Child Marian abroad

Chapter I. Marian Starts

ARIAN is my niece, and the nicest little

-Lt_L seven-year-old niece in the world ; at least we think so, and we ought to know, for we ’ve been acquainted with Marian ever since she was a baby, and loved her better and better every year. How can we help loving her? We can’t; for she is as merry as a cricket, as lively as a sparrow, as pretty as a butterfly, and as good as — oh, ever so much better than gold !

Perhaps you ’d like to know how Marian looks and behaves. Well, her hair is golden as sunshine, her eyes as blue as violets, and she chatters — chatters — chatters. She does n’t wait for one question to be answered before she asks another, and when she is n’t talking she is singing.

CHILD MARIAN ABROAD.

Marian was the tiniest bit of a pink-nosed baby when she came to live with us. Her mamma died soon after our pet was born ; and before Marian had learned to speak his name, we went out one glorious June morning and laid her papa in a grave among the hillside daisies, and then came back and kissed Marian again and again, — kissed her for his dear sake, and because she was now all ours, and we loved her dearly.

One time, when the clock of the year was striking December, I had a message that called me over the sea. "I’ll go with you,” said Marian’s aunt, who is my wife; and "I’ll go too,” said Marian’s aunt’s niece, who is Marian.

Well, you know December is a cloudy, stormy, dull time at sea, and by way of having the sunshine always with us, we concluded we ’d take Marian along. So one morning I walked into the office of the Inman line and bought two tickets and a half for Liverpool, by the good ship "City of Brussels.” Then I walked home and said to Marian and her aunt, —

"Now, pack your trunks, for next Saturday we sail.”

" May I take them all ? ”

MARIAN STARTS.

"All what, my dear?”

"All my dolls.”

" Goodness ! ” I exclaimed, remembering there were twenty-four of them, exclusive of paper ones. And I knew that each doll had a wardrobe of its own.

" Marian,” I said, "you may have a trunk of your own, and you may put in the tray whatever you like, keeping the lower part for your clothes.”

The trunk having been arranged, and a very good-sized trunk it was, Marian found that there would only be room for six dolls, and she forthwith arranged her six last and best ones in the tray. Very sweet they looked, too, I can assure you, in their six tiny nightcaps, and their little snub noses and little kid " toes-es ” turned up to a picture of Trinity Church on the trunk-lid. They were mostly crying dolls, and when I shut the trunk down, and pressed their dear little bodies, they gave a pathetic squeak that fairly brought tears to Marian’s eyes.

Then Marian had to dispose of her other dolls. She gave them to the care of her little playmates, with many charges as to how they should be tended while she was away.

"Now,” she said, — "now, Mary Jones, here is

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Ethelberta, who is delicate, and can’t keep her arms on very well ; you ’ll have to be very careful of her. And here is my darling little blonde Alice, who has a hole in the back of her neck, over which you ’ll have to put a piece of court-plaster from time to time, otherwise she ’ll break out badly with the sawdust, which, as everybody knows, is worse than the measles.

" And here, Tommy Bruce, you ’re a boy, and you shall have my acrobatic doll. It will be a great comfort to Pedro if you ’ll let him stand on his head a few minutes every day.” And so, one by one, the dolls were disposed of, until at last Topsy, a black doll of very large size and very kinky hair, was all that remained. Tears came in Marian’s eyes when she gave Topsy to the washerwoman’s daughter, saying, " She ’s a great care ; her legs and her arms and her head are always flying off, but Aunt Elinor says you may have the Spaulding’s glue -pot along with her, and maybe, if you watch her close, and mend her every morning, you can keep her in order.”

" It was very hard parting with Topsy,” she said afterwards. " She is n’t pretty, and she ’s a great deal of trouble ; but she ’s so funny and so good ! ”

MARIAN STARTS .

