"She is such a horrid _blue_. It's all very well for her to dance, and mix the rainbow, and sprinkle the dew upon her flowers, and wear the evening star on her forehead, if she does not find its weight oppressive--that's all feminine enough. But when she tries to come over us as an _esprit fort_--a strong-minded woman--it's rather too much.

Oxygen and hydrogen, and all the _ologies_--I never can stand that sort of thing in a woman."

"Just as if we had not a right to knowledge as well as the lords of the creation! And besides, I want to know, Master Charlie, which is the most disgusting--for a woman to lisp learning, or for a man to talk politics, as the creatures will do!"

"Oh, I beg your pardon--I very humbly retract, my dear Coz. I must use the words of that sensible 'c.o.o.n, who has earned immortality by meeting his death like a philosopher--'Is that you, Captain Scott?' 'Yes.' 'Then you need not fire--don't take the trouble to raise your rifle--if it's you, Captain Scott, I might as well come down.' So, if it's you, Miss Cornelia Wyndham, you can spare your shot, for I'll come down at once;--I would rather face the Woman's Rights' Convention, in full conclave a.s.sembled, than my Cousin Cornelia, when she stands up for the rights of her s.e.x to be pedantic and disagreeable!"

"I was quite amused at the Queen's experiments in education," said Mr.

Wyndham. "She is not the only one who has tried to force knowledge upon unwilling minds, and to develop children as we would spring peas and asparagus, by subjecting them to hot-house stimulants. These fancy methods of training the young idea do not appear to succeed very well; to see some of the cards used in infant schools, and to read occasional school advertis.e.m.e.nts, you would deem it quite impossible that any dunces could escape the elevating processes now applied to the unfortunate little ones--yet, happily, the const.i.tutions of most children are very elastic, and there are not as many instances of dropsy on the brain as we might expect."

"I wonder the Fairy did not take a hint from the bees," remarked Mary.

"How is that? Have they any particular mode of training?"

"Very much so: when they want to rear up a sovereign who shall be fitted to govern the hive with wisdom, they take any one of their hundred little grubs at random, and put it under tutors and governors. These cram it, not with lectures on political economy, books on international law, or any thing of that sort, but with food much more to its taste--the very best honey, and a kind of _royal food_, which I suppose it is considered high treason for a subject to touch. Day by day, the grub becomes more and more the princess, and finally expands into queenly magnificence, when, of course, she must have a hive of her own, or do as Dido of Tyre--colonize, and found a Carthage."

"Quite amusing! But is it true?"

"Yes, actually; and if only some such process could be applied to children, would it not save trouble?"

"And wouldn't we like it!" cried George Wyndham, "Ah, but I'd make a bonfire of my Euclid and Virgil, and all the other worthies, or bury them, as the fellows do yearly at Yale College--I had much rather be fed with some essence of knowledge, like the bees."

"This talk about fancy modes of mental culture," remarked Mr. Wyndham, "reminds me of a Life I lately read of Mr. Day, the author of that delightful book, Sandford and Merton. He was a remarkably benevolent and excellent man, but visionary, and had some peculiar crotchets about education. When quite a young man, he took charge of two poor, pretty orphan girls, and had them trained up in accordance with his own ideas, intending to make one of them his wife. Both grew to be fine women, but to spoil the romance, fell in love with other men! so that he enjoyed the pleasure of sedulously educating good wives for two worthy tradesmen, and being left in the lurch himself. A second experiment turned out yet worse, for it cost him his life: he had doubtless had enough of girls, so he took another animal, which he thought might be tamer and more tractable--a horse. He would not allow it to be broken in the usual method, which he considered very cruel: he would talk to it, caress it, make it his friend, win it by kindness. But unfortunately for his experiment, the horse killed him, by a kick, I believe, before it had succeeded."

"Poor Day! Uncle, you remind me of the cow that the man wanted to train so as to consider eating a superfluity--she was coming on admirably, but unfortunately for the full success of the experiment, she perversely died, the very day her owner had reduced her to one straw."

"How very unlucky!"

"Aunt Lucy," said Alice, "when Ellen gave us the Queen's theorizing in education, I could not help thinking of the old saw, 'Bachelors' wives and old maids' bairns are always the best guided.' It's very easy to manage _dream_ children; but when you come to real flesh and blood, it's quite another matter. It does not appear to me that all this systematizing and speculation does much good."

"Not a bit of it," cried George Wyndham. "We boys must be boys to the end of the chapter; and I tell you, some of us are pretty tough subjects! The only hope is that we may turn out not quite so horrid, when we grow up."

