Bessie at the Sea-Side

"Wake up wide, Maggie! Only look! Did you ever see such a thing?"

Maggie opened her eyes, and sat up beside Bessie. On the foot of the bed – one on Maggie's side, one on Bessie's – were two boxes. On each sat a large doll – and such dolls! They had beautiful faces, waxen hands and feet, and what Bessie called "live hair, yeal live hair." They were dressed in little white night-gowns, and sat there before the surprised and delighted children as if they had themselves just wakened from sleep. Maggie threw off the bed-covers, scrambled down to the foot of the bed, and seized the doll nearest to her.

"Who did it, Bessie?" she said.

"I don't know," said Bessie. "Mamma, I guess. I think they're for your birthday."

"Why, so I s'pose it is!" said Maggie. "Why don't you come and take yours, Bessie?"

"But it is not my birthday," said Bessie, creeping down to where her sister sat. "I don't believe somebody gave me one; but you will let me play with one; wont you, Maggie?"

"Bessie, if anybody did be so foolish as to give me two such beautiful dolls, do you think I'd keep them both myself, and not give you one? Indeed, I wouldn't. And even if they only gave me one, I'd let it be half yours, Bessie."

Bessie put her arm about her sister's neck and kissed her, and then took up the other doll.

"What cunning little ni'-gowns!" she said. "I wonder if they have any day clo's."

"Maybe they're in these boxes," said Maggie. "I'm going to look. Gracie Howard's aunt did a very unkind, selfish thing. She gave her a great big doll with not a thing to put on it. I don't believe anybody would do so to us. Oh, no! here's lots and lots of clo's! Pull off your cover quick, Bessie. Oh, I am so very, very pleased! I know mamma did it. I don't believe anybody else would be so kind. See, there's a white frock and a silk frock and a muslin one, and – oh! goody, goody! – a sweet little sack and a round hat, and petticoats and drawers and everything! Why don't you look at yours, Bessie, and see if they are just the same?"

"Yes," said Bessie; "they are, and here's shoes and stockings, and oh! such a cunning parasol, and here's – oh, Maggie, here's the dear little cap that I saw in Mrs. Yush's drawer the day the colonel sent me to find his knife! Why, she must have done it!"

"And look here, Bessie, at this dear little petticoat all 'broidered. That's the very pattern we saw Aunt Annie working the day that 'bomnable Miss Adams pulled your hair. Isn't it pretty?"

"And see, Maggie! Mrs. Yush was sewing on a piece of silk just like this dear little dress, and she wouldn't tell us what it was. I do believe she did it, and Aunt Annie and maybe the colonel."

"How could the colonel make dolls' clothes?" said Maggie. "Men can't sew."

"Soldier men can," said Bessie. "Don't you yemember how Colonel Yush told us he had to sew on his buttons? But I did not mean he made the dolly's clothes, only maybe he gave us the dolls, and Mrs. Yush and Aunt Annie made their things. Oh, here's another ni'-gown, – two ni'-gowns!"

"Yes," said Maggie. "I was counting, and there's two ni'-gowns, and two chemise, and two everything, except only dresses, and there's four of those, and they're all marked like our things, – 'Bessie,' for yours, and 'Maggie' for mine. Oh, what a happy birthday! Bessie, I'm so glad you've got a doll too! Oh, I'm so very gratified!"

"I have something nice for you too, Maggie. Please give me my slippers, and I'll go and get it."

Maggie leaned over the side of the trundle-bed, to reach her sister's slippers, but what she saw there quite made her forget them. She gave a little scream of pleasure, and began hugging up her knees and rolling about the bed squealing with delight. Bessie crept to the edge of the bed, and peeped over. There stood two little perambulators, just of the right size for the new dolls, and in each, lay neatly folded, a tiny affghan.

When this new excitement was over, Bessie put on her slippers and went for her present for Maggie. This was a little brown morocco work-bag, lined with blue silk, and fitted up with scissors, thimble, bodkin, and several other things. She gave it to her sister saying, "I make you many happy yeturns, dear Maggie." Then Maggie had another fit of rolling, tumbling, and screaming, until nurse, who was watching the children from her bed, though they did not know it, could stand it no longer, but broke into a hearty laugh.

