Uncle Rutherford's Nieces Part 10

As for Bill and Jim, there was no telling what manner of projects they might have formed for his edification, and their own amus.e.m.e.nt and his; and father considered it necessary to bid Milly give them a word of warning not to practise on the credulity of the old sailor, as they had at times been wont to do while we were at the seash.o.r.e.

"And what about the mercantile enterprise of that youth, with so many irons in the fire?" asked uncle Rutherford, when dinner was over, and the door closed behind the retreating servants, while we still lingered around the table; the little girls having been allowed to come down to dessert. "How does the peanut-business flourish, Milly? You are posted, I suppose."

"Not so thoroughly as Allie and Daisy," answered Milly. "I understand that it is flouris.h.i.+ng; but, if you wish for minute particulars, you must apply to them."

Allie, hearing what was pa.s.sing, forthwith dived into the depths of her small pocket, and produced from thence a miniature account-book, saying triumphantly as she did so,--

"Jim's sold the first bag of peanuts, and bought another, and then sold that; and now he's bought _two_ at once, and"--opening the book, and poring over it,--"and he's made--see, uncle Rutherford, here it is,"

and she pointed out a row of crooked, childish, illegible figures; to be understood, doubtless, by the initiated, but Greek to uncle Rutherford.

"How does the boy manage to keep account of his business?" asked uncle Rutherford, returning the book to Allie, as wise as when she handed it to him, but not confessing his ignorance.

"By preparing himself for a dyspeptic existence," said Milly. "He swallows his meals in haste, Thomas says, and rushes from the table, and around to the Fourth Avenue to receive Tony's report, and be back in time for his work. Nor is he always quite in time, I imagine; but Thomas is indulgent and patient, and Bill helps him. I understand that the little cripples are really making fair sales, and Jim is reaping quite a harvest."

"Yes, uncle Rutherford knows that by my 'count-book," said unsuspicious Allie. "Read it aloud, please, uncle, so they can all hear."

"Hm--hm, yes, my dear; but I do not like to read aloud after dinner,"

said uncle Rutherford, still forbearing to enlighten her innocence.

"It isn't so _much_ reading," murmured Allie, rather hurt, for she was an over-sensitive child, p.r.o.ne to imagine slights, and, as we know, given to ready tears. "I'll tell you, people;" and she proceeded to give the amount made by Jim since he had established the peanut-stand, with its various divisions for the separate objects of his benevolence and ambition. The latter figured under the head of "For to be President;" and if her accounts, or, rather, Jim's as set down by her, were to be trusted, he had really done very well in the stand business.

"We know two deforms," quoth Daisy, solemnly, as Allie closed; "one deform is very nice and good, and the ofer is horrid and scratching.

One is Captain Yorke's, and the ofer is Jim's peanut-stand girl. But we have to be good to the cross deform, 'cause G.o.d made her that way.

Allie and I are going to try and make her nice and pleasant, too."

"She thinks we're proud, and only like to go to see her, and show her our nice dolls and things, to make her feel sorry," said Allie; "Tony said so. And she turns her hump at us, and makes faces at us, and _won't_ think we want to be good to her. She thinks we're proud at her, 'cause she has to sell peanuts."

"You go and sell peanuts, then, and show her you're not too proud to do it," said Douglas, carelessly, and certainly with no thought that the suggestion would ever be acted upon.

"We needn't to have been afraid about Mrs. Yorke's fit-to-be-seenedness,"

said Allie, hopping delightedly around on one foot, the day after the arrival of the Yorkes, and on her return from her first visit to them.

"Why, she does look so nice; just as nice as mammy in her Sunday clothes. She looks almost lady."

"Yes, she does, and it don't make any dif'ence, if she _behaves_ lady,"

said Daisy; "and I fink she always behaves _very_ lady. Mamma," with a sudden and startling change of subject, "if somebody told you you could do somefing to help somebody, oughtn't you to do it?"

