Milly and Olly - Mrs. Humphry Ward (interesting books to read in english .TXT) 📗

she found master froggy.

"And there never was such a toy as froggy for a wet day," said Aunt Emma. "I have tried him on all sorts of boys and girls, and he never fails. He's as good a cure for a cross face as a poultice is for a sore finger. But, Milly, listen! I declare there's something else going on in my bag. I really think, my dear bag, you might be quiet now that you have got rid of froggy! What can all this chattering be about? Sh! sh!" and Aunt Emma held up her finger at the children, while she held the bag up to her ear, and listened carefully. Olly was almost beside himself with excitement, but Milly had got his little brown hands tight in hers for fear he should make a jump at the bag. "Yes," said Aunt Emma. "It's just as I thought. The bag declares it's not his fault at all, but that if I will give him such noisy creatures to carry I must take the consequences. He says there's a whole family now inside him, making such a noise he can hardly hear himself speak. It's enough, he says, to drive a respectable bag mad, and he must blow up if it goes on. Dear me! I must look into this. Milly, come here!"

Milly came near, and Aunt Emma opened the bag solemnly.

"Now, Milly, I'll hold it for fear it should take it into its poor head to blow up, and you put your hand in and see what you can find."

So Milly put her hand in, feeling a good deal excited as to what might happen--and what do you think she brought out? A whole handful of the most delicious dolls:--cardboard dolls of all sorts and kinds, like those in mother's drawer at home; paper dolls, mamma dolls, little boy dolls and little girl dolls, baby dolls and nurse dolls; dolls in suits and dolls in frocks; dolls in hats and dolls in nightgowns; a papa in trousers and a mamma in a magnificent blue dress with flounces and a train; a nurse in white cap and apron and the most bewitching baby doll you ever saw, with a frilled paper cap that slipped on and off, and a white frock with pink ribbons. And the best of these dolls was, that each of them had a piece of cardboard fastened on behind and a little bit of cardboard to stand on, so that when you spread out the piece behind they stood up as naturally as possible, and looked as if they were going to talk to you.

"Oh, Aunt Emma, dear Aunt Emma!" cried Milly, beside herself with delight as she spread them all out in her lap. "They're just like mother's at home, mother's that you made for her when she was a little girl--only ever so many more."

"Well, Milly, I made mother's for her long ago, when it rained for days and days without stopping, and she had grown tired of pretty nearly everything and everybody indoors; and now I have been spending part of these rainy days in making a new set for mother's little girl. There, dear little woman, I think you must have given me a kiss for each of them by this time. Suppose you try and make them stand up."

"But, Aunt Emma," said Olly, who was busy examining the mysterious bag--how could the dolls talk? they're only paper."

"I know nothing about it," answered Aunt Emma, rescuing the bag, and putting it safely under her chair. "You _might_ ask the bag--but it wouldn't answer you. Magical bags never do talk except to their masters or mistresses."

So Olly had to puzzle it out for himself while he played with the Japanese frog. That was an extraordinary frog! You should have seen nurse's start when Olly hid himself in the passage and sent the frog hopping and squeaking through the open door of the night nursery, where nurse was sitting sewing; and as for cook, when the creature came flopping over her kitchen floor she very nearly spoilt the hash she was making for dinner by dropping a whole pepper-box into the middle of it! There was no end to the fun to be got out of froggy, and Olly amused himself with it the whole of the morning, while Milly went through long stories with her dolls upstairs, helped every now and then by Aunt Emma, who sat knitting and talking to mother.

At dinner the children had to sit quiet while Mr. and Mrs. Norton and Aunt Emma talked. Father and mother had been almost as much cheered up by Aunt Emma's coming as the children themselves, and now the dinner-table was lively with pleasant talk; talk about books, and talk about pictures, and talk about foreign places, and talk about the mountains and the people living near Ravensnest, many of whom mother had known when she was a little girl. Milly, who was old enough to listen, could only understand a little bit here and there; but there was always Aunt Emma's friendly gentle face to look at, and her soft old hand in its black mitten, to slip her own little fingers into; while Olly was so taken up with the prospects of the black-currant pudding which he had seen cook making in the morning, and the delight of it when it came, that it seemed no trouble to him to sit still.

As for the rain, there was not much difference. Perhaps there were a few breaks in the clouds, and it might be beating a little less heavily on the glass conservatory outside the dining-room, still, on the whole, the weather was much the same as it had been. It was wonderful to see how little notice the children had taken of it since Aunt Emma came, and when they escorted her upstairs after dinner, they quite forgot to rush to the window and look out, as they had been doing the last three days at every possible opportunity.