"I once heard a plan proposed for getting rid of boys of your age, brother George," said Cornelia.

"Much obliged; what was that?"

"To bury them at seven, and dig them out at seventeen; how do you like it?"

"'Tis a bad plan. There would be n.o.body left in the world to run errands for older sisters--it would never do."

"When little Rudolph was so fond of his vegetable friends," said Mary, "and found them so good, so sweet, so much to his taste, I thought of an account I had somewhere read, written, I think, by the witty Sydney Smith, of a conversation a new missionary in the South Sea islands held about his predecessor, who had been eaten by the cannibals. He asked the natives if they had known him--we will call him Mr. Brown, as it's rather fabulous. 'Mr. Brown? Oh yes! very good man--Mr. Brown! very good.' 'And did you know his family?' 'Oh yes! such sweet little children! so nice and tender! But Mrs. Brown was a bad woman--she was _so very tough_.' She was not to their taste."

"But, Cousin Ellen," said Amy, "I want to know about those vegetable friends of Rudolph. I know that Capsic.u.m is a kind of pepper, and I have often met Nasturtium, crowned with his orange-flowers; I suppose, of course, that Solanum and Farinacea are potatoes--but who is that sharp Cochlearia, who told Solanum he was a mealy-mouthed fellow?"

"Horse-radish--which Solanum thought enough to bring tears into anybody's eyes."

"And Daucus--was he a carrot?"

"Yes; and Rapha.n.u.s, with his brilliant complexion, was a radish. Maranta was arrow-root, Zea was Indian corn, and Bra.s.sica, a turnip--we often enjoy their society at table."

"I shall always think of Cochlearia when I eat horse-radish on my beef,"

said Charlie Bolton. "Especially when I take too much, by mistake."

"And when I find, to my sorrow, that potatoes have hearts I shall think of Solanum."

CHAPTER III.

THE RHYMING GAME.--ORIKAMA, OR THE WHITE WATER LILY, AN INDIAN TALE.

Great was the chagrin of our young party on the following morning, to find that a storm had set in, giving no prospect of amus.e.m.e.nts out of doors for the day: the rain came down in a determined manner, as if it had no intention of clearing up for a week, and the winds whistled and scolded in every variety of note; even the boys, who prided themselves upon a manly contempt for wind and weather, agreed that the chimney corner was the best place under the circ.u.mstances, and that they must try to make themselves as agreeable as possible at home. Cornelia quoted, for the benefit of the rest, a receipt she had somewhere met with for the "manufacture of sunshine," which she thought would be especially valuable on such a darksome day: "Take a good handful of industry, mix it thoroughly with family love, and season well with good-nature and mutual forbearance. Gradually stir in smiles, and jokes, and laughter, to make it light, but take care these ingredients do not run over, or it will make a cloud instead of what you wish. Follow this receipt carefully, and you have an excellent supply of sunshine, warranted to keep in all weathers."

Accordingly, it was resolved to make sunshine, and Aunt Lucy offered to provide the industry, if they would furnish the other materials. Soon were heaps of flannel and other stout fabrics produced from her "Dorcas closet," as she called it, in which her provisions for the poor were laid up, in nice order; for even in our happy land does it hold true that "the poor ye have always with you, and whensoever ye _will_ ye may do them good," and kind Aunt Lucy was not one to neglect this duty. On the day preceding Christmas, according to her principle of making as many happy as possible, she had ordered a barrel of flour to be baked into cakes and pies, and had distributed them, along with a turkey and a bushel of potatoes to each, among all the poor families of the neighborhood; and this was only one specimen of the numerous kindly acts by which she drew together the hearts of all around her, and made them realize the Christian brotherhood of man. Where there were children, she made them happy by the present of a few penny toys; a very cheap investment, yielding a large return of rapture! She could never deny herself the pleasure of giving these little offerings of love with her own hands, and wishing her poor neighbors a "Happy Christmas;" and on this occasion she had learnt the dest.i.tution of a poor widow, who struggled hard to support her young family and to maintain a decent appearance, but who was now laid up with sickness, and unable to provide clothing and fuel for herself and her little ones. Mr. Wyndham had immediately sent her a load of wood, and his wife was now anxious to furnish the necessary garments. The young girls were rejoiced to aid in the good work, and soon all fingers were busy, and needles were in swift operation; while the boys took turns in the entertainment of the sewers, by alternately reading aloud from a pleasant book. Tom Green was an excellent reader; his agreeable tones of voice made it a pleasure to listen to him, and his clear articulation and varied expression added greatly to the interest of the narrative. Why is it that this desirable accomplishment, which promotes so much the happiness of the home circle, is not more cultivated?

