Chapter 7. A Rainy Day And What Came Of It

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_ CHAPTER VII. A RAINY DAY AND WHAT CAME OF IT

"WELL, I suppose that is true!" said Brighteyes, who had been singing this little song as she stood by the dining-room window after breakfast, watching the rain. "I suppose it must rain some time. But I do wish it would always rain at night, Uncle Jacket. Just think how nice it would be!"

"Very nice for you," replied Uncle Jack. "But how about the owls and bats, and watchmen and cats, who have to be out all night? they might not fancy it quite so much. They might not like it," he continued, "any more than I like to have a great boy and girl stand and look out of the window, when my fire is hungry. Look at the poor thing, almost starved for want of food!"

"Hi! Brighteyes," cried Nibble. "Which will get to the wood-box first?" That was certainly a question, and it was also a question whose neck would be broken first, to judge from the way in which they rushed out of the room. But they came back safely, strange to say, Nibble in advance, with a huge stick of yellow birch nearly as large as himself, while Brighteyes followed closely with another.

"Ah!" said Uncle Jack, rubbing his hands. "Now we shall see a fire, for it is cold this morning, if it _is_ the end of May. There," he continued, placing the logs carefully, and heaping the coals over them. "So my fire-spirit has his breakfast, as well as the rest of us. He is an excellent fellow, and should be well treated. Did you ever hear of the old woman who poked her fire-spirit till he ran away and left her?"

"No!" cried the two mice. "Please tell us about her, Uncle."

"She was a very cross old woman," said Uncle Jack. "She lived all alone, for she was so cross that nobody could live with her. She scolded her children till they went away, and she scolded her bird till it flew away, and she scolded her cat till it ran away. So there she lived all alone, with only the fire-spirit to keep her company. Now her fire-spirit was very good natured, and had borne very patiently with his mistress' ill-temper. One day, however, she came in looking and feeling particularly savage. She sat down before the fire and took up the poker. 'Ugh!' she said. 'What a miserable attempt at a fire! why don't you burn, you stupid, sulky thing?' and she gave it a vicious poke.

"How can I burn," said the fire, "when you don't give me anything to burn with? nobody can make a good blaze with only two sticks, and these two are as cross as you are, which is saying a great deal."

"You _shall_ burn!" cried the old hag, "whether you want to or not!" and she began to poke and poke most unmercifully.

"Take care!" said the fire-spirit. "I can't stand much more of this. I am growing black in the face."

"_I'll_ teach you to answer me!" cried the woman, poking away harder than ever. But suddenly she gave a shriek, and dropped the poker. A puff of smoke came out of the fire-place. A shower of cinders and sparks fell all over her, filling her eyes and nose and mouth; a rushing sound, like a gust of wind, followed, and the house-door was shut with a violent bang. Then all was silent. And when the old hag had wiped the cinders out of her eyes, she saw only a black cold hearth, with two cross sticks lying on it, and scowling at each other. The fire-spirit was gone; and what was more, he never came back, and the old woman had nothing to keep her warm, except her own temper.

"And now, chickens," said Uncle Jack, "run away and study your lessons, for this is our working-time, you know, and holidays are over."

"Oh dear!" said Brighteyes, "I wish we might have _one_ more story, Uncle Jack!"

"No! no!" said Uncle Jack. "There will be plenty of time for stories to-day, for you will not be able to go out of doors. Trot, now, for I have work to do as well as you."

Nibble and Brighteyes left the room slowly, and made their way to the school-room.

"I say, Brighteyes!" said Nibble, "suppose we play we are somebody else, and then perhaps we shall like studying better."

"What _do_ you mean, Nibble?" asked Brighteyes.

"Why," said Nibble, "I have a geography lesson to study, and you know I detest geography. But if I were to play I was Christopher Columbus, I should have to _play_ I liked it, because he must have liked geography very much indeed, you know. So then it might be easier, don't you think so?"

"Ye-es," said Brighteyes, doubtfully. "It would be easier for geography, certainly. But I have my arithmetic to study, and nobody could ever have liked arithmetic, Nibble."

"You might be Mr. Colburn," suggested Nibble. "I suppose he must have liked it, or he would not have written so much about it."

"Well, I will try," said Brighteyes; "though I don't think Mr. Colburn is half as nice as Christopher Columbus. But if he had been very nice, he would not have written arithmetic books, so it can't be helped, I suppose."

