[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER XIII.
THE HUMMING TOP"S HISTORY.
The Humming Top, who had begun to fear he should not be allowed a chance of speaking at all, and who felt just a little put out at coming so late in the list, gave himself a majestic twirl, and spun for a minute or two before he condescended to speak. At last, when he had reached a commanding position, he leaned gracefully back, and commenced his story in a very grand manner and air:--
"As I perceive, my friends, that your curiosity is more directed to our adventures in the world, than to our origin and construction, and as few of you have discoursed upon your native places and earliest histories, I will not trouble you with mine. Sufficient to the purpose is it that I made my first appearance in the world on a large stall in the Soho Bazaar, which was then in all its early glory. I was then, I may say, splendid in appearance, for I was painted in many brilliant hues, and there was no lack of gilding about me, so that when I was properly spun, I appeared like a gorgeous flower, all one ma.s.s of dazzling hues.
Indeed, when the lady who superintended the stall took me out of the folds of silver paper in which I was carefully wrapped, she laughed, and said to her a.s.sistant, "why surely this must be the King of the Humming Tops!" I was placed in a very prominent position among all the gay toys which adorned the counter, and I must say they were all exceedingly nice in their behaviour, and paid a great deal of respect to me. Many pleasant days I pa.s.sed there with my companions, for I was of a rather high price, and those were dear times for articles of luxury and pleasure. We had no cheap twopenny and penny toys then, for it was long before Christmas trees became generally known in England. I have always regretted the inroads of those new comers, because they have introduced so many cheap toys--penny toys, indeed; fancy a whole stall devoted to penny toys!"
"I must beg entirely to disagree with you," interrupted the Ball; "I for one most distinctly say, that I don"t see why all these simple pleasures should be kept for rich children only. I am sure our friend, the Teapot, in the course of her story, gave us a very truthful description of the value of toys to the poor children."
"If I may be allowed to speak again," said the Teapot, eagerly, "I would say with all my strength that I am glad of the cheapness of common toys.
I am sure the Humming Top has never seen what I have; how should he, mixing up, as he has done, with only the better cla.s.s of playthings? But if I were asked," continued the little motherly Teapot, getting quite warm on the subject--"if I were asked "What was the good of toys?" I should reply, "To please poor children.""
"I quite agree with you," remarked the Toy Kitchen; "and though, as I said before, I am not very clever at explaining my meaning, I should like to say a few words too. I have spent most of my life among the poor, as I have told you before, and I have often thought that whoever invented toys must have meant them first of all for the poor, more particularly the poor little children who live in great cities. Now, there is an old proverb, I often heard my old master repeat, that "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," and he said it was the truest word ever spoken. And if the better-off children want a little play to liven up their days, when they are fed with plenty of good food, and live in pure air, their hardest work being book lessons, what must poor children do, who very often earn their very scanty living from the cradle almost? Our good friend, the Teapot, has told us how the sight of a halfpenny toy will bring such delight to little dim eyes, and skinny faces, as must be pleasant to see; so I for one say with all my might, "Prosperity, and plenty of it, to the cheap toys!""
The Humming Top was quite disgusted with this long discussion, and pooh-poohed it all as very low; but the number of votes was against him, so with an offended roll round, he took up the thread of his story.
"Well, there is no accounting for tastes, and so I will say no more, only that I have been brought up so entirely among people of the better cla.s.ses, that I cannot say much on any other subject. I told you before that I lay for some time unsold, on account of the highness of my price, and during that time made acquaintance with many sets of companions,--dolls, boxes of soldiers, and various others. At last, to my great joy, I was selected by a lady for her little daughter, and taken home to a very nice large house in Russell Square.
"Little Mary was an only child, and was therefore the idol of her parents; but, although she was much indulged, she was not by any means a spoiled child. Used as she had been from her cradle to the companionship of much older persons, she was a quiet, well-behaved little damsel enough. Her father and mother were not at all young, and having neither brothers nor sisters to play with, Mary naturally knew and felt little of the riotous gaiety of a child. The nursery was as tidy and as neatly arranged as any room in that handsome but formal house, and the _litter_ of playthings was not much known there in those days. Mary had one or two dolls, very smartly dressed, but the prim little damsel played with them in a sort of grave, old-fashioned, motherly way that had no childishness in it. Her books were kept on a small bookshelf hung up on purpose, and her toys were put away in orderly fashion in a drawer.