The children got her safe into a chair, and then Olly brought a stool to one side of her, and Milly brought a stool to the other.

"_Now,_ can you remember about old Mother Quiverquake?" said Olly, resting his little sunburnt chin on Aunt Emma's knee, and looking up to her with eager eyes.

"Well, I daresay I shall begin to remember about her presently; but suppose, children, we have a _story-telling game_. We'll tell stories--you and Olly, father, mother, and everybody. That's much fairer than that one person should do all the telling."

"We couldn't," said Milly, shaking her head gravely, "we are only little children. Little children can't make up stories."

"Suppose little children try," said mother. "I think Aunt Emma's is an excellent plan. Now, father, you'll have to tell one too."

"Father's lazy," said Mr. Norton, coming out from behind his newspaper. "But, perhaps, if you all of you tell very exciting stories you may stir him up."

"Oh, father!" cried Olly, who had a vivid remembrance of his father's stories, though they only came very seldom, "tell us about the rat with three tails, and the dog that walked on its nose."

"Oh dear, no!" said Mr. Norton, "those won't do for such a grand story-telling as this. I must think of some story which is all long words and good children."

"_Don't_ father," said Milly, imploringly, "it's ever so much nicer when they get into scrapes, you know, and tumble down, and all that."

"Who's to begin?" said Aunt Emma. "I think mother had better begin. Afterwards it will be your turn, Olly; then father, then Milly, and then me."

"I don't believe I've got a scrap of a story in my head," said Mrs. Norton. "It's weeks since I caught one last."

"Then look here, Olly," said Aunt Emma, "I'll tell you what to do. Go up gently behind mother, and kiss her three times on the top of the head. That's the way to send the stories in. Mother will soon begin to feel one fidgeting inside her head after that."

So Olly went gently up behind his mother, climbed on a stool at the back of her chair, and kissed her softly three times at the back of her head. Mrs. Norton lay still for a few moments after the kisses, with closed eyes.

"Ah!" she said at last. "Now I think I've caught one. But it's a very little one, poor little thing. And yet, strange to say, though it's very little, it's very old. Now, children, you must be kind to my story. I caught him first a great many years ago in an old book, but I am afraid you will hardly care for him as much as I did. Well, once upon a time there was a great king."

"Was it King Arthur, mother?" interrupted Olly, eagerly.

"Oh no! this king lived in a different country altogether. He lived in a beautiful hot country over the sea, called Spain."

"Oh, mother! a _hot_ country!" protested Milly, "that's where the rain goes to."

"Well, Milly, I don't think you know any more about it, except that you _tell_ the rain to go there. Don't you know by this time that the rain never does what it's told? Really, very little rain goes to Spain, and in some parts of the country the people would be very glad indeed if we could send them some of the rain we don't want at Ravensnest. But now, you mustn't interrupt me, or I shall forget my story--Well there was once a king who lived in a _very_ hot part of Spain, where they don't have much rain, and where it hardly ever snows or freezes. And this king had a beautiful wife, whom he loved very much. But, unluckily, this beautiful wife had one great fault. She was always wishing for the most unreasonable and impossible things, and though the king was always trying to get her what she wanted she was never satisfied, and every day she seemed to grow more and more discontented and exacting. At last, one day in the winter, a most extraordinary thing happened. A shower of snow fell in Cordova, which was the name of the town where the king and queen lived, and it whitened the hills all around the town, so that they looked as if somebody had been dusting white sugar over them. Now snow was hardly ever seen in Cordova, and the people in the town wondered at it, and talked about it a great deal. But after she had looked at it a little-while the queen began to cry bitterly. None of her ladies could comfort her, nor would she tell any of them what was the matter. There she sat at her window, weeping, till the king came to see her. When he came he could not imagine what she was crying about, and begged her to tell him why. 'I am weeping,' she said, sobbing all the time, 'because the hills--are not always--covered with snow. See how pretty they look! And yet--I have never, till now, seen them look like that. If you really loved me, you would manage some way or other that it should snow once a year at any rate.'

"'But how can I make it snow?' cried the king in great trouble, because she would go on weeping and weeping, and spoiling her pretty eyes.

"'I'm sure I don't know,' said the queen, crossly, 'but you can't love me a bit, or you'd certainly try.'

"Well, the king thought and thought, and at last he hit upon a beautiful plan. He sent