At last we were fairly started, — Aunt Elinor, Marian, the trunks, and, by no means least, Marian’s canary, in a little wire cage with a handle on the top. These things made the sum of my cares, and, to a large extent, my joys as well.

The ship was advertised to sail at eight, and we were on board by half past seven, when we were told that, owing to some unforeseen circumstance, we should not leave till three in the afternoon. This gave us time to go all over the vessel, and to arrange our state-rooms, and to become acquainted with the stewards, and still have some hours on our hands.

And during that time Marian made an acquaintance. About twelve there came on board a Japanese family, who were going to England. They weren’t any of your tea-store Japanese, but the real coffee-and-eream colored Japanese, with silk dresses and paper-soled shoes, and with their shining black hair gummed up fantastically, and with little sparkling eyes, and every one of them born and bred in Japan.

There was Mr. Yang-Hi and Mrs. Yang-Hi, and, above all and before all, there was Yang-Hi, Jr., aged eight, and whose name was Yastarra Yang-Hi, a young gentleman whose head was shaved in spots,

CHILD MARIAN ABROAD.

till it looked like a geographical globe, with the bare parts representing water and the patches of hair representing land. Marian eyed the party for a time, and then began to make the acquaintance of Master Yastarra. She drew from her pocket a piece of candy, and held it out temptingly.

Yastarra looked wistfully.

" Take it,” said Marian.

" Yak , mak-erra tarra boo” said Yastarra ; or at least so Marian said he said.

" Parlez-vous Frangais ? ” (Do you speak French ?) asked Marian, who spoke French as well as English, having learned it from a French nurse.

" Can’t you talk any better than that ? ” asked Marian.

" It is n’t talking at all,” said Marian ; " it sounds like hens. You ’d better take the candy, though, if you can’t talk.”

So Yastarra took the candy, and diving his hands into the folds of his silk coat, found a pocket somewhere, and produced a curious little box in which were some Japanese sweetmeats, which he offered to Marian.

MARIAN STARTS.

"Very pretty,” said Marian.

" Good ! ” said Yastarra. This was almost the only English word he knew. Marian bowed, saying, " Oh, yes, I’ve no doubt they’re good.”

Then Yastarra began making motions for Marian to eat some. Marian took one, touched her tongue to it, found it sweet, and the two having exchanged candies, became straightway good friends.

" Come to our state-room, and 1 ’ll show you my dolls,” said Marian, at the same time taking Master Yastarra by the hand.

Marian had the key to her trunk tied to a blue ribbon which she wore about her neck ; so when they reached the state-room she unlocked her trunk, and the row of six little folks, feeling the pressure of the lid off their six little stomachs, gave a squeak of childish delight. Out they came, one by one, and out came sundry other toys that had been smuggled into the corners ; and when we went to look for Marian, we found the two little folks making a toyshop of the state-room, and as happy and as well acquainted as if they had known each other for weeks instead of minutes. To be sure, they couldn’t talk the same language, but they managed to make each other understand very well by signs.

CHILD MARIAN ABROAD .

" Marian,” I said, " are you having a good time ? ”

" Splendid ! Only if I could make him talk any. thing but hen-talk, I could understand him better.”

"Should you mind, Marian, if we went off the ship for an hour or two, your aunt and I, and left you here?”

" Not a bit,” answered Marian, " if you ’ll be sure to get back in time.”

" And won’t you go out of the cabin ? ” said Aunt Elinor.

" Or touch my dressing-case ? ” said I.

"Or play with the water in the pitcher?” said Aunt Elinor.

"No, no, no ! ” said Marian. " I ’ll only play with little chicky-hen, and run out in the saloon.”

So it was all arranged, and Aunt Elinor and I, to whom it had occurred that we should spend Christmas on shipboard, took a cab and went up into Broadway to buy some Christmas gifts, not forgetting to ask the stewardess to have an eye to Marian and her friend.