"How happy I was! for I was used carefully and well, never flung violently about or used roughly, and my little mistress had a dainty way of spinning me that would have won the affection of the hardest and sternest of Humming Tops. During all the years I lived with her, I never saw her look untidy, or with a spot or soil on frock or pinafore, nor did I ever know her to be anything but placid and gentle, very happy but very grave. So it was no wonder her father and mother loved her so dearly, and lavished on her every comfort and pleasure that money could purchase. And she grew up to be a very sweet, quiet girl, the comfort of her old parents, and beloved more in her own home than anywhere else.
She did not care for gaiety much, nor wish to go to many parties or plays, and even when she did, she was so modest and retiring in her manner that she was often pa.s.sed over without much notice, and very few would have known her for the rich heiress that she was. And this of course, you know, was long after we had parted company. For, strange to say, she seemed to grow younger in some things, as she grew older in years, and when she was fifteen or sixteen, she looked more of a child than she did when she was really little. She had a simple, earnest way with her that was very pleasant, and she was fond of her old toys till she grew up. I don"t mean to say she played with us then, but she valued us as the treasures of her childhood, her happy childhood, and put us carefully away as old friends. Indeed, as far as I am concerned, I may even date our intimate fellowship far later than this, for when she was a woman grown, she would often take me out in a sort of musing way, and say, "Come, old Busy Bee, and give me a little of your humming?" She called me "old Busy Bee," you must know, as a sort of pet nickname. And you may be sure I put on my best waltzing powers, and hummed like twenty Dumbledores in a churn! And as she grew up she had plenty of suitors, and her parents wished her to go out sometimes to grand b.a.l.l.s and parties, so that she was much admired and followed. I have often known her come home from one of these, and come into her room, and, throwing off her rich dress and ornaments, she would sit down by a little table and take me out and spin me in a sort of absent way.
""Busy Bee, there are plenty come wooing to little plain, quiet Mary; what shall she say, Busy Bee? Come, hum me an answer!"
"And then I hummed away loudly, and told her that she was so good and sweet, that she was fit for any lord in the land. But she would always wilfully misunderstand me, and she would reply:--
""You are right, Busy Bee! I must never leave the dear father and mother; if the king himself came a wooing, I would make him a low curtsey, Busy Bee, like this, and say, "No, I thank your Majesty!""
"But at last a day came when the kind, loving old father was taken ill, and carried to his long home, and his faithful old wife did not very long survive him, and so poor Mary was left all alone. I say poor Mary, for though she had plenty of money, and houses, and dresses, and fine jewels, not to speak of hosts of busybody relations who were always looking her up, she had lost the tender love that had been her joy from infancy. And hers was one of those loving natures that are shaken to the very core of their hearts by these heavy sorrows, which break up all the firm foundations of a young life, and that however bravely they may be borne, as they were indeed in her case, poor dear, are long felt, and suffered. Our merry evening gossips had ceased for a long time, and indeed I had almost begun to fancy I was intended to be the inhabitant of the drawer for the rest of my life. An old Fan who had slipped in with us by accident, told me that Mary had been abroad for many months with an aunt of hers, and that she might not return for some time. One night, however, I heard an unusual bustle in the neighbourhood, and presently our drawer was pulled open by a hand whose touch thrilled me in a moment, for I knew it was that of my dear mistress.
""Poor old Busy Bee," said she, softly, "you and I have not hummed together for a long while, so come out of your hiding place, old friend, and hum away as pleasantly as you used to do!"
"As you may suppose, I was not slow to obey the summons, and I was soon spinning and humming on the table before her, and telling her in my way how very glad I was to see her once more. But she did not listen to me this night, and even let me roll off the table more than once, holding me in one hand after she picked me up, and absently threading me without the key.
