Bessie on Her Travels

Bessie on Her Travels
Joanna Mathews

Joanna H. Mathews

Bessie on Her Travels

I

PACKING UP

What a twitter and flutter and chirping there was in the pretty nest which Maggie and Bessie Bradford called their own room; for there were four little girls, who were to start together the next day on their travels, and there was so much to be talked over. All the new places they were to visit, all the wonderful things they were to see and do; and, more than all, that sea voyage of three or four days. For none of them but Belle had ever been to sea, and it would be quite a new thing to all the rest.

Then there was the packing, about which both Maggie and Bessie, especially the former, had been greatly concerned for the last week; for it seemed impossible to them that nurse and Jane could make all the necessary preparations for this important journey on the day before that on which they were to start.

That morning Maggie’s excitement and impatience had overflowed. Waking at a very early hour, and finding Bessie still sleeping, she lay a few moments thinking of all that was to be done that day, and wondering that the household should still be so quiet, with the prospect of such important business before them.

“I just expect the end of the matter will be that every one in the house, even poor mamma, who is not so very well yet, will have to turn to and help to make up for their pro-cras-to-na-tion!” said she to herself, indignantly; “and I’ve just a great mind to begin packing up myself, to set them a good example, and make them ashamed of a little girl like me taking time by the forelock so much better than they do.”

No sooner said than done; and Maggie scrambled out of bed and into her dressing-gown and slippers quite forgetting to pause and think whether or no mamma would approve of her running about the house in such a guise, and if she would not be giving more trouble than help by meddling with what she did not understand.

Upstairs she trotted to the topmost story, where was a room which Fred called the “put-all-room,” and which held, not only trunks and boxes of all shapes and sizes, but a couple of great, old-fashioned presses, and many another article not in common daily use, and stored there to be out of the way. The children thought it rather a treat to go in now and then with mamma or nurse, to rummage there and see what they could spy out: but none of them had ever gone there alone or without permission; and if Maggie had taken time to reflect, I think she would have known that her mamma would not wish her to do so, though she had never positively forbidden it.

But just now the busy little head was too full of plans for making herself useful, to take heed of any thing else; and finding what she had hoped for, that the door was unlocked, she opened it, and went in. The trunks were not piled together at one end as they usually were, but stood singly, here and there about the room, just as Patrick had left them the day before, when he had examined them to see if they were in good order; and this Maggie observed with great satisfaction.

“It just seems as if it was fixed to be convenient for me,” she said to herself; “and now I can try which is the heaviest one I can pull. I know I could not take those largest downstairs, but I think I could one of the middlings.”

But, after various trials, she found to her great disappointment, that she could by no means move even one of the “middlings;” and was at last forced to content herself with a small black leather trunk, in which she thought she would put some of her own and Bessie’s clothes.

“For a pack in time saves nine,” said Maggie to herself; “and even if it does not hold much, this little trunk is a better beginning than nothing.”

Having fixed upon this prize, she contrived with some trouble to drag it from the room, and push and pull it to the head of the stairs. But here a new difficulty arose. She could by no means lift the trunk and carry it down: small as it was for the amount of packing she wished to do, it was quite too heavy for her little strength; and though for one moment she thought of pushing it over the edge of the top stair, and allowing it to slide down by its own weight, she soon reflected this would not do.

“For it will just go and smash itself all to pieces, I suppose, and then make a horrid noise to wake the people all up,” she said again, feeling rather vexed with the innocent trunk. “Oh! I know what I’ll do: I’ll go in front of it and pull it down very gently, one step at a time.”

But in spite of all the pains she took, the trunk seemed to Maggie to make the most outrageous noise, sliding over each stair with a grating sound, and coming down from the edge of one to another with a thump and a bang, which all her efforts could not silence. She was soon heartily sorry that she had ever touched it; but she must go on now, for she could not possibly pull it up again, and if she left her hold of it, it would go tumbling headlong to the bottom.

However, she took heart of grace again by the time she had reached the foot of the top flight, for no one seemed to have been disturbed; the servants having all gone down stairs, and the boys, who slept in the third story, being sound sleepers. So she concluded to go on and not have all her pains thrown away; but she had gone only two or three steps on the second flight, her troublesome prize bumping after her, when she heard her father’s voice from below.

“What are you busy with there, Patrick?” he said. “You are disturbing Mrs. Bradford, and will wake the children. Leave it till later in the day.”

“O papa!” said Maggie, feeling rather guilty, and very much mortified, “it’s not Patrick, but me;” and as she spoke, she appeared round the turn of the stairs, while her attention being for the moment diverted, the trunk slid after her with a bang which seemed to jar the house.

“You, my daughter!” said Mr. Bradford, coming up to where Maggie stood; “and what are you doing here at this time in the morning?” and he looked down in great surprise at the small figure whose cheeks matched her scarlet dressing-gown, and whose curls were tossed and tumbled in the wildest confusion.

“It’s this mean old trunk, papa,” said Maggie, pettishly; “the more I try to make it go softly, the more it won’t, but just squeaks and bumps all it can, the horrid thing!” and now she gave up the trunk very willingly into her father’s strong grasp.