"Yes, my darling, if you can," answered mother, rather oblivious, to tell the truth, of the child's earnestness in putting the question; for she was at the moment writing an answer to a note which had been just brought in.

"And it's very nice to do the kind fing, and not speak about it, isn't it?" questioned Daisy.

"Very, dear," answered mother, still only half hearing the little one, and far from thinking that she was supposed to be giving her sanction to a most unheard of proceeding.

Mrs. Yorke's attire and general appearance proved satisfactory even to fastidious Miss Allie and myself; indeed, she would have pa.s.sed muster among any hundred elderly women of the respectable middle cla.s.s; and there was nothing whatever about her to attract special attention, unless one turned again for a second look at the kind, motherly old face. There was a sort of natural refinement about her, too, which made her adapt herself with some ease to her unaccustomed surroundings.

As for the captain, he was a hopeless subject for those who had an eye to fas.h.i.+on or the commonplace. No amount of attempts at smoothing or tr.i.m.m.i.n.g him down, no efforts at personal adornment in his case, could make of him any thing but what he was, here in the great city, as well as at his seaside home, the typical old sea-faring man, rough, hearty, simple, and good-natured, garrulous to excess, as we had often proved, and not to be polished, or made what he called "cityfied."

"'Tain't no sort of use whitewas.h.i.+n' the old hulk," he a.s.serted; "an' I guess my Sunday clo's, as is good enough for the Lord's meetin'-house up to the Pint, is got to be good enough for these messed-up city streets; an' ye can't make no bricky-bracky outer me."

To the boys he was a source of unmixed delight, both to our own young brothers, and to the two servant-lads; and no care for the eyes or comments of the world troubled any one of them when he happened to be under their escort. And little Daisy was equally independent, or perhaps too innocent to take any heed of such matters.

A feverish, influenza cold confined both Allie and mammy to the house for a day or two soon after the arrival of the Yorkes in the city, and Daisy was consequently obliged to be confided to the care of others when she took her walks.

She had been out driving one afternoon with mother and aunt Emily; and they, having an engagement for "a tea," to which they could not take her, brought her home. At the foot of our front-steps stood Captain Yorke, complacently basking in the almost April suns.h.i.+ne, and amusing himself by gazing up and down the street, and across the park, on which our house fronted. It was an exceptionally beautiful day for the time of year, soft, balmy, and springlike.

"Ye won't git another like it to-morrer; two sich don't come together this time o' year," said the captain, as mother, greeting him, remarked on the loveliness of the weather. "Ye kin look out for a gale to close out the year with, I reckon. There's mischief brewin' over yonder,"

pointing to where a bank of clouds lay low upon the southwestern horizon. "Ye'd best take yer fill of bein' out doors to-day."

"Yes," said Daisy, pleadingly, "it's so nice and pleasant. Mamma, couldn't some of the servants take me out a little more? I don't want to go in yet."

"Leave her along of me, Mis' Livin'stone," said the old man. "Me an'

her'll take care of one another."

Daisy beamed at the proposition; and mother had not the heart to refuse her, or the old sailor.

"Well," she said, "you may stay out a while with the captain; but only on condition that you both promise not to go far from the house, but remain either on the Square, or on this block. You see, captain," she continued, "Daisy is too little to pilot you about, and you are too much of a stranger in the city to be a guide for her beyond the neighborhood of home. If you want to leave her, or she tires, just take her to the door, and ring the bell for her. Or perhaps you will go in yourself, and see Allie and mammy.--They cannot go astray or get into any trouble so near home," she said to aunt Emily, when she had given her orders, and the carriage moved on, leaving Daisy and the captain standing side by side on the pavement, the little one with her tiny hand clasped in the toil-worn palm of the veteran.

"Impossible!" said aunt Emily; "and the captain is as good as any nurse, you know. I would quite as soon trust her with him as with mammy."

