A few days after the dolls were given Nellie"s mamma let her invite three little girls to play with her. Each girl brought her Christmas or her New-Year"s doll; and the three dolls, with Nellie"s, looked sweetly sitting together in a row.
By and by Nellie"s mamma came to her room, which she had given to the party for its use that afternoon. She told the children she would give them a little supper of cakes and pears and grapes, and it would be ready as soon as Biddy could bring the ice-cream from down street.
The smiling child-visitors gathered around the kind lady, saying, "We thank you, and we love you ever so much."
Nellie said softly, "Mamma dear, I wouldn"t take my dollies back if I could. I love to think they amuse the sick children. But I do wish that for just a minute we had as many at this party."
Her mamma turned to her dressing-case. It stood low enough for the smallest child to look into the mirror at the back easily. Moving off the toilet cushions and cologne-bottles, the lady put the four dolls in front of the looking-gla.s.s. Their reflection in the gla.s.s showed four more.
"Six, seven, eight," cried the girls, delighted. "And all are twins--four pairs of twins!"
After supper they made, the twins sit, and stand, and dance, bow and shake hands, before the looking-gla.s.s. So they played till dusk, when the other little girls" mammas sent to take them home, after kissing Nellie good-night.
WHY DID MAMMA CHANGE HER MIND?
Mamma Miller told Fay and Lonnie that they might have a party, so they tried to get ready for it. But the party was very different to what they expected. It always happens so about everything, if we pay no regard to one another"s wishes.
Mrs. Miller said they might invite ten children.
"You write to five little girls, Fay," said she, "and Lonnie will write to the five little boys."
So they went into the library. Lonnie sat down in papa"s big chair, while Fay climbed up on one arm, close beside him, and they tried to think whom they would like to come to their party.
"Make out your list first," said Lonnie. Fay did, and her brother agreed to all the girls. But as soon as Lonnie commenced writing his names, Fay began to find fault.
"I don"t like boys, anyway," said Fay, "only you, Lonnie. Let"s have all girls at our party."
"But it won"t be my party," said Lonnie, "if you have all girls."
"I don"t care, all those are horrid," pointing to his paper.
"You say that because you don"t like boys." And then he told his sister that every little fellow whose name he had written was just as good as gold. And so they were just as good as Lonnie Miller, and he was one of the best boys that ever lived, so everybody said.
"I sha"n"t play with him if he comes," Fay kept saying to every name Lonnie wrote.
"You can have your party," said Lonnie, getting up out of the easy-chair and sitting down in a smaller one, "you and your girls. I"m going to learn some new pieces," taking up his little silver blower.
"I don"t like boys," Fay kept saying, jumping down off the arm of the chair, and aiming a blow at the spot where her brother had sat with the rustic stick their sister Lucia had brought home May Day.
Lucia was pa.s.sing the door just then, so she thought she would see what all the noise was about.
"I"d better call you to lunch," said she, and there they were just through breakfast.
Mamma herself came hurrying in at sound of the bell. When they told her about the invitations, she said, "I shall not let you have any party at all, now."
"What makes you change your mind?" said Fay.
"Mamma will give her little girl just one week to find out why she has changed her mind," said Mrs. Miller.
And for all Fay"s coaxing, she could not be persuaded to stay a minute longer.
CLARA"S "FUNERAL."
Clara was the most unfortunate of dollies. She had had the mumps and whooping cough; and no sooner did she recover from the scarlet fever than she contracted pneumonia and nearly died. One morning Blanche was applying hot bandages to relieve bronchitis, and before night Clara had the small-pox.
The next day mamma stopped at the nursery door.
"Good morning, little nurse," she said; "how is poor Clara this morning?"
"She"s DEADED," said Blanche, with a long face.
"Dreadful! What did she die of, small-pox? It seems to me that that was what she was suffering from last evening."
"No"m"" said Blanche, ""twasn"t small-pox. She DID have that bad; but I think she DIED of measles. The SUNERAL (Blanche could not say "funeral") is to be at twelve sharp. Will you come, mamma?"
"I"m so sorry, darling, but I must go to lunch with Mrs. Mathews at one.
But Jack will go."
The "suneral" took place at noon, and Blanche and Daisy, Jack and old Hector followed poor Clara in Benny"s wagon to the grave yard at the bottom of the orchard. It was rather a jolly "suneral," for they had "refreshments" under the trees afterward.
In the afternoon, as mamma, came up the orchard path, she was surprised to see a doll"s foot and leg sticking straight up out of the ground.
"Why did you leave her foot out in this way?" asked mamma.
"Well," said Blanche, "I thought perhaps she could get to Heaven easier."
THE CHICKADEE-DEE.
Little darling of the snow, Careless how the winds may blow, Happy as a bird can be, Singing, oh, so cheerily, Chickadee-dee! Chickadee-dee!
When the skies are cold and gray, When he trills his happiest lay, Through the clouds he seems to see Hidden things to you and me.
Chickadee-dee! chickadee-dee!
Very likely little birds Have their thoughts too deep for word, But we know, and all agree, That the world would dreary be Without birds, dear chickadee!
THE CHILDREN"S PARTY.