Mary with many Friends

Chapter I

(^jNjlNE very hot day in July little Mary awoke &§?§] from a sound sleep about three o'clock in g&sgaall the afternoon, and saw her papa and mamma with their heads close together, reading out of one book. "Mumpsy," said Mary, when she had watched her parents for a few moments in silence, " Mumpsy, you hav'nt been to sleep, and you said you would So." S' "And pray, Miss Puss, how do you know that ?" said her father. " You have been snoring for more than an hour, and although you may be ' awfully clevah,' as the song says, I don't believe you are clever enough to be wide awake when you are fast asleep." " I don't suppose anyone is clever enough for that," said Mary. " Dogs and cats almost are, for they never seem to go right off, and are awake in a minute again. And it would not be nice cleverness either, even if any one could do it — for there would B be no peace — people could not go comfortably to bed and forget all their bothers, and wake up strong enough for more, as they do now.

I don't know what I should do if I didn't go to sleep and forget all about powders and physic until it was time to wake up and take another dose." Mary's mamma had been pouring out half a glass of medicine while the little girl had been speaking, and brought it to her on a little silver tray, with two tiny pearl biscuits to eat after it. When she had drunk the tonic (which was not very disagreeable) she began to nibble the biscuits, and continued the conversation. "When I do wake," said Mary, "I wake altogether straight off, you know — no rubbing of eyes, and so on, — and as soon as I woke just now I saw mamma's chignon, and I knew by that she had'nt been asleep." " How in the world could her chignon tell you anything about it ?" asked her father, opening his eyes and mouth so wide that the child gave a little spurt of laughter, and was obliged to pause in the destruction of the biscuits.

" Did it wink at you, or sign to you in some way — by poking a hair pin out at you, or waving one of its plats at you ?" " Chignons can't wink," cried Mary, flapping a weak hand at her father, and struggling with her laughter, and a tendency to choke produced by the too hasty flight of a bit of biscuit down her throat " Chignons can't wink, they've got no eyes." "That's nothing," said her father gravely. "You might as well say that bed posts can'ttwinkle, and I suppose as you have lived seven years in the world you have heard that they do. But I am anxious to hear how the chignon gave you news of your mother's doings." " Why it wasn't a bit rumpled, and I knew if Mumpsy had been lying on the bed, and going to sleep, as she promised me site would, it must have been rumpled. I'm worried about it because I know she's very tired."

" Well, you see, she saw me with this book, and came and looked at it, and we got interested, and forgot how the time went, that's how it was." " Read me what you were reading," said Mary abruptly. " It would not interest you, my deary," said her mother. " You would not understand it." "That's no matter," said Mary, who, I am sorry to say, was rather obstinate. " I know I shall like it." "And I know you will not," said her father. "Your mother knows better than you do what you like; but just this once I will obey your commands, on one condition. This is it. I shall read you one whole page of this without stopping, and will have no interruptions. And if it interests you, why, I'll eat the next white kid boots I have given me !" And then he began to read rather in a sing-song tone " Paddington, Reading, Oxford, Didcot, Swin- B don, Purton, Minety, Kemble, Cirencester, Tetbury- Road, Brimscomb, Stroud, Stonehouse, Gloucester, Cheltenham ;" and so on until the bottom of the page was reached.

" Stupid jography" said Mary, when he came to an end. " Nothing of the kind, Miss Wise-acre. — Useful Bradshaw. Did it interest you V " Not one bit." " Do you remember once bringing me the Bible, and teasing me till I nearly lost patience, to read you a particular bit of a chapter ?" asked Mary's mother. " I told you it would be uninteresting to so young a child, and offered to read you any other part ; but you would have that part because, you said, it looked so pretty. I was kind enough to do as you wished, and you soon begged me to leave off, for you said the sound made you yawn. Do you remember ?" " Oh, I remember ! Lots of such odd names, joined together by ' whiches' — awfully dry !" Mary's papa was looking still at the page of "useful Bradshaw," as he called the book before him, and her mamma went and looked over his shoulder, and there they were again, just as Mary had seen them when she awoke.

