A Christmas Child Part 15

So don't trouble any more, even if we never find out how it happened."

Then she stooped and gave Ted an extra good-night kiss, and in five minutes his loving anxious little spirit was asleep.

But the very next day the mystery was explained.

"Ted's _new_seum is bootly neat," Cissy announced at breakfast-time, "but he wants some more fevvers. I tried to get down muzzer's screen off the mantelpiece to see if there was some loose ones, but I couldn't reach it. Muzzer, _won't_ you give Ted some loose ones?"

Mother looked at Ted, and Ted looked at mother.

"So _you_ were the mouse that knocked over my little vase, Miss Cissy!"

said mother. "Do you know, dear, that it was broken? You should not try to reach things down yourself. You will be having an accident, like 'Darling' in the picture-book, some day, if you don't take care."

The corners of Cissy's mouth went down, and her eyes filled with tears.

"I didn't know," she said in a very melancholy voice. "I only wanted to find some loose fevvers for Ted."

"I know that, dear," said her mother. "Only if you had asked me you would have got the feathers without breaking my vase. Come with me now, and you'll show me what you want."

There proved to be two or three loose feathers as Ted had said--beautiful rainbow eyes, which would not be missed from the screen with the careful way in which Ted's mother cut them out, and the children carried them off in delight. They were neatly tacked on to the feather card, which had a very fine effect on the wall of the museum. And for both Ted and Cissy there was a little lesson, though the two were of different kinds, fastened up with the feathers on the card.

Ill.u.s.tration: "They were neatly tacked on to the feather card, which had a very fine effect on the wall of the museum".--P. 170.

Before long the holidays were over. Percy went back to school, and poor Ted hid himself for a few hours, as he always did on these sad occasions, that his red eyes might not be seen. Then he came out again, looking paler than usual, but quite cheerful and bright. Still he missed Percy so much that he was not at all sorry that his own holidays were over. For Ted now went early every morning to a regular big school--a school at which there were so many boys that some little fellows of his age might have felt frightened and depressed. But not so Ted. He went on his own cheery way without misgiving. The world to his thinking was a nice and happy place--not _all_ suns.h.i.+ne of course, but very good of its kind. And school-life, though it too had its shadows, was full of interest and satisfaction. Ted loved his fellows, and never doubted, in his simple taking-for-granted of things being as they should be, but that he was loved by them; and how this way of looking out on the world helped him through its difficulties, how it saved him from unreasonable fears and exaggerated anxieties such as take the bloom off many a child-life, it would be difficult for me to describe. I can only try to put you in the way of imagining this bright young life for yourselves.

The boy whom, of course only _next_ to his dear Percy, Ted loved best in the world was, to use his own words, "a fellow" of about his own age, whose name was Rex. That is to say, his short name; for his real one was Reginald, just as Ted's was Edmond. They had been together at the big school from the first of Ted's going, being about equal in their standing as to cla.s.ses, though Rex was rather the elder, and had been longer at school. At Ted's school, as at all others, there were quarrels and fights sometimes; and many a day he came home with traces of war, in the shapes of b.u.mps and bruises and scratches. Not that the battles were all _quarrels_,--there were plenty of good-tempered scrimmages, as well as, occasionally, more serious affrays, for boys will be boys all the world over. And, worse than that, in all schools there are to be found boys of mean and tyrannical spirit, who love to bully and tease, and who need to be put down now and then. And in all schools, too, there are boys of good and kindly feelings, but of hasty and uncontrolled temper, and they too have to be taught to give and take, to bear and forbear.

And then, too, as the best of boys are _but_ boys after all, we are still a long way off having any reason to expect that the best of schools even can be like dovecots.

I don't know that Ted's school was worse than others in these respects, and Ted himself was not of a quarrelsome nature, but still in some ways he was not very patient. And then, slight and rather delicate though he was, he a.s.suredly had a spirit of his own. He couldn't stand bullying, either of himself or others, and without any calculation as to the odds for or against him, he would plunge himself into the thick of the fray; and but for Rex, who was always ready to back up Ted, I daresay he would often have come off worse than he did. As it was, many were the wounds that fell to his share, and yet he managed, by his quickness and nimbleness, to escape more serious damage.

"What have you been doing with yourself, my boy?" his mother said one day not long after the grand doing-up of the museum, when Ted appeared in her room on his return from school, to beg for some sticking-plaister and arnica lotion. He really looked rather an object, and he could not help laughing as he caught sight of his face in the gla.s.s; for one eye was very much swollen, and a long scratch down his nose did not add to his beauty.

