Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad Part 46

PANSIES.

As I walked in my garden to-day, I saw a family sweet.

Many wee faces looked up, From their cool and shady retreat.

Some had blue eyes and golden curls, Some dark eyes and raven locks, Some were dressed in velvets so rare, And some wore quaint, gay frocks.

I asked these babies so dear, To come and live ever with me!

Then laughing so gaily they said; "We are _Pansies_, don't you see?"

MRS. L. L. SLOANAKER.

"COME, LITTLE BIRD!"

"Come, little bird, I have waited some time, Light on my hand, and I'll give you a dime.

I have a cage that will keep you warm, Free from danger, and safe from storm."

"No, little lady, we cannot do that, Not for a dime, nor a brand new hat.

We are so happy, and wild, and free, Chee-dee-dee! Chee-dee-dee!"

"Fly, pretty bird, fly down, and take Just a crumb of my Christmas cake; Santa Claus brought it to me, you know, Over the snow. Over the snow."

"Yes, we know of your home, so rare, And stockings hung in the fire-light there; We peeped through the window-blinds to see.

Chee-dee-dee! Chee-dee-dee!

"We were on the b.u.t.ton-ball tree, Closer than we were thought to be; Soon you may have us in to tea, Chee-dee-dee! Chee-dee-dee!"

SIRENA'S TROUBLE.

Adalina Patti was a doll of most trying disposition. You wouldn't tell, when she woke up, what distracting thing she'd do first. I've known her, when seated at the breakfast table, in her high chair, next to Sirena, her little mamma, I have known her to jerk suddenly forward, and plunge her face right into a plate of b.u.t.tered cakes and syrup.

This necessitated the removing of her from the table and a good deal of cleansing and re-dressing on the part of Bidelia, the hired girl.

She had movable eyes; they were very lovely, but, if you'll believe it, she'd screw them round, just to be contrary, so that she'd look cross-eyed for hours together. No sweet persuasion or threat of punishment could induce her to look like a doll in her right mind.

This was not quite so bad though, as the outlandish noises she made when she didn't want to say "mamma," which she could do very distinctly when she first arrived, at Christmas.

But a crisis in her petulant obstinacy came, when she wouldn't sit still to have her hair combed, and it looked like a "hurrah's nest,"

her brother Bob said. All her naughtiness came right out then. She rolled one eye entirely up in her head, and left it there, and stared so wild with the other, that Sirena gave her a pretty lively shake, but she only dropped that eye and rolled up the other.

This made her little mamma pause and meditate. She got provoked as she looked at her, and then she gave her a double shake; then that bad doll rolled up both her eyes, and nothing could induce her to get them down again.

Oh, dear! How many dreadful things she looked like. There was a vicious parrot in the park that made its eyes look just like Adalina's did, just before it stuck its head through the bars of its cage to bite people. And there was a stone lady, that was named "Ceres," on one of the paths in the same park, and she kept her eyes rolled up all the time, greatly to the terror of Sirena and Bidelia, who had to pa.s.s her in coming home in the twilight. And down street there was a tobacconist's sign that represented a fairy queen, with b.u.t.terfly wings, taking a pinch of snuff, and the weather had taken all the paint off her eyes and she looked simply hideous; and Sirena grasped Bidelia very tight, till they got round the corner. Now here was her lovely French doll looking like them and cutting up worse. She'd go to mamma with this trouble as she did with all others.

She put her doll down with her face against the carpet, and taking hold of her pink kid arm, dragged her, not very gently, over the carpet to her mother.

At that moment in bounced Rob, who, immediately taking in the situation of affairs, exclaimed,--"Oh, don't be so cruel to Adalina!

Is she just horrid? You know, Rena, that's what you are, sometimes, yourself. What's the matter any way? What makes you look so glum?"

"This doll is acting dreadful; just look at her eyes!" said Sirena.

"You can't tell any thing by any one's eyes, yours look like the 4th of July, now, and you're a delightful little girl, everybody says; you don't whack things round, and scream, when the flowers bloom in the spring."

He was to be repressed immediately. Sirena looked at her mother.

"He wants to be funny, Sirena," said her mother, soothingly.

"Then he isn't funny; he's never funny," said Sirena, drawing herself up with dignity.

"Totty Belmont says you're the teasenest, hatefulest boy she knows! So there," remarked Sirena.

"Oh, ho! I don't wonder the doll is scared. Why don't you treat that pretty creature with some consideration? Dragging her over the carpet, and spoiling her pretty dress! Now you'll see, just as soon as she comes to me, because I'm good-looking and nice, she'll put her eyes down and smile at me as lovely as ever."

He took the doll and jumped it up and down in the air, dancing about and singing, "Tra-la."

As sure as the world! Down came the eyes, and Adalina was her charming self again.

"Now you see," said Rob, "if you want people to be good to you and love you, you must not be rude and ill-natured yourself. This doll is French, and particular, and she just won't look at cross little girls; so there!"

"I think," said her mamma, "that Sirena will not get so angry with her doll again. She looks as if she were ashamed of it now. However disagreeable we may think people are, it's best to watch ourselves, lest in finding fault with them, we fall into the same errors."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIRENA.]

LADY VIOLET.

My little love, with soft, brown eyes, Looks shyly back at me, Beneath the drooping apple bough, She thinks I do not see.

I cannot choose, I laugh with her, I catch her merry glee; Or stay you near, or go you far, Oh, little love, how sweet you are!

A hue, like light within a rose, Is dimpling on her cheek, It wins a grace, it deepens now With every airy freak; A love-light in the rose like this, Ah, you may vainly seek; It s.h.i.+nes for me, no shadows mar, Oh, little love, how fair you are!

My heart clings to her pretty words, They will not be forgot; My happy brain will not discern, If they be wise or not.

To ever be so charmed, so blessed, Ah, this were happy lot.

My own, s.h.i.+ne ever like a star Upon my life, so true you are.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PAPA'S PETS.]