""Well, Busy Bee," she said at last, softly, "we are going a long, long journey, and I daresay shall not see the old house again for many, many years! I wonder if you will hum as well in India, Busy Bee, or whether the hot, sultry air there will cause you to be drowsy. But it does not matter whether it is hot or cold, so long as you are happy! Go back to night to your place in the drawer, and to-morrow you shall be packed carefully away in one of those grand new trunks Morris is so proud of and so busy over. You will have a trip on the deep, deep sea, and when you next come out you will perhaps see palm trees and black people! You will have to learn Hindostanee, Busy Bee, and forget all your English ways of humming."
"Then my mistress put me carefully back in the drawer, and I lost no time in telling the fan what delightful things were in store for us, and we both dropped asleep planning what we should do in India, though not before we had had a vehement quarrel, for the Fan gave herself such airs, and said we were going out entirely on her account, for that she had many relations in that country, and the heads of the family were called Punkahs, and were high in office there. But we were both doomed to disappointment, for time pa.s.sed on, and we never came out of our drawer after all. We did not know any more until a long, long while afterwards, when we were routed out of the drawer by accident, by the old housekeeper. "Bless my heart, Ann," said she, "dear Miss Mary, or, as I should say, Mrs. Warren, never took her poor little old treasures after all. I suppose Morris forgot to look in this drawer, for I know she cleared all the rest. I"ll be bound how sorry she was when she unpacked at Calcutta, and missed them. If we get a chance, Maynard, we"ll send these over to her, when another box goes."
"This was a terrible blow to us, to find that our dear young mistress had married and gone away to India without us. The fan was inconsolable, and led me such a life with her groans and sighs that I wished myself anywhere else, and could only hope old Mrs. Jones would be as good as her word and send us over. But she never did, and there we lay no doubt for many years almost untouched. From what I could find out from stray bits of news, the house was left in the charge of the old Aunt with whom Mary had lived after the death of her parents, and who now had two daughters living with her, both middle-aged women, and one of them a widow. So there were no young children in the house, and we never heard merry voices nor pattering feet, nor saw any little faces in the deserted room. I was always of a more quiet nature, and so I bore my long captivity better than the Fan did. She, poor frivolous, fluttering thing, could only lament over the b.a.l.l.s and parties she had once known, and sigh over her imprisonment.
"But the longest day must come to an end at last, and so ours did, for we were aroused from our lethargy by a little shrill voice, which cried, "O Mamma, which is the drawer where the toys were kept?"
""Here, my darling," answered a soft, low voice, which vibrated through every fibre of both the fan and myself, for we recognised the tones of our dear mistress once more. And then we saw her too, for the long-closed drawer was opened at last, and we beheld her, a slender, sweet-looking woman, with her little daughter, Ellen, by her side. We could have fancied from her size that our own little Mary was there again, but when she looked round, her sallow complexion, bright, restless eyes, and long dark hair, plainly bespoke the little Indian-born child.
""May I have all these for my very own, dear Mamma?" asked she, in her little eager voice.
""Yes, Nelly, you may if you like, on condition you take care of my poor old playthings, especially this Humming Top, which I used to call my Busy Bee, Nelly, when I was young. It was given to me when I was a little child; but then _I_ was very careful of _my_ toys, and put them away neatly when I had done with them, very unlike a little girl I know, but we won"t mention names, who destroys her toys sadly."
"But Nelly was too busy over her fresh h.o.a.rd to listen to any warnings, and for a little while she kept her word, and put us away when she had done playing with us. But this did not last long, for she was a careless child, _very_ different to her dear mother. I had been secretly hoping that my good mistress would take me under her especial charge again, and that I should see a little more of her. But I suppose she was too busied with her many cares and occupations now, and she had so long broken off all her old habits and ways of thinking, that she hardly seemed like the same. But you see she had been away all these years, and perhaps pa.s.sed through many changes, and had lost these old memories to which we clung so fast.
