Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories Part 6

Putting a cricket into one of the best rush-bottom chairs, I climbed to the Clock; took off the frame gla.s.s and all, from its head, placing it noiselessly on the floor; opened the tall door in the body of the clock; drew out and unhung the pendulum--the striking weight, whose string was broken, was made all right and put for the time being on the table. Then the "moon and stars" which had been fixed for a quarter of a century, were made to spin; the "days of the month" refused to pa.s.s in review without a squeak that must be remedied, so I flew into the closet to get some sweet oil which was goose-grease; but shutting the closet-door I roused my grandmother.

I quietly went at the old rocking again, the bottle of goose-grease in my pocket, which I feared might melt and I should lose the material--the bottle was already low.

Fortunately my grandmother began napping again, and I resumed my task.

Applying the oil with a bird's wing was a lavish process--the wheels moved easily; the hands became quite slippy; the moon "rose and set" to order; the days of the month glided thirty times a minute, and I was just using a pin to prove the material of the dial when my grandmother turned her head, at the same time reaching for her cane (the emergency had been foreseen and special care had I taken that the cane should not be forthcoming). "Nancy! Nancy! is thee crazy?"

Thinking to strengthen this idea, I jumped into the clock and held the door fast; but finally thinking 'twas cowardly not to face it I jumped out again, up into the chair, saying, "I am mending this old clock;" and notwithstanding her remonstrances, continued my work putting back the various pieces. When I was afraid of "giving out and giving up," I decided I would just answer her back once and say "I wont." The wickedness would certainly discourage her beyond a hope, and then I could finish.

So I put the moon on, staring full; in putting on the hands I got, I thought, sufficiently worked up to venture my prepared reply to her repeated "get down!"

I accordingly approached my grandmother, stopping some feet from her; bent my body half-over, my long red hair covering my eyes, and my head suiting its action to my earnestness, and in a decided rebellious tone, I spelled, "I W-O-N-T;" but accidently giving myself a turn on my heel I fell to the floor, with the p.r.o.nunciation still unexpressed.

I quickly rose, though I saw stars without any "two cents," and returned to, and finished my work. I had just put the last touch on when I heard the wheels. How I dreaded my aunt's appearance! As she entered the door I was found "demurely rocking" to the pictures in the andirons.

My aunt thought I did not seem natural, and kissed me as being "too good, perhaps, to be well." My grandmother tried to speak, but I interrupted:

"I must go home without my tea. I am not afraid of the dark, and I better go."

This was another proof of indisposition to the aunt. I left the house, kissing as I thought, my grandmother into silence; but as I looked back I saw she could not utter a word without laughing at the aunt's anxiety, and so had to put off the narration till after my departure.

I went home about as fast as possible; desired to go to bed immediately--never went before without being sent, and then not in a very good mood. My mother followed me with a talk of "herb tea," and as I thought I must have some "end to the farce," I agreed that a little might do me good. My mother consequently brought me, I do believe, a "Scripture measure" pint of bitter tea, which I hurriedly drank, as I knew my sisters had already started for my grandmother's, to see how I had been through the afternoon. When they returned, though I heard the laughing and talking in the sitting-room below, I was, to all intents and purposes, sound asleep and snoring.

No allusion was ever made to my demeanor. I went to school as usual, and told the school-girls that I had had such a good time at my aunt's the day before that I would never go there again "as long as I lived."

My grandmother and aunt died long ago. For years I had no reason to believe that my afternoon's tragedy was known to any one. But once, not long since, speaking of that clock, I said, "I'm glad it did not descend to me;" when a friend replied, with a very knowing look, "So is your grandmother!"

NAUGHTY ZAY.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Once upon a time there was a dear little naughty girl, not _bad_, she would not have been so dear had she been really bad, but just naughty sometimes, and I must confess "sometimes" came pretty often. She had all sorts of loving scolding names, such as "precious torment," "darling bother," and she kept her poor dear grandmother on a continuous trot to see what mischief she was in, and frightened her mother (who thought everybody must want to steal Zay) by hiding behind the Missouri currant bush until every nook and corner had been searched; and she made her uncle shake his head gravely because she never could get beyond the first question in the Catechism, "what is your name?" and even then would answer _Zay_, although he had told her that "that was not her name at all; she had been baptized Salome; and Zay was a name she had no right to whatever." Nor can I begin to tell you the times I have exhausted all my strength putting her st.u.r.dy little self into the closet, and then standing first on one foot, then on the other, until I was ready to drop, listening at the keyhole for the first small sob of repentance.

Things had gone wrong with our naughty little Zay this morning. Mary, the good old cook, who had been in the house years before Zay was born, had actually refused to let her make any more mud-pies on her kitchen window; and mamma and grandma had sided with the enemy.