"Now, nursey," said Maggie.

"Is it a pig or a puppy we have got here for a birthday?" said nurse. "Sure, it is a happy one I wish you, my pet, and many of 'em, and may you never want for nothing more than you do now. Now don't you make such a noise there, and wake Franky. I s'pose I may just as well get up and wash and dress you, for there'll be no more sleep, I'm thinking."

"Who gave us these dolls and all these things, nursey?" asked Maggie.

"Indeed, then, Bessie was just right," said nurse. "Colonel Rush gave you the dolls, and his wife, with Miss Annie, made the clothes; and did you ever see dolls that had such a fittin' out? It was your mamma that bought the wagons and made the blankets."

"We didn't see her," said Bessie.

"No, but she did them when you were out or asleep; but you see Mrs. Rush and Miss Annie had to be working all the time on the clothes, lest they wouldn't be done; and you're round there so much, they had to let you see."

"But we never knew," said Maggie.

The children could scarcely keep still long enough to let nurse bathe and dress them; but at last it was done, and then the dolls were dressed, and the rest of the clothes put nicely away in the boxes. As soon as baby awoke, they were off to their mamma's room, scrambling up on the bed to show their treasures, and talking as fast as their tongues could go.

"I was so very surprised, mamma!" said Maggie.

"You were not; were you, Bessie?" said mamma, laughing.

"Why, yes, I was."

"Didn't you see or hear something last night?" asked mamma.

Bessie looked at her mother for a minute, and then exclaimed, "Oh, yes, I do yemember, now! Maggie, last night I woke up and somebody was laughing, and I thought it was Aunt Annie; but when I opened my eyes, only mamma was there, and when I asked her where Aunt Annie was, she said, 'Go to sleep; you shall see Aunt Annie in the morning.' Mamma, I thought you came to kiss us, as you do every night before you go to bed. I suppose you put the dolls there that time?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Bradford.

"That's what I call being mysteyious," said Bessie.

"Do you like people to be mysterious, Bessie?" asked her father, laughing.

"About dolls, I do, papa; but about some things, I don't."

"What things?"

"When they're going to say what they don't want me to hear, and they send me out of the yoom. I don't like that way of being mysteyious at all. It hurts children's feelings very much to be sent out of the yoom."

"What are these magnificent young ladies to be named?" asked Uncle John, at the breakfast-table.

"Mine is to be Bessie Margaret Marion," said Maggie, – "after mamma and Bessie and Mrs. Rush."

"Why, all your dolls are named Bessie," said Harry; "there are big Bessie and little Bessie and middling Bessie."

"I don't care," said Maggie; "this is going to be Bessie too. She will have two other names, so it will be very nice. Besides, I am not going to play with middling Bessie again. The paint is all off her cheeks, and Franky smashed her nose in, and yesterday I picked out her eyes, to see what made them open and shut, so she is not very pretty any more. I am going to let Susie have her."

"And what is yours to be, Bessie?"

"Margayet Colonel Hoyace Yush Byadford," said Bessie, trying very hard to pronounce her r's.

The boys shouted and even the grown people laughed.

"That is a regular boy's name, – all except the Margaret," said Fred, "and the Colonel is no name at all."

"It is," said Bessie, – "it is my own dear soldier's, and it is going to be my dolly's. You're bad to laugh at it, Fred."

"Do not be vexed, my little girl," said her father. "Colonel is not a name; it is only a title given to a man because he commands a regiment of soldiers. Now young ladies do not command regiments, and Horace is a man's name. You may call your doll what you please, but suppose you were to name her Horatia; would not that sound better?"

But Bessie held fast to the Horace; it was her soldier's name, and she was quite determined to give her doll the same.

After breakfast, Mrs. Bradford called Maggie up stairs for a while. "Maggie, dear," she said, when she had taken the little girl up into her lap, "have you remembered this morning that our Father in heaven has brought you to the beginning of another year of your life?"