By this time they had reached the school-room, and Nibble, sitting down by the big table and opening his atlas, began, in a loud voice: "O King of Spain, let me inform your Majesty that Alabama is bounded on the north by Tennessee, on the east by Georgia, on the"--

"But, Nibble! I Mean Christopher!" interrupted Mr. Colburn, in a piteous tone. "How can I do anything if you study out loud?"

"Oh dear!" said the great discoverer, rather impatiently. "Well, go ahead, Mr. Colburn, and write your book, while I go on a new voyage of discovery. Let us see which will finish first."

And now, seeing that the mice were settling down to their books in good earnest, I turned my attention to the nursery, where I rightly judged that I should find the three younger mice.

Well, to be sure, what fine sport they were having, those three little things! they had evidently been washing the dolls' clothes, for small clothes-lines of string were all about the room, and Downy's pinafore looked as if it had been in the tub: but now the wash was all hung out, and the mice were "playing wind," as they called it: that is to say, they were running to and fro, puffing out their little fat cheeks, and blowing at the clothes with might and main, in the hope of making them dry sooner.

"I am the North Wind!" said Puff. "Whoop! whoop!"

"I am the South Wind!" cried Fluff.

"And I'm some kind of wind, ivn't I?" asked Downy, who was blowing as hard as any of them.

"Yes, dear, you are the West Wind; whoop! whoop! whoop!" said Puff, as she pranced about.

Now presently the door opened, and Mrs. Posset came in, with her basket of stockings to mend. One of the clothes-lines was directly in her way, and the good woman stumbled over it, and knocked her head against the mantel-piece and dropped all the stockings. This she did not like, as you may imagine. "Dear me! children," she cried, "it's as much as my life is worth to enter this nursery, with all your crinkum-crankums! my stars! will you look at the strings now, all over the room, fit to break a body's neck! Whatever are you doing now, Miss Puff?"

"We washed the dolls' clothes, Possy dear," said Puff, "because they were dirty, and you said this morning dirt was a sin."

"So we couldn't have our children dirty and sinful too, you know, Possy!" cried Fluff, earnestly. "And now we are playing wind, and drying the clothes beautifully."

"Well, dears," said Mrs. Posset, resignedly, as she sat down with her mending, "'tis a very nice play, no doubt; but if you _could_ play something that would not shake the room quite so much, the stockings would be mended sooner, that's all."

"Well, Puffy," said Fluff, "what shall we play?"

"Oh! let us play 'Five Little Princesses'!" said Puff.

"But there are only three of us!" Fluff objected. "Unless Mrs. Posset will be one, and _that_ would only be four. _Would_ you mind being a princess, Possy?"

"Oh! Miss Fluffy, dear, indeed I have not time, now," said the good nurse; "but you might play that one of the princesses was lame, and could not walk."

So the three mice began to walk slowly about, with their eyes shut, singing, as they went:

Five little princesses started off to school,
Following their noses because it was the rule.
But one nose turned up, and another nose turned down,
So all the little princesses were lost in the town.

Here they all tumbled against each other, and pretended to cry bitterly; then starting off again, they sang:

Poor little princesses cannot find their way!
Naughty little noses, to lead them astray!
Poor little princesses, sadly they roam,
Naughty little noses, pray lead them home!

Now is not that a pretty game? Yes, and it is quite new, so you may try it yourselves if you like. Just shut your eyes, and bump against all the chairs and tables, singing this song, and you will find yourselves very much amused. At least, the twins and Downy enjoyed it extremely, until Fluff, the unlucky, tripped over one of her own clothes-lines, and fell against the stove (which, luckily, had no fire in it,) hitting her head harder than even a lost princess could possibly care to do. For a few minutes there was sorrow and confusion among the princesses; but the offer of a story from Mrs. Posset soon calmed their royal minds, and they gathered round the good nurse's table with eager faces.

"Well, and what shall the story be about, Missies?" she asked.

"Oh! about the three little girls!" said Puff. Fluff nodded her head approvingly, and Downy said "Free ittle dirls!" in a satisfied tone. So they listened, and I listened, and my dog listened. And you may listen, too, if you like, though it is an old story, and you may have heard it before.

"Once upon a time, then," said Mrs. Posset, threading her darning-needle, and taking up one of Nibble's stockings, which was in such a condition as might have made a darning-machine turn pale, "there were three little girls, and their names were Orange and Lemon and Hold-your-tongue. And they all lived together in a little red house with a green roof, which stood in the middle of a wood. Now every morning there was the work to be done, you see. So on Monday morning Orange would get up at the break of day, so to speak, and she swept the house, and she made the fire, and she cooked the breakfast--"

"What did they have for breakfast?" asked Fluff.

