Nellie's Housekeeping. Little Sunbeams Series

"I should think it was. O Daisy, what a funny child you are!" said Nellie, much amused, and without the least suspicion that Carrie was the offender in question. "Who has been so rude to you, darling?"

"Never mind," said Daisy. "Carrie, I won't tell tales 'bout you, if you was rude to me, – oh, so rude!"

Nellie laughed merrily again over Daisy's fancied concealment of Carrie's sins against her.

"I don't see what there is to laugh about," said Carrie, angrily. "You think Daisy is so smart."

Nellie was grave in a moment, wondering, as she had had occasion to do many times during the last twenty-four hours, what could make Carrie so cross and ready to take offence.

"Any more flour, Nellie?" asked Daisy.

"No more now," answered her sister. "Catherine, the receipt don't say cinnamon, but papa likes it so much, I think I will put some in. It can't do any harm, can it?"

"Not at all; I'm thinking it would be an improvement myself, Miss Nellie," answered the cook. "But then I've not a pinch of powdered cinnamon. I used the last yesterday for the rusks."

"There's some in the dining-room," said Nellie. "Daisy, dear, you can do that. Go to the sideboard, open the right-hand door, and bring sister the spice-box you will see on the first shelf. Bring it very carefully."

"Yes, I know it," said Daisy, scrambling down from her chair, and feeling rather important in her errand. "Cafarine, don't I help a whole lot?"

"Oh! a wonderful lot! I never saw a darlin' that made herself so useful;" and with these words of praise sounding in her ears, Daisy went off happy.

In two minutes she was back again, breathless, with wide-open eyes, the crimson deepening in her cheeks, but with the spice-box safely in her clasp.

"Nellie! and Carrie! and Cafarine! all of yous! what do you fink?" she cried. "Oh! such a fing!"

"What is the matter?" said all three at once.

"A mouse! a weally mouse in the dinin'-room. Not a white mouse, but a nigger mouse, – oh! I forgot again, – I mean a colored person mouse, right in the dinin'-room! What will mamma say?"

"Oh! you must be mistaken, Daisy," said Nellie, while Carrie heard the words of her youngest sister with a sinking heart.

"No, I'm not, I'm not," persisted Daisy. "It was just as weally a mouse as it could be. He was under the sideboard, and he ran out and under the sofa."

"Oh dear!" said Nellie, in dismay at the news. "Catherine, there must be mice in this house. A good many too."

"Well, no, miss, I think not," said the cook. "This is the first one" —

Down went the bowl into which Carrie was sifting her sugar, not purposely, though she was only too thankful for the diversion it afforded, but because she had given a violent start and knocked the bowl with her elbow in her alarm at Catherine's words. How nearly her secret had been discovered! But now it was safe at least for the time, for the bowl was broken, the sugar scattered over the floor, and it was some moments before order was restored; by which time Nellie was intent upon cutting out her cakes, marking them with the "jigging iron," and laying them in the bake-pans, so that she had no thought for mice, white or gray.

Declaring herself "tired of helping," and feeling that her labors had brought no very satisfactory result to herself or others, Carrie left the kitchen and wandered into the dining-room, possibly to see if she could spy the mouse Daisy had discovered. But no, there was no mouse there, at least she could find none; and she began to hope that, after all, the little one had been mistaken.

Oh dear! how wretched and unhappy she felt! She began to think she would feel better if she went and told mamma, making honest confession of what she had done, and begging her forgiveness.

Just then Daisy came into the room, and began peeping around in every corner and under each article of furniture.

"You needn't be looking for that mouse," said Carrie, "he's gone; and, any way, I don't believe there was any mouse there."

"There was, oh! there was," cried Daisy. "I saw him wif my own eyes running fast, fast. But, Carrie, Nellie says we'd better not speak about it 'fore mamma, 'cause it would trouble her."

"I don't believe it. You just thought you saw him," persisted Carrie.

"Now you've said a great many bad fings to me, but that's the baddest one of all, and I shall leave you alone wif your own se'f," said the offended Daisy, and walked away with her head held high.