Zay was a little dumpling of a girl, with hard round cheeks like red apples, fat dimpled arms, and such wide-open eyes, and she looked very funny now as she drew herself up to her fullest height, which was not much of a height after all, brushed off her pretty blue dress, shook down her clean ruffled ap.r.o.n, and addressed us all in very solemn tones:

"I jes' want to tell you, I've been _resulted_, and I am never going to live here anymore! I'll go 'way; clear off in the woods! And then I guess you'll all be sorry! Mary need never make any more scrambled eggs for breakfast, cause" (she almost broke down at the bare thought of so direful a catastrophe), "cause there'll never be any chil'en to eat 'em anymore! And _then_ I guess grandpa will be sorry when he comes home tired, and doesn't have his s'ippers all yeddy!"

"O," said her mamma, gravely, "you are going right off, are you, before dinner?"

"Yes, wight st'ait away, _now_! I'll go get my hat."

Down stairs the quick feet pattered to the hall-closet where the little sun hat hung, always ready for the garden. Soon she was back, and held her chin up with great composure for grandma to tie the strings.

The dear grandmother quietly laid her fine sewing down beside her on the sofa. "_Is_ my little girl going away off by herself in the woods?"

"Yes, miles and _mileses_!"

"And what will you do when you get hungry?"

"Why, I'm going to take all my money," forthwith going to a drawer in the old-fas.h.i.+oned book-case, and taking out a diminutive porte-monnaie, which contained her whole fortune, three silver three-cent pieces, and hanging it on her fat little hand, "and I can go to some g'ocery in the woods, and buy lots of b.u.t.ter crackers."

I, sitting in an easy chair, just recovered from a long illness, suggested, "But, Zay, you might want something besides crackers. I know a little girl who is very fond of 'drum-sticks' and 'wish-bones'!"

"I can eat bears and wolves. I can make gravy, and," she added, "I'm going to take grandpa's gun wif me."

"Very well," answered her mamma, going to grandfather's closet and bringing out the gun, which was twice as large as the child.

There she stood before us--a little blue-eyed girl with a demure sun-hat shading a very resolute and, as yet, untroubled face, the gun held up tight against her with one fat dimpled hand, while from the other dangled the little purse.

"I'm all yeddy now, so good-bye ev'ybody," she said at last.

"Good-bye," said gentle grandma, holding up the little face to kiss the firm red lips. "I am afraid I shall miss my little girl to-night when I want the red stand drawn out for the drop light; and I'm sure grandpa will need his slippers."

Zay looked somewhat irresolute; but her mamma here spoke:

"I think," said she, "if you intend to reach the woods before dark you should start at once, for it is almost two o'clock now."

"Good-bye ev'ybody," said Zay again.

"And," said Lita, "I'll carry the gun down and open the front gate for you."

Bravely the child marched out of the room, out of the front door and gate. There Lita handed her the gun; but after trying several times to walk with it, she told Lita that she didn't know as she should care for any wolf wish-bone with her b.u.t.ter crackers, and asked her to take the gun back in the house, and then she banged the gate, hoping Mary saw her, with an air of importance, and pattered off on a fast little dog-trot down the street.

Meanwhile we were all watching her behind the blinds.

"Don't lose sight of her," said mamma, "but don't let her see you!"

This is what Lita saw. A st.u.r.dy little figure walking steadily onward, never looking back. At length it stops, opens the little purse, counts its money, but never noting that in the trouble with the clasps the three little coins fall, like three silver rain drops, to the pavement.

It goes on and on, till Lita fears it will really go out of sight. Then the little figure "slows up" again, opens the little purse, and stops short!

Ah, the horrors of poverty! Lita understands the poor little irresolute figure. No money means no b.u.t.ter crackers, and no b.u.t.ter crackers means despair. The little steps come homeward. The blue eyes are bent on the ground. She does not know that grandpa has come quietly up behind her, and found each little silver piece.

The little rebel appeared in the hall just as dinner was carried in.

There was a most savory odor of frica.s.see. Grandma and mamma and Lita were just entering the dining room.

"Well," Zay calmly announced, "I 'cluded not to go till after dinner."

"Is that so?" quietly replied her mother. "But you might better have gone on. Any little girl who wants to leave a nice home because she can't have her own way, needn't look for any dinner here! I expected you to dine on b.u.t.ter crackers and bears."

"I like chicken, I do," said proud little Zay with appealing eyes, but no tears; "and then I lost all my pennies!"

In vain did the tender hearted grandma pull mamma's dress,--mamma entered the dining room and shut the door; and up came poor Zay to the room where I awaited my dinner, for she had seen a tray borne hither.

But she did not know that her mamma's parting injunction had been, "you must not give her anything! I must--indeed, I _wish_ to teach my child a lesson."