? and are your eyes as blue as ever; or have the sad tears dimmed them? and is your hair golden still? and your voice, is it like the singing of the birds? And your heart—oh! my dear, my dear, what is in your heart now, that once was so full of summer and the sun?"
The pink parasol lay on the pathway, where the child left it, spoilt by the rain, and splashed by the gravel, faded and forgotten. At last, a gipsy lad, with dark eyes, a freckled face, and little gold rings in his ears, came by; he picked up the pink parasol, hid it under his coat, and carried it to the gipsy tent. There it stayed till one day the cherry-wood stick was broken into three pieces, and the pink parasol was put on the fire to make the water boil for the gipsy's tea.
The little sisters went into the room to play at ball.
"We must be careful not to wake the white cat," the tall one said, softly.
"Or to spoil the roses," the fat one whispered; "but throw high, dear sister, or we shall never hit the ceiling."
"You dear children," thought the white cat, "why do you come to play here at all? Only just round the corner are the shady trees, and the birds singing on the branches, and the sunshine is flecking the pathway. Who knows but what, out there, your ball might touch the sky? Here you will only disturb me, and perhaps spoil the roses; and at best you can but hit the ceiling!"
"Come and have a ride," the big brother said.
"I am afraid," the little one answered; "the horse's mouth is wide open."
"But it's only wooden. That is the best of a horse that isn't real. If his mouth is ever so wide open, he cannot shut it. So come," and the big brother lifted the little one up, and dragged him about.
"Oh, do stop!" the little one cried out in terror; "does the horse make that noise along the floor?"
"Yes."
"And is it a real noise?"
"Of course it is," the big brother answered.
"But I thought only real things could make real things," the little one said; "where does the imitation horse end and the real sound begin?"
At this the big brother stood still for a few minutes.
"I was thinking about real and imitation things," he said presently. "It's very difficult to tell which is which sometimes. You see they get so close together that the one often grows into the other, and some imitated things become real and some real ones become imitation as they go on. But I should say that you are a real coward for not having a ride."
"No, I am not," the little one laughed; and, getting astride the wooden horse, he sat up bravely. "Oh, Jack, dear," he said to his brother, "we will always be glad that we are real boys, or we too might have been made with mouths we were never able to shut!"
So little Bridget took the baby on her right arm and a jug in her left hand, and went to the farm to get the milk. On her way she went by the garden-gate of a large house that stood close to the farm, and she told the baby a story:—
"Last summer," she said, "a little girl, bigger than you, for she was just able to walk, came to stay in that house—she and her father and mother. All about the road just here, the ducks and the chickens from the farm, and an old turkey, used to walk about all the day long, but the poor little ducks were very unhappy, for they had no pond to swim about in, only that narrow ditch through which the streamlet is flowing. When the little girl's father saw this, he took a spade, and worked and worked very hard, and out of the ditch and the streamlet he made a little pond for the ducks, and they swam about and were very happy all through the summer days. Every morning I used to stand and watch, and presently the garden-gate would open, and then the father would come out, leading the little girl by the hand, and the mother brought a large plateful of bits of broken bread. The little girl used to throw the bread to the ducks, and they ran after it and ate it up quickly, while she laughed out with glee, and the father and the mother laughed too just as merrily. Baby, the father had blue eyes, and a voice that you seemed to hear with your heart.
"The little girl used to feed the chickens too, and the foolish old turkey that was so fond of her it would run after her until she screamed and was afraid. The dear father and the little girl came out every morning, while the black pigs looked through the bars of the farm-yard gate and grunted at them, as if they were glad, and I think the ducks knew that the father had made the pond, for they swam round and round it proudly while he watched them, but when he went away they seemed tired and sad.
"The pond is not there now, baby, for a man came by one day and made it into a ditch again; and the chickens and the ducks from the farm are kept in another place.
"The little girl is far away in her own home, which the father made for her, and the dear father lives in his own home too—in the hearts of those he loved."
That was the story that Bridget told the baby.
There was once a poor little donkey on wheels. It had never wagged its tail, or tossed its head, or said, "Hee-haw!" or tasted a tender thistle. It always went about, anywhere that anyone pulled it, on four wooden wheels, carrying a foolish knight, who wore a large cocked hat and a long cloak, because he had no legs. Now, a man who has no legs, and rides a donkey on wheels, has little cause for pride; but the knight was haughty, and seldom remembered his circumstances. So the donkey suffered sorely, and in many ways.
One day the donkey and the knight were on the table in front of the child to whom they both belonged. She was cutting out a little doll's frock with a large pair of scissors.
"Mistress," said the knight, "this donkey tries my temper. Will you give me some spurs?"
"Oh, no, sir knight," the child answered. "You would hurt the poor donkey; besides, you have no heels to put them on."
"Cruel knight!" exclaimed the donkey. "Make him get off, dear mistress; I will carry him no longer."
"Let him stay," said the child, gently; "he has no legs, and cannot walk."
"Then why did he want spurs?"
"Just the way of the world, dear donkey; just the way of the world."
"Ah!" sighed the donkey, "some ways are very trying, especially the world's;" and then it said no more, but thought of the fields it would never see, and the thistles it would never taste.
She was always called the "little great lady," for she lived in a grand house, and was very rich. He was a strange boy; the little great lady never knew whence he came, or whither he went. She only saw him when the snow lay deep upon the ground. Then in the early morning he swept a pathway to the stable in which she had once kept a white rabbit. When it was quite finished, she came down the steps in her white dress and little thin shoes, with bows on them, and walked slowly along the pathway. It was always swept so dry she might have worn paper shoes without getting them wet. At the far end he always stood waiting till she came, and smiled and said, "Thank you, little boy," and passed on. Then he was no more seen till the next snowy morning, when again he swept the pathway; and again the little great lady came down the steps in her dainty shoes, and went on her way to the stable.
But at last, one morning when the snow lay white and thick, and she came down the steps as usual, there was no pathway. The little boy stood leaning on a spade, his feet buried deep in the snow.
"Where is your broom? and where is the pathway to the rabbit house?" she asked.
"The rabbit is dead, and the broom is worn out," he answered; "and I am tired of making pathways that lead to empty houses."
"But why have you done it so long?" she asked.
"You have bows on your shoes," he said; "and they are so thin you could not walk over the snow in them—why, you would catch your death of cold," he added, scornfully.
"What would you do if I wore boots?"
"I should go and learn how to build ships, or paint pictures, or write books. But I should not think of you so much," he said.
The little great lady answered eagerly, "Go and learn how to do all those things; I will wait till you come back and tell me what you have done," and she turned and went into the house.
"Good-bye," the boy said, as he stood watching for a moment the closed door; "dear little great lady, good-bye." And he went along the unmade pathway beyond the empty rabbit house.
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This Volume contains contributions by Lord Tennyson, William Bell Scott, Robert Browning, James Russell Lowell, George Macdonald, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Theodore Watts, Austin Dobson, Hon. Roden Noel, Edmund Gosse, Robert Louis Stevenson, etc., etc.
LONDON:
WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.
Page 58: Corrected typo has'nt to hasn't:
(He has'nt any hair,—).
Page 61: Added a (probably missing) period:
(They looked very fine in the sweet summer weather.)