Of course we were back in time, and the children had done no mischief beyond upsetting the toothpowder, and had arranged the toys in a manner " perfectly elegant,” if we may take Miss Marian’s

MARIAN STARTS.

word for it. On the back of the wash-basin, with their dainty feet dangling in the bowl, were Arabella and Clara, two of Marian’s most cherished dolls, and in the little window-seat by the port-hole was a row of four more, with their feet dangling, and looking as beaming and lovable as if they never meant to be sea-sick in their lives. Marian had just finished arranging her toys when we returned and took her on deck, that she might bid her good-by to New York.

Captain Leitch was on the bridge, looking very brave and dignified, and he was speaking down into tubes, and pulling bells, and giving orders in every direction. People were standing about the gangway, bidding friends good-by, and some of them crying, and some of them laughing, and all of them talking, when of a sudden there was a throb that one could feel all over the vessel, and which was like the beating of a gigantic heart. Wheels began to turn way down below, the water began to splash in a path of white foam behind the ship, and slowly, very slowly at first, but going faster and faster, she began to plough a pathway for herself through the dancing waves, and out of the harbor into the ocean.

It began to grow dark, and we all sat down to 2

CHILD MARIAN ABROAD .

dinner, and after dinner the great ship began to move about in a singular way, and Marian came and whispered to me, saying, "Uncle Will, I feel queer ! ’’

My ! she looked queer. She was as pale as a sheet. And I looked into her deep blue eyes as tenderly as I could, and I put my arms about her, and I whispered in her pink little ear and said, " Marian, I feel queer, too.”

"Let us go and find Aunt Elinor,” said Marian; and I said, "Let’s.” So we went and found Aunt Elinor, who was lying on a sofa, looking paler than either of us, and who said when she saw us, " Oh, I ’m so glad you ’ve come, for I feel very queer, and think I ought to be got to bed.”

With a good deal of help Aunt Elinor and Marian were got to bed, and I — oh dear ! I got to bed, too ; and while I lay there, feeling as if I ’d been swinging too long, or smoking my very first cigar, I heard Marian, who with her aunt occupied the adjoining state-room, saying her prayers. After "Now I lay me,” she said, "God bless Uncle Will, God bless Aunt Elinor, and dear God I would pray more if the ship would keep still, and I was n’t so sick ; but I will just try to say God bless the little heathen boy that talks hen-talk. Amen.”

MARIAN STARTS.

After three disagreeable days, when we were all very sea-sick, there came smooth weather and glorious sunshine ; and on the day before Christmas everybody was on deck watching for steamers or whales or porpoises, or anything else but water. It was just like most other voyages, as far as the ocean and the ship and the weather were concerned ; but it was unlike other voyages in our having a Christmas celebration on board.

When the sun was going down on Christmas eve, Marian came to me and asked, —

" Do you think it will freeze ? ”

" What, my dear? ”

" Why, the water. If it does n’t, how will Santa Claus get here ? ”

"He might have a boat,” I ventured to say.

" Or come riding on a whale,” said Aunt Elinor.

" Or with a flying-machine, like Darius Green,” I said, and would, no doubt, have suggested other possible modes of conveyance, had not a deep voice by our side said, "He swims.”

It was the captain, and of course he knew all about it, and that was the end of it.

" Captain,’’ asked Marian, " where does that smoke-stack go to ? ”

CHILD MARIAN ABROAD.

" Come, and I ’ll show you.” And in a twinkling he had Marian on his shoulder, and was going down a narrow iron stair into the boiler-room.

Down, down they went to where grimy men were shovelling in coal to great fires that roared and glowed most frightfully.

"There,” said the captain, "there is where the smoke-stack goes to.”

Marian looked very much disappointed, as she said, —

"Well, I don’t believe Santa Claus could stand that fire a minute ! besides, I ’m afraid there is no place here to hang our stockings.”

"Oh I that’s it, is it?” said the captain. "Well, then, let me tell you, Miss Marian, that on shipboard Santa Claus doesn’t come down the chimney; he comes over the side of the ship, and I shall lower a rope ladder and leave it all night for him to climb up by.”