But aunt Emily, and mother too, had forgotten to take into account the captain's deficiency of a sense of the fitness of things,--at least, of matters appertaining to a city-life.

He and Daisy rambled contentedly up and down the block, from one corner to another, for some time, she prattling away to him, and enlightening his ignorance so far as she was able, until, at last, they unfortunately touched upon Jim's affairs.

"Let's go round an' buy some peanuts outer Jim's stand," said the captain. "'Tain't far, ye know."

"No," answered obedient Daisy, "not far; but mamma said we mustn't go way from sight of our house, fear we would be lost, and we'd be way from sight of it if we went to Jim's peanut-stand. But, Captain Yorke, Matty is cross wif Allie and me, 'cause she finks we're proud 'cause we don't sell peanuts; and Douglas says I ought to sell peanuts, so she'll know I'm not proud. Do you fink we could sell a few peanuts now? I know where Jim keeps 'em."

"Wal, I reckon ye kin sell peanuts, my pretty, if ye have 'em to sell,"

answered the old man, seeing no reason why Daisy should not have her own way, and perhaps scenting a little diversion for himself in the project; "but if ye can't go round to t'other street, how are ye goin'

to get 'em?"

"Oh, Jim keeps 'em--his bags of peanuts--out in a pantry under our back-stoop," said Daisy; "and ev'y morning Tony comes for some to sell.

We'll go in, and ask some of the servants to give us some, and then we'll sell 'em."

If "some of the servants" had been found, this unprecedented plan would have met with due interference; but it so happened, that they were all scattered at their various avocations in different parts of the house, and none were in the kitchen save old Mary Jane, to whom Daisy knew better than to appeal on behalf of any interests of Jim's. She was busy grinding coffee; and the noise of the mill prevented her from hearing the footsteps of the invaders of her domain, who pa.s.sed through the bas.e.m.e.nt-hall, and out of the back-door, where, although they found no one to help them, Daisy, to her great delight, discovered the key of the closet in the lock. To open the door, bid the captain take down an empty basket, which hung on a hook, and to fill this with peanuts from an open bag, was but the work of a few moments; the captain's huge hands scooping up the nuts in quant.i.ties, and soon accomplis.h.i.+ng the task. Then, arming themselves with a tin cup, which they also found near at hand, by way of a measure, the two conspirators once more stole past the unconscious Mary Jane, and out into the street, the captain bearing the basket.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "TWO RATHER UNUSUAL FIGURES TO BE ENGAGED IN SUCH AN OCCUPATION."--_Page_ 145.]

"Shall we sell 'em on our stoop?" asked Daisy, all this time quite guiltless of any intention of wrong-doing.

"I reckon ye'd best go down to the corner there, where the two streets comes together," answered the captain, pointing to where a much-frequented cross-street intersected our avenue. "Them's my opinions, for I see lots more folks walkin' that way than this."

Unfortunately, Daisy saw the force of his reasoning; and the two innocents had presently established themselves, quite to their own satisfaction, on this public corner.

It was not long before they attracted sufficient attention, for they were two rather unusual looking figures to be engaged in such an occupation, to say nothing of the contrast between them; the weather-beaten, rugged, by no means handsome old sailor standing guard, as it were, over the daintily dressed little child with her beautiful, beaming face, and winning ways.

Custom flowed in without delay, the captain not hesitating to hail the pa.s.sers-by, and to direct their attention to the tiny saleswoman before him; while she, with her sweet voice, pleading, "Please buy some peanuts to help some poor children;" and her attractive air and appearance was irresistible.

Fortunately for the pecuniary interests of the firm, or, rather, of the capitalist whom they represented, Daisy knew from the boys the price that the peanuts should be; and the captain, who, spite of his simplicity, had a keen eye to business, and who was accustomed to peddling about "the Point" during the summer season, const.i.tuted himself cash-taker, and saw that she received her dues.