Aunt Judy's Tales Part 9

"'Cook, I shall not argue with you any longer; you know no better, and I suppose I must make allowances for you.'

"'I'm much obliged to you, ma'am, I'm sure,' was my answer; 'it's what I've always done by you ever since I came to the house, and I'll do it still with pleasure, and think no more of what's been said.'

"I spoke from my heart, I can tell you, dears, for I felt very sorry for Missus, and thought she was but a lady after all, and perhaps I'd hardly made allowances enough. I'd lost my temper, too, as I knew after she went away. But, you see, while she was there, it was so mortifying to be spoken to as if all the sense was on her side, when I knew it was all on mine, wherever the French and crochet may have been. Well, but the day before I left, I broke down with another of them, as it's fair that you should know.

"I'd felt very lonely that day, busy as I was, and in the afternoon I took myself into the scullery to give the pans a sort of good-bye cleaning, and be out of everybody's way. But there, in the midst of it, comes the eldest young gentleman flinging into the kitchen, shouting, 'Cook! Cook! Where's Cook?' as usual. I thought he was after some of his old tricks, and I HAD been fretting over those pans, thinking what a sad job it was to have no home to go to in the world, so I gave him a very short answer.

"'Master James,' says I, 'I've done with nonsense now, I can't attend to you. You must wait till the next cook comes.'

"But Master James came straight away to the scullery door, and says he, 'Cook, I'm not coming to teaze. I've brought you a needle-book.

There, Cook! It's full of needles. I put them all in myself. Keep it, please.'

"Dear, dear, I can't forget it yet," pursued Cook, "how Master James stood on the little stone step of the scullery, with his arm stretched out, and the needle-book that he'd bought for me in his hand. I don't know how I thanked him, I'm sure; but I had to go back to the sink and wash the dirt off my hands before I could touch the pretty little thing, and then I told him I would keep it as long as ever I lived.

"He laughed, and says he, 'Now shake hands, Cooky,' and so we shook hands; and then off he ran, and I went back to my pans and fairly cried.

"'Why, Cook,' says I to myself, 'that lad's got as good a heart as your own, after all. And as to sense and behaviour, they haven't been forced upon him yet, as they have upon you. Latin's Latin, and conduct's conduct, and one doesn't teach the other; and it's too bad to expect more of people than what they've had opportunity for.'

Well, dears, that was the rule I always went by, and I've been in many situations since--with single ladies, and single gentlemen, and large families, and all; and there was something to put up with in all of them; and they always told me there was a good deal to put up with in me, and perhaps there was. However, it doesn't matter, so long as Missus and servant go by one rule--TO MAKE ALLOWANCES, AND NOT EXPECT MORE FROM PEOPLE THAN WHAT THEY'VE HAD OPPORTUNITY FOR; and, above all, never to be c.o.c.ky when all the advantage is on their own side. It's a good rule, dears, and will stop many a foolish word and idle tale, if you'll go by it."

Aunt Judy had finished at last, and she took off the old spectacles and laid them on the doll's table, and paused.

"It IS a good rule," observed No. 4, "and I shall go by it, and not tell real Cook Stories when I grow up, I hope."

"I love old Cooky," cried No. 6, getting up and hugging her round the neck; "but is it wrong, Aunt Judy, to tell funny make-believe Cook Stories, like ours?"

"Not at all, No. 6," replied Aunt Judy. "My private belief is, that if you tell funny make-believe Cook Stories while you're little, you will be ashamed of telling stupid real ones when you're grown up."

RABBITS' TAILS.

"Death and its two-fold aspect! wintry--one, Cold, sullen, blank, from hope and joy shut out; The other, which the ray divine hath touch'd, Replete with vivid promise, bright as spring."

WORDSWORTH.

"Well then; but you must remember that I have been ill, and cannot be expected to invent anything very entertaining."

"Oh, we do remember, indeed, Aunt Judy; we have been so miserable,"

was the answer; and the speaker added, shoving her little chair close up to her sister's:-

"I said if you were not to get better, I shouldn't want to get better either."