" And where shall we hang our stockings ? ” asked Marian.

" Oh, hang them in the companion-way, and he ’ll see them.”

So that night Marian and the other children on board hung their stockings in the companion-way,

MARIAN STARTS.

which is the passage leading from the deck to the saloon, and which Marian always called the front entry.

Sure enough, when Christmas morning came the stockings were found all filled ; and such a jollification as there was in the saloon when the children fished out their contents ! Yastarra had as much as anybody, and Yastarra’s papa and mamma had made each of the children a present of some Japanese toy. And what a merry day everybody had ! In the afternoon the stewards got up a concert, and blacked their faces, and sung negro songs, and danced, and cut jokes on each other ; and the sailors, they had an extra dinner and sung songs, and the grown-up passengers they had a great dinner and made speeches, and had the roast beef and plum pudding all stuck over with English and American flags and Christmas mottoes. But the children’s dinner was the crowning glory of the whole celebration. There was a great fish served, all steaming hot it looked, and when it was cut into, it proved only to be a pasteboard fish and filled with sweetmeats ; and there was a joint of beef that was n’t beef at all, but turned out to be only a make-believe, and when that was cut it was full of favors, little rosettes of red-white-and-blue, with a picture of the

CHILD MARIAN ABROAD.

ship in gilt in the centre ; and there was such a pie ! I wouldn’t dare say how big it was, but the captain cut it, and then said each child might "put in a thumb and pull out a plum.”

Yasterra, he pulled out an elegant jack-knife, with which he cut his coffee-and-cream colored little Japanese fingers forthwith, and shouted " Ki-yi ! ” till they were done up in a handkerchief. And Marian, she pulled out a Noah’s ark, full of every kind of animals, from a hopper-grass to a hippopotamus. And another little girl, she pulled out a bouquet of artificial violets, out of which a fan popped, in the most mysterious way, when she pulled a string. And a little bit of a fellow that was there pulled out a trumpet that made more noise than a pig in a gate. And another little toddlekins, only four years old, he — bound to get the biggest plum of all — put in his hand and felt round till he caught hold of the fur of a toy dog, which barked so naturally when he squeezed it that he became afraid, and went and hid under a sofa.

And then — O my, such a pie — the captain called for a candle, and lighted a little place in the centre of it, and pouf! it went off in parlor fire-works, that were quite dazzling to see.

MARIAN STARTS.

After dinner, the doctor he came in with his share, and had a juggling entertainment. He walked right up to Marian, and putting his hands among her curls, pulled out a couple of carrots and a head of cabbage and other vegetables, till Marian begged him to stop, for he made her head feel like a kitchen garden.

And then he took an empty dish, and covering it with a pocket-handkerchief, it suddenly became full of feathers. And he borrowed a watch and hammered it to pieces in a mortar, and then fired it out of a pistol all straight again, and going as tickfully as ever. And he did ever so many other things that I can’t remember, but which filled us all with wonder and delight.

It grew to be quite late before he was through, and the children had begun to drop off to sleep, so that when he wound up his performances by eating a very hearty meal of cotton batting, and topped it off with a lighted coal which set the cotton ablaze, and made him blow out smoke like a house-a-fire, and when, at the very last, he began to reel off yards and yards of ribbon out of his mouth, some of which Marian has to this day, everybody was ready

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to go to bed ; and Marian said to me confidentially as I kissed her good night, —

" I don’t think Santa Claus could have done better on shore ; and as for the captain, he ’s perfectly elegant.”

A DAY IN LONDON.

Chapter II A Day In London

T was long after sunset when we landed in

-L Liverpool. The heavy fog that hung over the city made it very dark, but I could see a tear in Yang-Hi’s little almond-shaped eyes as he and Marian parted; as for Marian, she just raised her voice and had a good American cry, right there on the landing, and we took her into a cab, with her handkerchief over her eyes, and sobbing as if her heart would break.

