Cousin Lucy's Conversations

“But what shall I do for my breakfast?” said Lucy.

“O, I will give you some breakfast,” said Miss Anne. “How should you like to have it by yourself, upon your little table, in the kitchen?”

“Well,” said Lucy, “if you will let me have my own cups and saucers.”

“Your cups won’t hold enough for you to drink, – will they?”

“O, I can fill them up two or three times.”

Miss Anne said she had no objection to this plan; and she told Lucy to go and get her table ready. So Lucy went and got her little table. It was just high enough for her to sit at. Her father had made it for her, by taking a small table in the house, which had been intended for a sort of a light-stand, and sawing off the legs, so as to make it just high enough for her.

Lucy brought this little table, and also her chair; and then Miss Anne handed her a napkin for a table-cloth, and told her that she might set her table, – and that, when it was all set, she would bring her something for breakfast; and so she left Lucy, for a time, to herself.

Lucy spread the napkin upon her table, and then went and got some of her cups and saucers, and put upon it. Joanna was ironing at the great kitchen table, and Lucy went to ask her how many cups and saucers she had better set.

“I should think it would take the whole set,” said Joanna, “to hold one good cup of tea.”

“But I am going to fill up my cup three times, Joanna; and if that isn’t enough, I shall fill it up four times.”

“O, then,” said Joanna, “I would not have but one cup, – or at most two. I think I would have two, because you may possibly have some company.”

“I wish you would come and be my company, Joanna.”

“No, I must attend to my ironing.”

“Well,” said Lucy, as she went back to her table, “I will have two cups, at any rate, for I may have some company.”

She accordingly put on two cups and a tea-pot; also a sugar-bowl and creamer. She placed them in various ways upon the table; first trying one plan of arrangement, and then another; and when at last they were placed in the best way, she went and called Miss Anne, to tell her that she was ready for her breakfast.

Miss Anne came out, according to her promise, to give her what she was to have to eat. First, she put a little sugar in her sugar-bowl; then some milk in her cream-pitcher; then some water, pretty hot, in her tea-pot.

“Could not you let me have a little real tea?” said Lucy.

“O, this will taste just as well,” said Miss Anne.

“I know it will taste just as well; but it will not look just right. Real tea is not white, like water.”

“Water is not white,” said Miss Anne; “milk is white; water is very different in appearance from milk.”

“What color is water, then?” said Lucy.

“It is not of any color,” said Miss Anne. “It is what we call colorless. Now, you want to have something in your tea-pot which is colored a little, like tea, – not perfectly colorless, like water.”

Lucy said yes, that that was exactly what she wanted. So Miss Anne took her tea-pot up, and went into the closet with it, and presently came out with it again, and put it upon the table. The reason why she took all this pains to please Lucy was, because she was so gentle and pleasant; and, although she often asked for things, she was not vexed or ill-humored when they could not be given to her.

Miss Anne then cut some thin slices of bread, and divided them into square pieces, so small that they could go on a small plate, which she brought from the closet. She also gave her a toasting-fork with a long handle, and told her that she might toast her own bread, and then spread it with butter. She gave her a little butter upon another plate.

When all these things were arranged, Miss Anne went away, telling Lucy that she had better make her breakfast last as long as she could, for she must remember that she could not go out at all that day; and that she must therefore economize her amusements.

“Economize? What do you mean by that, Miss Anne?” said Lucy.

“Why, use them carefully, and make them last as long as you can.”

Lucy followed Miss Anne’s advice in making the amusement of sitting at her own breakfast table last as long as possible. She toasted her little slices of bread with the toasting-fork, and poured out the tea from her tea-pot. She found that it had a slight tinge of the color of tea, which Miss Anne had given it by sweetening it a little, with brown sugar. Lucy enjoyed her breakfast very much.

While she was eating it, Joanna, who was much pleased with her for being so still, and so careful not to make her any trouble, asked her if she should not like a roasted apple.

“Yes,” said Lucy, “very much indeed.”

“I will give you one,” said Joanna, “and show you how to roast it, if you will go and ask your mother, if she thinks it will not hurt you.”

Lucy accordingly went and asked her mother. She said it would not hurt her at all, and that she should be very glad to have Joanna get her an apple.

Joanna accordingly brought a large, rosy apple, with a stout stem. She tied a long string to the stem, and then held the apple up before the fire a minute, by means of the stem. Then she got a flat-iron, and tied the other end of the string to the flat-iron. The flat-iron she then placed upon the mantle shelf, and the string was just long enough to let the apple hang down exactly before the fire.

When it was all arranged in this way, she took up the apple, and twisted the string for some time; and then, when she let the apple down again gently to its place, the weight of it began to untwist the string, and this made the apple itself turn round quite swiftly before the fire.

Joanna also put a plate under the apple, to catch any of the juice or pulp which might fall down, and then left Lucy to watch it while it was roasting.

Lucy watched its revolutions for some time in silence. She observed that the apple would whirl very swiftly for a time, and then it would go slower, and slower, and slower, until, at length, she said,

“Joanna, Joanna, it is going to stop.”

But, instead of this, it happened that, just at the very instant when Lucy thought it was going to stop, all at once it began to turn the other way; and, instead of going slower and slower, it went faster and faster, until, at length, it was revolving as fast as it did before.

“O no,” said she to Joanna; “it has got a going again.”

It was indeed revolving very swiftly; but pretty soon it began to slacken its speed again; – and again Lucy thought that it was certainly going to stop. But at this time she witnessed the same phenomenon as before. It had nearly lost all its motion, and was turning around very slowly indeed, and just upon the point of stopping; and in fact it did seem to stop for an instant; but immediately it began to move in an opposite direction, very slowly at first, but afterwards faster and faster, until it was, at length, spinning around before the hot coals, as fast as ever before. Pretty soon, also, the apple began to sing; and Lucy concluded that it would never stop, – at least not before it would have time to be well roasted.

“It goes like Royal’s top,” said Lucy.

“Has Royal got a top?” said Joanna.

“Yes,” said Lucy, “a large humming-top. There is a hole in it. It spins very fast, only it does not go first one way and then the other, like this apple.”

“I never saw a top,” said Joanna.

“Never saw one!” exclaimed Lucy. “Did not the boys have tops when you were little?”

“No boys that I ever knew,” answered Joanna.

“Did you have a tea-set when you were a little girl?” asked Lucy.

“No,” said Joanna, “I never saw any such a tea-set, until I saw yours.”

“What kind of playthings did you have, then, when you were a little girl?”

“No playthings at all,” said Joanna; “I was a farmer’s daughter.”