"Hush, hush, No. 6!" exclaimed Aunt Judy, quite startled by the expression; "it was not right to say or think that."

"I couldn't help it," persisted No. 6. "We couldn't do without you, I'm sure."

"We can do without anything which G.o.d chooses to take away," was Aunt Judy's very serious answer.

"But I didn't want to do without," murmured No. 6, with her eyes fixed on the floor.

"Dear No. 6, I know," replied Aunt Judy, kindly; "but that is just what you must try not to feel."

"I can't help feeling it," reiterated No. 6, still looking down.

"You have not tried, or thought about it yet," suggested her sister; "but do think. Think what poor ignorant infants we all are in the hands of G.o.d, not knowing what is either good or bad for us; and then you will see how glad and thankful you ought to be, to be chosen for by somebody wiser than yourself. We must always be contented with G.o.d's choice about whatever happens."

No. 6 still looked down, as if she were studying the pattern of the rug, but she saw nothing of it, for her eyes were swimming over with the tears that had filled into them, and at last she said:-

"I could, perhaps, about some things, but ONLY NOT THAT about you.

Aunt Judy, you know what I mean."

Aunt Judy leant back in her chair. "ONLY NOT THAT." It was, as she knew, the cry of the universal world, although it broke now from the lips of a child. And it was painful, though touching, to feel herself the treasure that could not be parted with.

So there was a silence of some minutes, during which the hand of the little sister lay in that of the elder one.

But the latter soon roused up and spoke.

"I'll tell you what, No. 6, there's nothing so foolish as talking of how we shall feel, and what we shall do, if so-and-so happens.

Perhaps it never may happen, or, if it does, perhaps we may be helped to bear it quite differently from what we have expected. So we won't say anything more about it now."

"I'm so glad!" exclaimed No. 6, completely rea.s.sured and made comfortable by the cheerful tone of her sister's remark, though she had but a very imperfect idea of the meaning of it, as she forthwith proved by rambling off into a sort of self-defence and self- justification.

"And I'm not really a baby now, you know, Aunt Judy! And I do know a great many things that are good and bad for us. I know that YOU are good for us, even when you scold over sums."

"That is a grand admission, I must own," replied Aunt Judy, smiling; "I shall remind you of it some day."

"Well, you may," cried No. 6, earnestly; and added, "you see I'm not half as silly as you thought."

Aunt Judy looked at her, wondering how she should get the child to understand what was pa.s.sing through her own mind; wondering, too whether it was right to make the attempt; and she decided that on the whole it was; so she answered:-

"Ay, we grow wise enough among ourselves as we grow older, and get to know a few more things. You are certainly a little wiser than a baby in long petticoats, and I am a little wiser than you, and mamma wiser than us both. But towards G.o.d we remain ignorant infants all our lives. That was what I meant."

"But surely, Aunt Judy," interrupted No. 6, "mamma and you know--"

There she stopped.

"Nothing about G.o.d's dealings," pursued Aunt Judy, "but that they are sure to be good for us, even when we like them least, and cannot understand them at all. We know so little what we ought really to like and dislike, dear No. 6, that we often fret and cry as foolishly as the two children did, who, while they were in mourning for their mother, broke their hearts over the loss of a set of rabbits' tails."

No. 6 sprang up at the idea. She had never heard of those children before. Who were they? Had Aunt Judy read of them in a book, or were they real children? How could they have broken their hearts about rabbits' tails? It must be a very curious story, and No. 6 begged to hear it.

Aunt Judy had, however, a little hesitation about the matter. There was something sad about the story; and there was no exact teaching to be got out of it, though certainly if it helped to shake No. 6's faith in her own wisdom, a good effect would be produced by listening to it. Also it was not a bad thing now and then to hear of other people having to bear trials which have not fallen to our own lot.

It must surely have a tendency to soften the heart, and make us feel more dependent upon the G.o.d who gives and takes away. On the whole, therefore, she would tell the story, so she made No. 6 sit quietly down again, and began as follows:-

"There were once upon a time two little motherless girls."

No. 6's excitement of expectation was hardly over, so she tightened her hand over Aunt Judy's, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed:-