After dinner, Charlie Bolton proposed some games, as he said that quite enough of industry and gravity had been put into the preparation, and he feared the sunshine would not be properly made without the smiles, jokes, and laughter spoken of in the receipt. "How do those lines of Milton run, Ellen, in L'Allegro? my favorite piece--before the old fellow got to be so very sublime, as he is in the Paradise Lost."

"You irreverent jackanapes! to speak so of the immortal bard! I suppose you mean,

'But come, thou G.o.ddess fair and free, In Heaven yclept Euphrosyne, And by men, heart-easing mirth; Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee Jest, and youthful jollity, Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles, Such as hang on Hebe's cheek, And love to live in dimple sleek: Sport, that wrinkled Care derides, And Laughter, holding both his sides.'"

"That is the pa.s.sage I mean, and that is the very company I should like to invite, if the rest have no objection."

All approved of the suggestion, and soon the whole party was busily engaged in various lively games, "Graces," "Battledore and Shuttlec.o.c.k,"

"Hunt the Slipper," etc., which combined bodily exercise with healthful excitement of the mirthful organs, which some philosophers a.s.sert to be, after all, the distinguishing trait of mankind. Some call man a "thinking animal," but this is so self-evident a slander upon the great majority of the species, that no words are needed to refute it: one attempted to define him as "a biped without feathers," but when a plucked fowl was brought forward as a specimen of his man, he was obliged to give up that definition. Others again describe him as "a cooking animal," but while dogs can act as turnspits, and monkeys can roast chestnuts, he cannot claim this lofty epithet as peculiarly his own; besides, some savages have been found so degraded as to be unacquainted with the use of fire. But wherever man is found, whether under the heats of an African sun, or shivering in the cold of a Lapland winter, upon the steppes of Tartary, or the pampas of South America, his joyful laughter shows that he is a man, intended for social life and for happiness. 'Tis true, we read of the _hyena laugh_, but we protest against such a misapplication of terms: the fierce, mocking yell of that ferocious creature has nothing in common with hearty, genial, human laughter: other animals can weep, but man alone can laugh. And how great a refreshment is it! It relieves the overtasked brain, and the heart laden with cares; it makes the blood dance in the veins of youth, and gives a new impetus to the spirits; work goes on more briskly, when a gay heart sets the active powers in motion. Well did the Wise King say, "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine:" it keeps off gray hairs and wrinkles, better than any cosmetic that ever was invented. The ancient Greeks realized its value, when they placed a jester in the society of their G.o.ds upon Olympus: as their deities were clothed with human attributes, they did not omit to provide for their amus.e.m.e.nt.

The young ladies were not too dignified and fastidious, nor Aunt Lucy too wise to join in the sports, and the old lady's spectacles and cap did not feel at all insulted when the handkerchief was tied round them in "Blind Man's Buff," and the hall rang with the jocund shouts of the children, whose greater activity eluded her grasp. When even the youngest acknowledged that they had enjoyed enough romping for one day, Mary proposed a new amus.e.m.e.nt of a quieter character, which she had just heard of, ent.i.tled "the Rhyming Game." As it was found very pleasant, I will give a specimen, that the reader may try it of a winter's evening.

One person thinks of a word, but instead of naming it, mentions another with which it rhymes; the next thinks of another rhyme, which is to be _described_, not spoken, and then the leader of the game, guessing from the description what word is meant, says it is, or it is not, such a thing. And so all round the circle.

"I've thought of a word that rhymes with _sat_," said Mary.

"Is it that sly animal of the tiger species which is domesticated by man, and delights to steal the cream and to torture poor little mice?"

said Amy.

"No, it is not a _cat_."

"Is it that useful article which covers the floor in summer, that is on the dinner-table every day in the year, and may be seen behind or before almost every front door?" said Cornelia.

"No, it is not a _mat_."

"Is it that nondescript winged quadruped, something like a bird, something like a mouse, something like a kangaroo, which troubles us sometimes of a summer's evening, by flying about the room and entangling itself in our hair?" said Ellen.

"No, it is not a _bat_."

"Is it that other agreeable creature, which infests old houses, but is prudent enough to leave them when they begin to fall down: that is very voracious, and sometimes eats babies' noses off?" said Tom.