Now it might almost have been imagined that Daisy knew that Carrie's "own se'f" was no very pleasant company just at this time, and that she wished to punish her by leaving her "alone wif" it; and, innocent as she was of any such intention, she certainly had her revenge.

Carrie's own thoughts were not agreeable companions; even less so now than they had been before Daisy came in, for her half-formed resolution of telling all to her mother seemed less difficult than it had done before her little sister had said that Nellie thought it best not to speak of the mouse to mamma. If mamma was not to hear of one mouse, it would not do to tell her that several were running at large about the house; and Carrie could not help feeling and believing that this was one of the escaped captives. Mice could come downstairs, that she knew; for once, when she and Nellie had been spending the day with Lily Norris, they had seen a little mouse hopping down from stair to stair, and had stood motionless and silent, watching till he reached the bottom of the flight, when his quick, bright eyes caught sight of them, and he scampered away in a fright.

And now that it was forbidden, she was seized with a strong desire to relieve her mind by a full confession to mamma. Then at least she would be free from the burden of carrying about with her such a guilty secret.

"Oh dear! oh dear!" she said to herself, "whenever I've done anything naughty before, I could always go and tell mamma, and then she forgave me, and I felt better; but now it seems as if I did not dare to tell her this. I'd dare for myself, even if she was very much displeased and punished me; but I suppose I mustn't dare for her. It is too hard."

Ah, Carrie! so, sooner or later, we always find the way of transgression; and oftentimes the sharpest thorns in the road are those which we have planted with our own hands, not knowing that they will wound our feet, and hold us back when we would retrace our steps.

X.

FRESH TROUBLES

THE ginger-cakes were a great success. It is true that one's tongue was bitten, now and then, by a lump of ginger or other spice, not quite as thoroughly mixed in by Nellie's unaccustomed fingers as it might have been by those which were stronger and more used to such business; but who minded such trifles as that, or would refuse to give the little workwoman the meed of praise she so richly deserved?

Not her papa certainly, who found no fault whatever, and eat enough of the ginger-cakes to satisfy even his Nellie.

Not even Daisy, who met with such a misfortune as that spoken of above, while at the tea-table, and who was perceived first by Nellie holding her tongue with one thumb and finger, while in the other hand she held out the ginger-cake, regarding it with a puzzled and disturbed expression.

"What's the matter, Daisy?" asked Nellie.

"Somefing stinged my tongue. I b'ieve it was a bee, and I eat him up," said Daisy, the ever ready tears starting to her eyes. They were excusable under the circumstances certainly.

"It has been a little bit of ginger," said Mrs. Ransom, who had suffered in a similar manner, but in silence. "Take some milk, my darling."

"O Daisy, I'm so sorry! I suppose I haven't mixed it well," said Nellie, looking horrified.

Daisy obeyed her mother's command, which brought relief to her smarting tongue, and then, turning to Nellie with a most benignant smile, said, —

"You needn't mind, Nellie. I'd just as lieve have my tongue bited for your ginger-cakes. Papa," she added, turning to her father, "I s'pose you're going to be busy after tea, ar'n't you?"

"No, papa has nothing to do but to rest himself this evening," answered Mr. Ransom.

"Oh dear!" sighed Daisy, taking her tongue between thumb and finger again.

"Do you want papa to be busy?" asked Mr. Ransom.

"I fought you would be," said Daisy, who found it extremely inconvenient not to be able to pet the injured member and to talk at the same moment. "I s'posed you'd have to undo that big parcel that's in the hall closet; and I fought my tongue would feel a good deal better to know what's inside of it."

"Oh! that is it, is it?" said Mr. Ransom. "Well, yes, I believe I have that little business to attend to, so your tongue may get well right away, Daisy."

Having finished his tea, Mr. Ransom now rose and went out into the hall, returning with the great parcel which had so excited the curiosity of his little daughter. This he put down upon the floor beside his chair, went out once more, and came back again with two smaller parcels. These he put upon the table, and took his seat before all three.

Daisy's excitement hardly knew bounds now, especially when there came from within one of the smaller parcels a little rustle, as though something alive was inside. Still, her attention was principally taken up with the "biggest one of all;" and, to her great delight, this was the first papa opened.