There was a silence, only occasionally broken by her father saying over to himself " 1.15, 2.45," and so on ; and then he wrote a letter, and her mother still looked over his shoulder. Mary began to repeat to herself some of the names that had caught her ear while her father was reading just now at her request. " Minety, Chettleham (Cheltenham) Kidwelly," she repeated to herself several times in a whisper, and then the words seemed to set themselves to the air of " Old Dan Tucker." They went smoothly enough to the first part of the tune. " Minety, Chettleham, Kidwel/^, Chettleham, Minety, Kidwel lee." But when it come to the chorus (or refrain) of the old Ethiopian melody some of the words had to be deprived of one of their syllables, and to be accented according to the value of the notes they were set to — something in this style : " MinetyChettleham, Kidwell ; Chettleham, Minety, Kid ! &c." Mary beat time with her hand on the counter pane, and grew so interested in her amusement that the third time she came to the chorus part she sang it out at the top of her voice.

Her parents turned round as the shrill quavering voice fell on their ears, and joined in the song with hearty good-will, their young leader being often obliged to stop to indulge in a burst of laughter. Very soon her father tumbled into the easy chair, and pretended to be very tired after his exertions. " If I sing any more," said he, " I shan't have strength to go and order you to be taken off the sick-list." " Who takes me off the sick list ?" " Oh, well, the authorities, I suppose," said her father, looking amused. "Am I fit to be off it? Am I getting well?" " I trust so, my darling," said both her parents at once, as they bent to kiss her. " You two dear creatures !" said Mary, patting a cheek of each with her two little hands. " I know when you look at me with those shining eyes how much you love me."

" Don't our eyes always shine then ?" asked her father, suddenly covering the child's eyes with his hand, and kissing the tip of her nose. " Sometimes they don't seem to shine so much ; but they are always nice to look at. " What do I know about Chettleham ?" "What a sudden change of subject! Chettle ham ? I never heard of it, or him, or her, or what ever it is, so I imagine you know more about it than I do." " I think you mean Cheltenham, my deary," said her mother. " You don't know much about it ; but you have heard Cousin Eleanor talk about it." " That's it ! She lives near there, doesn't she ?" " Yes, and she hopes when you are able to move you will go and stay with her. Should you like it ?" " I think I should indeed ! Have papa and you been talking about it then — he read something about Chettleham in that book.

Does it say any thing nice about it there ?" Her mother explained to her the use of Bradshaw; but she was too excited by the idea of going to Cheltenham to take into her little brain much that her mother said. Presently while she was having her tea her father came into the room with his hat and stick in his hand. " Are you going to have me taken off the sick list ?" asked Mary, looking at him admiringly, while her mother put a rose bud in the button-hole of his coat. " Well you see, I think, considering that you are capable of making the noise you did just now with - Old Dan Tucker,' you ought no longer to be on the sick list." " I'm not sure that I want to be off it," said Mary. " When I'm on it I have thin dry toast and an egg for tea, and breakfast too, and I am allowed to butter the toast myself, and to pour the tea into the saucer, or sip it out of the spoon as many times as I like, and I don't have lessons — I think it's rather nice to be on it."

" That's very true," said her mother. " But when you are on it you don't go out into the Park, or have your little friends to tea, or play with your doll's house." " And you don't put the milk into my tea at breakfast time," said her father. " Nor see me order dinner," said her mother. " And you cannot help your Mumpsy," said her father. " There's no one to fetch her keys for her when I am out." " No one to put away my collars and cuffs, and bring me my rings when I'm dressing." Mary smiled and nodded at every sentence. She was a useful little girl when she was well, and liked to help her mother. " Certainly," said she. " There are a great many nice things to do when you are well, as well as rather nasty ones. I suppose too if I was still on the sick list I could'nt go to Chettleham ?" " Of course not if you were still in bed."

" Can't you contrive to have me taken off the sick list only a little bit ?" asked Mary, winking at her father ; and, putting her hand at the side of her mouth, and making believe that she did not want her mother to hear, she added. " Just enough off it to be able to go to Chettleham, and just enough on not to be able to do scales." " You young humbug," said her father, pretending to thrash her with his walking stick. After he had left the house, and the tea tray had been carried away Mary had a long sleep. When she awoke her mother was standing before the looking-glass, combing her hair. " Ha, ha !" said Mary, gleefully. " I'm not the only one who has been asleep this time. I'm so glad, my Mumpsy darling ! Now you'll be able to have your dinner and tea without yawning your head off, as papa calls it."