"I _am_ a fright," he said. "But there's not much the matter, mother. It was only a scrimmage--we were all quite good friends."

"But really, Ted," said his mother, "I think you must curb your warlike tastes a little. Some day you may really get hurt badly."

"No fear, mother," he said. "Besides, after all, a boy wouldn't be worth much who couldn't fight sometimes, would he?"

"_Sometimes_," said his mother. "Where was Rex to-day--wasn't he beside you?"

Ted's face clouded a little.

"Rex was in a bad humour to-day. He wouldn't play," Ted replied.

"Rex in a bad humour!" repeated his mother. "Surely that's very uncommon."

Ted did not reply, and his mother did not ask him any more, but she noticed that the cloud had not entirely disappeared, and the next morning it was not quite with his usual springing steps that the boy set off to school. Rex's house was on the same road; most days the boys met each other at the gate and went on together, but this time no Rex was to be seen. Either he had taken it into his head to go very early, or he was not yet ready. Ted cast a glance towards the path, down which he was used to see his friend running, satchel over his shoulders, to join him--then he walked on slowly.

"I'm not going to wait for him if he doesn't care to come," he said to himself; and when he got to school he was glad he had not done so, for there was Rex already in the schoolroom, and at his desk busy writing, though it wanted some minutes to school-time.

"Good morning, Rex," said Ted.

"Good morning," replied Rex; but that was all. Whether or not he had been in a bad humour the day before, he was certainly not in a pleasant frame of mind towards Ted _to-day_. The morning pa.s.sed much less cheerfully than usual, for when all was happy between the boys, though they could not speak to each other in school hours, there were many pleasant little ways in which they could make each other feel that his friend was next door. Ted's lessons suffered from his preoccupation, and, altogether, things seemed to go the wrong way. But Ted did not seem able to care. "What was the matter with Rex?" That was the one question always in his mind.

School over, the boys could not help meeting. Their roads lay together, and both had too much self-respect to wish to make an exhibition of the want of good feeling between them to the other boys. So they set off as if nothing were the matter, and walked some little way in silence. At last Ted could stand it no longer.

"What's the matter with you, old fellow?" he said. "Why wouldn't you play with me yesterday?"

Rex looked up.

"I couldn't," he said. "I had got my French exercise all blotted, and I wanted to copy it over without telling any one; that was why I wouldn't come out. So _now_ you see if it was true what you said of me to Hatchard."

"What did I say of you to Hatchard?" cried Ted.

"_What?_ Why, what he told me you said--that I was a mean sneak, and that I wouldn't play because I wasn't as good at it as you."

"I never said so, and you know I never did," retorted Ted, his cheeks flaming.

"Do you mean to say that I'm telling a lie?" cried Rex in his turn.

"Yes I do, if you said I said that," exclaimed Ted. And then--how it happened I don't think either of the boys could have told--their anger grew from words into deeds. Rex hit Ted, and Ted hit at him again! But one blow--one on each side--and they came to their senses. Ted first, when he saw the ugly mark his clenched fist had left on his friend's face, when he felt the hot glow on his own.

"O Rex," he cried, "O Rex! How can we be like that to each other? It's like Cain and Abel. O Rex, I'm so sorry!"

And Rex was quick to follow.

"O Ted, I didn't mean it. Let's forget we ever did it. I _do_ believe you never said that. Hatchard's a mean sneak himself. I only didn't want to tell you that it was you who blotted my exercise by mistake when you pa.s.sed my desk. I thought you'd be so sorry. But it would have been better to tell you than to go on like this."

Rex's explanation was too much for Ted. Ten years old though he was, the tears rushed to his eyes, and he felt as if he could never forgive himself.

He told his mother all about it that evening. He could not feel happy till he did so, and even before he had said anything she knew that the little tug to her sleeve and the whispered "Mother, I want to speak to you," was coming. And even when he had told her all about the quarrel and reconciliation, he hung on, looking as if there were something more to tell.

"What is it, my boy?" said his mother; "have you anything more to say?"

Ted's face flushed.

"Yes, mother," he said. "I wanted to ask you this. When Rex and I had settled it all right again, we still felt rather unhappy. It did seem so horrid to have hit each other like that, it seemed to leave a mark. So, mother, we wanted to take it quite away, and we _kissed_ each other. And we felt quite happy, only--was it a very babyish thing to do? Was it _unmanly_, mother?"

His mother drew him towards her and looked lovingly into his anxious face.

"Unmanly, my boy? No indeed," she said, "it was kind and good, and kindness and goodness can never be unmanly."

And Ted, quite at rest now, went off to bed.

CHAPTER X.

SOME RAINY ADVENTURES.