It was a hansom cab, and Marian had never seen one, or even heard of one. As soon as we started off, Marian stopped her crying and took down her handkerchief. The horse was dashing along at a fearful pace. Marian looked up into my face and said, —

"Uncle Will, are you driving?”

'*No, Marian.”

" Are you, Aunt Elinor ? ”

CHILD MARIAN ABROAD .

" Then I think the horse is running away,” said Marian ; and she clung close to my arm, expecting every minute to be thrown out on the pavement ; but I explained to her how the driver was up behind, and hardly finished doing so when we pulled up at the Adelphi Hotel, and were speedily shown to cosey rooms in that famous hostelry.

Marian had a light supper and was put to bed with the light left burning, while Aunt Elinor and I betook ourselves to the great coffee-room to have a rousing dinner of " roast beef of old England,” and ever so many other good things.

It was the first time Marian had ever slept in a hotel, and the first time she had ever seen a bed with a curtain to it. " I shall feel,” she said, "as if I was sleeping in a circus ; and in the morning I ’ll have all my dolls out, and I ’ll have a menagerie or a camp-meeting or something, for it is so like a tent.”

Marian meant to go right straight off to sleep, but she couldn't. She tried counting, but that didn’t make her sleepy. She was as wide awake at nine hundred and ninety-nine as she was at one. Then she shut her eyes and said all the nursery rhymes she could think of. She tried singing, — it was no use.

A DAY IN LONDON.

" Well,” she said to herself, " as long as I can’t get to sleep, I may as well have a camp-meeting now.”

So she crept out of bed, and got her dolls out of the trunk, and set them all in a row on the sofa, for she found the bed too small ; and by way of making a striking and impressive appearance, put on my figured dressing-gown, and arranging a cricket in a chair, began the services.

" My goodness ! ” she said, " I have n’t rung the bell ! ” Then, seeing a bell-rope at hand, and not knowing the use of it, having been used to an electrical bell, she straightway began to pull it as she ’d seen the sexton do in church. When she ’d rung it enough, she assumed an air of great dignity, and began the services.

" First we ’ll sing the two - hundred - and - tooth hymn ” ; and pulling out the second bureau-drawer, she improvised an organ.

Then she made a prayer, after which she preached the following sermon, which was overheard and reported by the chambermaid, who had stolen in to answer the bell.

"Dear friends, you’re all naughty. You know you are, or you would know it if you was n’t dolls. You ought to be good, and you could be if you tried !

CHILD MARIAN ABROAD .

Could n’t you think to put your bibs on for breakfast ? Could n’t you think to brush your teeth in the morning ? Don’t you think you could keep still when grown-up folks is talking? It is hard to do, but you ought to do it. You ought not to squeal when your hair is done up in tea-leads. You ought not to tell lies. You ought not to be saucy or imperent. You ought not to go with your shoes untied. Once there was a little girl named Marian. She went with her shoes untied, and fell down stairs over her shoe-strings, and skinned her nose and hurted her elbow — and cried awful. They had to give her bread and jelly to stop her, and her nose looked like a toadstool.

" Telling lies is worse than shoe-strings. If you tell untrufes Aunt Elinor will put ink-spots on your lips till they look like my copy-book. That is what she did once to a little girl named Marian, that I ’ve been telling you about. General Washington never told a lie, and so his father gave him a hatchet, and let him cut down a cherry-tree, and he had a be-yew-ti-ful time. If he had told a lie his father would have punished him severeally, an’ so he das n’t. You ought not to dast to, but some of you look as if you had, and I guess I ’ll punish you for it right off ! ”

Marian’s sermon would not, perhaps, have come to so abrupt an ending, but she happened to spy an ink-bottle on the table, and it was too much for her to resist. Once she had had her own lips inked for telling a fib, and here was a chance to punish her dolls. So she inked the lips of one or two, and would probably have had them all inked had not the chambermaid made her presence known.