" What lots of ways there seem to be of saying a person's ill," said Mary, presently, as she lay and watched her mother dress for dinner. "Papa calls it ' on the sick list.' Cousin Willy said the other day to me he was sorry to find I was so 'thoroughly seedy,' — and I heard Betsy say to Ann outside the door when I was worse than I am now, that she was afraid the poor little dear was in 'Queer Street.' I know she meant me, because I heard Ann say 'How is Miss Mary to-day?' And Betsy said, 'No better — I'm afraid the poor little dear is in Queer Street' I knew she must mean I was ill, because we don't live in Queer Street. — And then Mrs. Turner — I said to Mrs. Turner yesterday I was sorry I was so cross to her last week, and she said, ' Never mind, darling ; I don't notice those things much when children are suffering from indis position.' Don't you think Mrs. Turner's a very kind person, Mumpsy ?" said Mary, suddenly leav ing her subject.

"Very kind indeed ; do you think so, Mary ?" " Yes, I think so now," said Mary in a low voice, and growing very red, as her mother's eyes were fixed upon her with a meaning she readily under stood ; for she remembered that not very long ago she had often expressed her dislike of Mrs. Turner. She hastily resumed the subject of her late dis course. " Mr. Lenox, and Uncle Frank too, and Doctor Bairnshope — they all have different ways of saying I've been ill. Mr. Lenox said : — ' Poor little Puss, she does look knocked over and no mistake ?' And Dr. Bairnshope calls it ' being in a most unsatisfac tory condition.' " " He did not seem to think your condition un satisfactory this morning," said her mother, laughing at Mary's funny way of repeating the remarks she had heard. " And your Uncle Frank, you were so ill the few hours he was here that I should think you could scarcely have heard anything he said."

" I know you all thought that the night uncle Frank was here," said Mary, nodding her head wisely. " But you are all sometimes mistaken. Some things I suppose I did not understand, or hear I daresay, but sometimes I understood lots of what you three people said, and I remember a great deal of it still too, and some of it is very nice to think of, and rather flattering too ! If I had been well I should have shouted out 'I hear what you say,' as I always do when grown up people are talking, and I hear what they are saying ; but I could'nt that night. I suppose I was too weak. And quite in the night — I am sure it was quite in the night, be cause there was no noise in the street at all — Uncle Frank said something so pretty, I have remembered it ever since. It was quite as pretty as that pretty sounding sum you read to papa and asked him to do, out of some story book, you remember, some thing about bees.

Say it to me, Mumpsy." " Yes, I remember. ' One fifth of a hive of bees flew to the Kadamba flower ; one third flew to the Silandhara ; three times the difference of those two MARY WITH MARY FRIENDS. 11 numbers flew to an arbour ; and one bee continued flying about, attracted on each side by the fragrant Kataki and the Malati. What was the number of the bees ?' "* " It is so pretty, I think," said Mary, smiling all over her face. "It makes me think of hot summer ; and what uncle Frank said that night was pretty too, and made me think of the country. It was quite in the night when I woke up, and saw uncle Frank holding the glass of medicine for me to drink. I suppose you had gone to lie down, for I did'nt see you ; but I saw papa, he was kneeling by the bed, I think, for his face was very low down.

Uncle Frank laid me back on the pillow, I recollect my hair caught in his watch chain, and he said : — ' She took that easily enough, you see, and she has gone off to sleep again quite comfortably.' I tried to smile to show him I was awake ; but I suppose I could'nt for he didn't say anything to me. And then I heard papa say something about his 'darling May-blossom,' and I tried to smile again to show him I knew he meant me, and then uncle Frank said : — ' Nay' (you know uncle Frank often says ' Nay') ' Nay,' he said. ' Take courage. Your May blossom will not fall from the tree this time, I be lieve. The frost of illness has stricken it, but not to the ground, and already I think the sun of God's mercy is warming it into life again.' It sounded so pretty, and I thought of myself being a blossom * Longfellow's "Kavanagh." on a tree, and waving about in the sunshine, and I seemed to hear the noise the wind makes in the trees, and I dreamt all about playing in woods and fields."

" Uncle Frank will be glad to hear that his simple words gave you so much pleasure," said her mother, smiling at her little girl's beaming face. About an hour after this, Mary's father and mother were smoothing her hair, and shaking up her pillows, and putting the bed clothes tidy and comfortable for the night. " I've been thinking," said Mary, gravely, " how convenient it is to have so many ways of saying the same thing. Now, supposing you two dear creatures had more children besides me, and they were all ill at the same time — " " I should certainly send them to the hospital," said her papa. "So you might — all but me — ," said Mary. "Well supposing they were all ill at the same time, you could say, when people asked after them — ' Oh, thank you — I'm sorry to say Mary's on the sick list, Bartholomew is in Queer Street, Anna-Mary- Anne is indisposed, and William-Jack is knocked over and no mistake.' " (Anna-Mary-Anne, Bartholomew, and William- Jack were Mary's favourite names for imaginary children.)