"As for Nelly, Oh! what a child she was, as different to her mother as night to day; noisy and active, restless and wild spirited, the old house echoed as it had not done for many generations. There was more untidiness, uproar, and trouble in one week now than had been seen in three years before. As for the poor old nursery, how Mrs. Warren could come in as calmly, and smile as she did, seeming pleased at all the disorder and her little girl"s high spirits--_rudeness_, _we_ called it--we could never understand. The poor Fan used to wave mournfully at me sometimes with the few sticks she had left, and really I almost believe we half regretted our old quiet. Miss Nelly was more fond of the Fan than anything, and gave it plenty of employment, almost wearing it out in doing so; but she turned up her little pert nose at me, and called me a prosy old drone! Yes, actually, you may well be surprised, but after I had been spinning with all my might, and humming the best air I knew, she would push me roughly from her, and go off to something else. To be sure it was her way with everything, for she brought home a number of pretty Indian toys, all made of wood, and painted in very gay colours with beautiful varnish; but these she utterly despised and flung about. They would have been quite tip-top society at a bazaar or in a fancy fair, and the poor things felt their degradation keenly, only being foreigners, they could not make themselves so easily understood.
But I could repeat such tales to you that they told me of their native country, and their makers!"
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER XIV.
THE INTERRUPTION AND CONCLUSION.
Just at this moment the Humming Top was suddenly interrupted by a violent, loud noise which checked his humming pretty quickly, and startled all the rest of the toys so much, that they rolled and rattled back into their shelter, the toy cupboard, as speedily as they could.
"Vich of the painters is a coming to-morrow, Seusan, my child," said old Mrs. Jones, the charwoman, as she popped her head in at the door, and held up a tall dip in a tin candlestick to see if all was safe.
"Well, I thought I"d a shet up these here windows," said she, "but I s"pose I didn"t, and the wind must have blowed the cupboard door open, and sent these here old playthings all over the room. Come in, my dear, and just help me to put them in again, will ye?"
And with Susan"s help, old Mrs. Jones made a complete, clean sweep of all the poor dilapidated toys, huddled them roughly back into their cupboard, and shut the door, not only turning the b.u.t.ton firmly, but locking it as well.
"Them painter chaps," said Mrs. Jones, as she put the key in her great dimity pocket, "isn"t to be trusted no ways. They"re as likely to shy all them old playthings out o" winder as not, and then the poor children would miss "em when they come home."
And so the room was once more left to stillness and darkness for the night. The little mice came out and ran riot about the bare floor, and tried to get into the cupboard, but they could not manage it; and the crickets chirped loudly in the distant kitchen, for they were so used to Mrs. Jones, they did not mind her a bit. But the poor toys were really shut up again, and their holiday ended much quicker than they had expected. They heard the distant sounds of the workmen all over the house, and even heard them come into the nursery itself, but they saw nothing more. They could even hear the regular dabs and sweeps of the painter"s brush, especially when he was at work on the door that shut them up so closely, and then afterwards they heard the paper hangers ripping off the old papers with a rushing noise, and sc.r.a.ping and sizing the walls for the new paper, but they never got out.
Then the next sounds that greeted them, after a long interval, were the voices of Mr. Spenser and old Mrs. Jones. He had come to see how the house looked after the workmen had left, and she was showing him all over it.
"The nursery looks very nice, sir," she said, as she opened the door, "the old dirty paper all gone, and new paint, you can hardly know it again. This here new paper, to my mind, with the trails of roses and jessamy, is the prettiest in the house!"
"It looks very clean and bright certainly," replied Mr. Spenser, "but why don"t you open this door too? You can"t have too much air!"
"This is only a cupboard, sir," answered Mrs. Jones. "There were a lot of old playthings left here, and I thought them painters might fling "em about, so I just turned the key, sir, but I"m going to clean it right down to-morrow. I thought, sir, that may be, the young ladies and gentlemen might be put out if they found all their little things losed.
But here"s the key, sir, in my pocket, and now they"re all off the premises, there"s no need to keep it locked up."
"Quite right, Mrs. Jones," said Mr. Spenser, "I"m very glad you had so much thought. I don"t know how Nurse came to overlook this cupboard."
"Why, there, she had such a deal to do with packing up all the things, sir," replied Mrs. Jones, "that t"aint to be wondered at, and its all safe enough to my certain knowledge;" and then, after a little fumbling, she unlocked the door, and threw it wide open, disclosing all the heap of old toys huddled up together.
"Well this _is_ a queer collection!" said Mr. Spenser, laughing; "a regular museum of antediluvian playthings! Where on earth could they have come from? I don"t remember seeing the children with any of these, even any time back! However, shut them up, Mrs. Jones, till the children come home, and then we"ll enquire into the matter!"