"Did you ring, Miss ? ” she said, smilingly.

" I rung the meetin’ bell,” said Marian, a little frightened.

" Did you want anything ? ”

" Yes ; I wanted to go to sleep, but I could n’t.”

" Where is your mamma ? ”

"My mamma is in heaven; my aunt and Uncle Will are down stairs.”

"Do you wish me to call them? ”

Marian stopped a minute to think, then she asked, " What do you think of my going down ? ”

" Oh ! you ’d have to dress, and that would be too much trouble,” said the chambermaid.

"I always go down when I’m wakeful at home,” answered Marian. "And I needn’t dress, either. I ’ll wear this pretty dressing-gown.”

"I would n’t,” said the maid.

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"Well, I guess I will.” So, seizing a doll, Marian ran out into the hall, down the great staircase, and just as we were finishing our dinner, my darling niece, clasping an inked doll to her heart, appeared in the doorway, to the consternation of that grave head-waiter, who looks as dignified as the President of the United States, at the very least.

There she was, in her pretty night-dress, and her little bare ankles showing between its hem and her slippers, — there she was, with her golden locks folded under a dainty nightcap, — there she was, with my flowered dressing-gown trailing out behind, and I had n’t the heart to scold her, and so I folded her in my arms and kissed her over and over again as I took her up stairs and laid her in her curtained bed, and told her stories till the blue eyes showed only a line of golden lashes, and sweet little Marian was fast asleep.

The next day we went up to London, and I asked Marian what she most wished to see.

" The queen ! ” said Marian instantly.

" What next ? ” I asked.

"The wax- works,” answered Marian.

"Next ?”

-

A DAY IN LONDON.

" The animals,” by which she meant the Zoological Gardens.

" Next?”

" The Crystal Palace.”

" And all these things you shall see, my darling little Marian, if Uncle Will has health and strength, — all but the queen, and I ’m not certain about her. She don’t keep herself on exhibition, at a shilling admission.”

" Could n’t we call ? ” asked Marian.

" Not till she ’d called on us,” I replied, " and I ’m afraid she won’t do that ; she won’t know we ’re in London.”

It was again night when we arrived in London, and we could n’t begin our sight-seeing till the next day. Marian woke me in the morning by pulling my whiskers, and wanted to know where all the smoke came from. "We can’t see plain across our room,” she said, "and I’m afraid the house is on fire.”

I said it was only the fog, and told her to run and dress while I did the same, and then we ’d have " a regular day of it.”

Before breakfast Aunt Elinor and I sat down to send cards to our London friends, so that they might

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know of our arrival and come and call on us. We explained it all to Marian, and she said she thought it a very good way, which of course was gratifying. We were busy for half an hour, and Marian kept busy too, with a pen and paper and unlimited ink.

At last we had a big package of directed envelopes, with cards inside. Down we went to breakfast, and gave them to the waiter to put in the mail. In a minute he came back, his eyes as big as small saucers, and holding an envelope by the corner. It was a very smoochy envelope, and the waiter began : —

"If you please, sir.”

"Well?”

" This ’ere letter, sir.”

" Well, what of it?”

"Beg parding, sir, but it is ’ardly the way to haddress ’er most gracious Majesty.”

" What do you mean ? Who ’s addressed her most gracious Majesty ? ”

" Beg parding again, sir, you ’ave, sir, hor some of your party. ’Ere ’s this ’ere letter was hamong them as you gave me.”

I took the letter. On the back was written,

•Mr a r and inside was one of my cards, one of Aunt Elinor’s, and a tailor’s card, upon the back of which was the one word

Marian looked ashamed when she saw her work in my hands, and I was for a moment inclined to scold her, only I laughed, and that spoiled the scold. There is nothing like a laugh to spoil a scold.