" One great drawback to that way of speaking would be that people would never know whether the children were seriously ill, or only not so well as usual," said her mother. "Besides, — consider what a long time it would take to say all that — " " Then you don't think it a good way ?" asked Mary. "Certainly it is not a good way," said her mother. " It is always best to use simple language if you wish to be understood. And now go to sleep, my chick."

Chapter II

rronpplARY was the only child of Mr. and Mrs. t Wi t Mayne. She had been christened Mary KaflgJiii because her father liked that name ; but she was more often called, " May-blossom," " May - bud," " May - flower," " Lady - bird," and " May," than Mary. She was seven years old at the time this story begins, and had just been seriously ill with a kind of fever, and her parents, and all her kind friends and relations, had been very anxious about her. Mary did not exactly know what being " anxious about her" meant (for she had quick ears and caught up the expression very soon) but she thought it might be a way of saying that they considered she would be all the better for heaps of presents, books, toys, dolls, and fruit, for these things seemed to come about twice a day or so. At first she took but little notice of them ; but as she grew better, she liked to look at them one after another, and think about the kindness of the person who had sent each thing, and about the loving messages, and tender words she had stored away in her memory.

She was getting well now very quickly, and the day after the conversation ;he had with her mother about being on the sick list, and so on, she was able to be dressed and have her dinner at a little table by her papa's dressing room window. She was so glad to look out of that window again, and see the houses opposite, and to notice how much the flowers had grown in all the balconies she could manage to see. She sent a message downstairs by Betsy, to beg Ann to ask the milk -woman to look up at the window when she came at three o'clock with her little covered cart full of milk-cans ; and when Mary heard her well known single knock she was all excitement, and her papa held her carefully at the window so that she could see down into the street. How charming it was to see the milk-woman pause on the door step, and seem to be listening, — and then to see Ann step out into the street, and direct her atten tion to the window, and then to see her broad smile and her curtsey in answer to Mary's nod and wave of her weak little hand.

How exciting too to see her go over the way, and speak to the maid who took in the milk there. " I believe the milk-woman's telling that maid that I'm better !" said Mary. " See, she's looking at me with a kind of shy smile (she doesn't know our servants you know, so she wouldn't like to make any sign, would she ?) I've a good mind to nod — shall I ?" "Certainly," said her father. "Nodding is a capital thing to do when you can't do anything else." " How else could I sign to any one out of this window ?" "Ah ! You wait awhile, and see presently if you don't do a great deal more in the way of signing ! Mark my words — At four o'clock you go to sleep, don't you ? — Well, at six o'clock I shall bring you to this window again, and then ! — You may depend you won't see much in nodding then !" " I hope the milk-woman and the opposite ser vant saw much in it, at all events,''' said Mary.

" No doubt they did — You were pleased, and they were pleased, if one can judge by faces." At four o'clock Mr. Mayne took Mary in his arms to carry her back to bed for her usual after noon sleep. On her way she caught sight of the looking-glass on her mother's dressing-table. " Oh, I should like to see what I look like ! Do put me on a chair, and let me see myself," she said " I don't believe I shall know it's me, it is so long since I looked in a looking-glass. Well !" she sighed, as Mr. Mayne, thinking to gratify her wish to the utmost, put her into a chair before her mother's long cheval-glass, in which she was re flected from head to foot. " Well ! I atn an odd little object, to be sure — I don't believe it's the same me at all ! Wretched pale face, thin cheeks, and O, dear me, what dreads ul skinny legs !

That's not like a May-blossom !" " Perhaps when I have introduced you the interview will be more satisfactory, you will recognise your friend perhaps after just a few civil bows and smiles," said her father, trying to say some thing funny, because he saw his little girl looking quite sadly at her altered self in the glass. He turned to Mary's reflection, waved his hand to wards Mary, and said gravely — " Allow me to present to you Miss Mary Mayne, a young per son of the Whipping-Post and Thread-Paper order of beings." Then turning to Mary, he continued : — " I beg you will notice Miss Mayne's Living Image which opens its mouth when she does, but utters, never a word, and which stares at her without seeing a feature of her face." Mary bowed gravely to her Reflection. She always fell into a joke very readily, much to her father's delight.