“What were you doing with it?” asked Mr. Bradford.

“Taking it downstairs, so I could pack it with my things and Bessie’s, papa. I wanted to take mamma by surprise to see how useful I could be.”

“You have taken mamma rather too much by surprise,” said her father, unable to help smiling; “for you have wakened and startled her. It is well to try to be useful, but one should try to be thoughtful and considerate at the same time, or our pains will be quite thrown away, as yours are now. You must go back to your bed, my daughter, and let this trunk alone;” and lifting the trunk he carried it to the third-story hall, Maggie looking on with a very crestfallen feeling.

“It may stay there till we see if it is needed,” said Mr. Bradford, soothingly, as he saw her disturbed face; “and by and by, at the proper time, you may ask mamma if you can help her;” and taking the little hand which was trembling with cold and over-exertion, he led her back to her own room. Papa had been very kind, and could scarcely be said to have found fault with her; but Maggie, who began to feel that she had been somewhat to blame, would rather have been scolded than hear him laugh as he did when he told mamma how and where he had found her. She did not hear what he said, but she knew very well what he was talking about, and drew the bed-clothes over her head that she might shut out the sound of his laughter.

“It’s too bad,” she thought: “most always when I try to be very superior, I make a mistake and people laugh at me about it. I feel as if I’d like to be mad at some one, but I can’t be mad at papa, and I don’t want to be mad at myself, ’cause I didn’t mean to do wrong; and it’s no use to be mad at the trunk, but I b’lieve I do feel a little provoked at it, it has made my hands hurt, and my arms do ache so. I’m real tired too.” And coming to the surface for air, Maggie turned over on her side, and presently dropped off into a sound morning nap; so that when nurse came to tell her she might get up, she found her still sleeping instead of wide awake as usual, and was bidden by Mrs. Bradford to let her sleep as long as she would after her exertion.

Maggie was rather subdued and quiet all the first part of the morning, and more than ever grateful to papa, when she found that he had not told the boys, and so given them the opportunity to tease and laugh at her.

“I suppose you couldn’t let me help you after my unconsiderate unusefulness this morning: could you, mamma?” she said, when she saw her mother gathering together the articles Jane was to stow in the trunks.

“Well, yes: I think I can find something for you and Bessie to do,” said mamma: “you may take all these tapes, needles, spools, and so forth, into your own room, and see how neatly you can put them into this box; and all these ribbons may go into that one.”

“Oh! thank you, mamma: I will let Bessie do the ribbons, ’cause they are the prettiest;” and away ran generous Maggie with her sister to begin the pleasant task.

That done, mamma gave them leave to pack the clothes belonging to Miss Bessie Margaret Marian, and Miss Margaret Colonel Horace Rush Bradford, in another box; saying that since she did not feel as if she could do without her own little daughters, she would not ask them to leave the whole of their large family behind, and thought the dolls might prove a great diversion when they were tired, or perhaps shut up in some hotel on a rainy day.

They were busy deciding what dresses should be taken and what left, when Mrs. Norris came round to see Mrs. Bradford for a few moments, bringing Lily with her; and while the ladies talked in one room, the little girls chattered away in the other, Belle coming in about the same time.

“Oh!” said Lily, “is your mamma going to let you take your large dolls? my mamma will only let me take a tiny, weeny one that can go in a travelling-bag.”

“I wouldn’t take any then,” said Belle. “I’m going to take my largest, biggest one of all.”

“Not Belle Maggie Bessie?” questioned Maggie.

“Yes: Belle Maggie Bessie!” repeated Belle, in a tone of determined obstinacy and snappishness, which showed that the subject was a sore one with her.

“But your papa said last night that you could not take her, ’cause such a large doll would be too much trouble,” said Bessie.

“Well, anyhow, I’m going to: he said I could this morning,” answered Belle.

“Then you cried and cried and bothered him, till he said yes: I know you,” said Maggie, reproachfully.

“I don’t care,” said Belle; but she did care, and now was ashamed that her little playmates should guess how she had worried her too indulgent papa.

“You might repent yet and tell him you won’t take her,” said Bessie.

“Yes, do, and make a Rip Van Winkle of her,” said Maggie.

“I shan’t make her that ugly thing, and I shall take her,” said Belle, indignantly.

“You needn’t be so cross,” said Maggie: “Bessie and I made all our other dolls Rip Van Winkles and William Tells, and it was good fun. Don’t you want to see them, Lily?”

Lily assented; and, opening a deep drawer in the bureau, Maggie showed her all the various dolls belonging to herself and Bessie, lying with bandages on their eyes.

“I don’t see what you call them William Tells and that other name for,” said Lily. “William Tell was the man Miss Ashton told us about, who shot an apple off his son’s head.”

“Yes,” answered Maggie; “and we told Harry and Fred about it, but they knew before, and told us that the Swiss people believe that he and his companions went fast asleep in a cave for a great many hundred years, and some day they would wake up and rule over them.”

“And who was the Winkle man?” asked Belle.