"Pork chops," said Mrs. Posset. "And then she called her sisters; and when they had eaten their breakfast, they all went out and played for the rest of the day.

"Well, and on Tuesday morning Lemon got up early. And she swept the house, and she made the fire, and she cooked the breakfast--"

"What did they have _that_ morning?" interrupted Puff.

"Cod's head and shoulder!" replied Mrs. Posset. "And then she called her sisters; and when they had eaten their breakfast, they all went out and played for the rest of the day.

"Well, my dears, as I'm telling you, on Wednesday, the third little girl--dear! dear! what was her name now? I seem to forget--"

"Hold-your-tongue!" cried Fluff, eagerly.

"Well! well!" said Mrs. Posset, pretending to be very much vexed. "To think of your having no better manners than that, Miss Fluff! telling me to hold my tongue, indeed! not another story will you get from me to-day, I promise you!"

This was a favorite joke of Mrs. Posset's, I found, and the children were never tired of it, though they knew that the little story went no further than "Hold your tongue!" They were still laughing over it, when they heard a loud scream from below, followed by a heavy fall, and a crash as of broken china. For a moment they all looked at each other in silence, startled by the shock; then Mrs. Posset put Downy off her knee, and flew down stairs, followed by the three little mice, all eager to know what had happened. Uncle Jack had heard the noise in his study, and Susan had heard it in the kitchen; in fact, the whole household was roused, and all turned their steps towards the school-room, where Nibble and Brighteyes were. Uncle Jack was the first to open the door, and when he looked into the room, he saw--see! I will draw you a picture. _This_ is what he saw. Nibble was lying on the floor, apparently half-stunned, while near him lay the fragments of a china teapot; and all around on the floor, were scattered gold coins, large and small, hundreds and hundreds of them. Every one stood astonished, very naturally, and no one was more astonished than Master Nibble himself. As soon as he recovered his composure a little, he sat up on Uncle Jack's knee, and told his story, very much in these words:

"It was all my geography lesson, Uncle!" said Nibble. "I played I was Christopher Columbus, so that I should like it better, and I learned it all, every word of it. But I finished before Mr. Colburn had written his books, so I--"

"Stop! stop! Nibble!" cried Uncle Jack. "Who is Mr. Colburn, pray? and what has he to do with your geography lesson?"

"Why, he is Brighteyes!" said Nibble. "To make her like her arithmetic lesson, don't you know?"

"Oh! indeed!" said Uncle Jack. "Go on, Christopher!"

"So," continued Nibble, "I thought I would go on a voyage of discovery, a _real_ voyage. And I saw that little trap door in the ceiling, that you said must be an old sky-light covered over--"

"And that I forbade you to meddle with," said Uncle Jack, quietly.

"Well, yes, Uncle, I know you did. But if Columbus had minded what other people said, would he ever have found America?"

"Humph!" said Uncle Jack, trying to suppress a smile. "Well, sir?"

"Well, sir," responded Nibble, "so I thought I would sail for that port. I climbed up on some things" (I should say he did! there was a heap of tables and chairs, desks and books, sofa-pillows and coal-scuttles, under the open trap-door, which was enough to frighten one,) "and got into it. It was a kind of an attic place, Uncle, all beams and rafters and cobwebs. I crept in ever so far on my hands and knees, and in the farthest corner I found a heap of queer old clothes all covered with dust; coats and hats, and all sorts of things. I knew they must belong to the queer old man Tomty told us about, who used to live here, and I thought it would be great fun to bring them down and dress up in them. I lifted some of them, and heard something rattle underneath: then I looked, and found that old teapot, hidden away under a great beam. It was very heavy, and the cover was fastened on with sealing-wax, so I was going to bring it down to you; but my foot slipped, and--" "And you came down rather faster than you meant to?" said Uncle Jack.

"Dear to goodness, sir!" cried Mrs. Posset, who had been picking up the gold pieces, and had her apron full of them. "It's my belief that this is neither more nor less than old Jonas Junk's treasure, of which the neighbors talk so much."

"It certainly is, Mrs. Posset!" replied Uncle Jack. "And I think we must always call Nibble Christopher Columbus, for he certainly has made a great discovery!" _

Read next: Chapter 8. A Story Chapter

Read previous: Chapter 6. A Night Journey

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