" When I last saw you," she said to herself reflected in the glass, " I thought you not alto gether bad-looking, because you had a colour on your cheeks ; but now you've no cheeks for colout to come to ! If any colour was to come into these" (she poked her two fore-fingers into her cheeks as she spoke) " they'd look as the saucers in my paint-box do when red paint is rubbed into them. And I should think you couldn't call things like that, cheeks. And then your eyes 1 Dark brown eyes are all very well — papa's got dark brown eyes, and your's are bad imitations of his, he says — but when the dark colour gets washed over the eyelids, somehow, and stains C your face under your eyelashes — why goodness me — any other colour would be better, for I suppose light colours don't make such a dark mark.

And then your hair, which used to be so nice, and curly, and shining, — a bad imitation of papa's too, he says ; but Mumpsy and I have a private opinion about that — there it is all straight, and dull-looking ! I call you a failure just now ! The only nice, or interesting thing about you is the back of your hand, the veins are rather pretty, and it's fun to trace along them. And these legs ! Do just look how the stockings stick away from them !" "A world too wide for her shrunk shank," said her father, laughing. " Those are not your own words ?" asked Mary, who was quick to find out any unusual tone in a voice she knew well. "No, they are Shakespere's." " Then it was rude of him to call a little girl's legs ' shanks.' " " Oh, he didn't. He was speaking of an old man when he said it ; I put the word " her" in, to suit your case.

But if you come to that — a king's legs have been called ' shanks' before now. When you read history you will hear of king Edward Long shanks." " What ! When people went to ask him things, did they say, ' Please, O King Edward Long shanks ?' or, ' O King Edward Longshanks, I did not mean to be wicked, or to offend you ?' " " No, I don't think they used the name so — it was more a kind of pet name, as you would say — just as we might call you, Mary Black-eyes, if there were other Marys in the family with blue ones, something in that style, you understand. But then his legs were very remarkable, more so than those 'bad imitations' of my eyes are." " I wonder whether he went for long-walks ? How nicely he could get over stiles ! I expect he could go ' leg over leg,' all the way to Dover, just as the fox did, and over the stiles too — I shouldn't think he had any need to ' pop' over them.

And how easily too he could have got on to the top of an omnibus ! Easier than you do, papa dear, even ! Oh, dear, I'm sleepy, lift me and my poor dear ' shanks' on to the bed, and Mumpsy dear, tell me something about Edward Longshanks till I go off to sleep." • Mrs. Mayne drew down the blinds, and sat by her daughter's bed ; but what she found to say to the little girl about King Edward Longshanks I am sure I cannot tell you — at all events not now. It was nearly six o'clock when Mary awoke, and her father was already by her side, waiting to bear her off to his dressing-room window. Her mother smoothed her dark locks, and proceeded further to ' beautify' her (as Mary called it) by putting a blue riband among them, and a little white muslin pinafore over her frock, Mary all the time very anxious for the decorating to be over, as she was C afraid of missing the fun, " or whatever it is I'm to see" she said.

At last she was settled in the window, with one of the sofa cushions to lean her poor thin elbows upon, and her papa's arms round her to keep her steady. Mrs. Mayne came and sat near the window also ; but every now and then she was invited by her daughter to leave her chair, and look out into the street to see someone, or something that had taken Mary's fancy. " Oh, Mumpsey," cried Mary presently, "There's that dear black Tom at number nine! Do let us watch and see if a man with a bag comes by !" " A dear black Tom, and a man with a bag ?" said Mr. Mayne, " What does that mean ? Please to explain." " Oh Mumpsy !" said Mary, turning round and looking reproachfully at Mrs. Mayne, "You don't mean to say you have never told Papa about black Tom, and the man with the bag ? Do tell him now, please."

"Yes, please do," said Mr. Mayne, "I should like to know all about them. Black Tom and the Man with the Bag — it sounds just like one of the Arabian Nights' stories ! " " Mind you spin the story out, Mumpsy, and Papa must take a good look at Tom. Isn't he a fine shiny jet black fellow ? " " Magnificent ! Tom is too common a name for such a cat as that. I should call him the Black Prince." " All," said Mary's mother, " The Black Prince was not afraid of anything, and Tom, fine fellow, and fearless fellow as he is in general, becomes a great coward if he sees one particular sight. I have seen Tom sitting, as he is now — at the open areagate when the Life Guards have gone clanking by, and he has tranquilly looked at them with unblinking green eyes. He sits there unmoved, and watches the Company arrive to afternoon parties ; and even looks on when the 'coals are poured down into the coal-hole.