CHAPTER XV.
A DAY IN THE NURSERY.
Have I said that George Washington—and, of course, Martha—had accompanied the children to town when they returned home? He became as much an institution at No. 25——Street as at Marbury. He had his apartments in the nursery, and behaved himself very haughtily to the kitchen cat, when the latter was occasionally brought up from the regions below for a visit.
George Washington had grown up to be a big, black, lustrous creature, with emerald eyes, and a bit of white fur under his chin, just like a cravat. The boys called him the bishop for his stateliness. He no longer played with Martha, nor chased her around. Unmolested, she waved proudly over his back in a stately curve.
George Washington was moderately obedient, but went his own way just often enough to assert his perfect independence. He submitted with quiet dignity to the many performances that the children put him through, yet if they went a step too far, he would look at them so severely with his emerald eyes that the mere glance would immediately make them change their minds and pretend they meant something altogether different.
Thursday was Eliza’s afternoon out. On this particular Thursday, Marjorie was left in charge of the nursery. Mamma was obliged to attend some important club meeting, and Eunice and Cricket had gone to see Emily Drayton. It was a damp, drizzling day, so that the little nursery people could not get their usual walk, and they all missed it. Zaidie, particularly, was always very dependent upon the out-of-door exercise, which her vigorous little body needed.
Marjorie, who often took charge of the nursery in Eliza’s off-days, sat reading by the broad window, curled up on the window-seat, while the children played about the room. As they were always used to entertaining themselves, and were usually left, as far as possible, to their own devices, the person in charge only needed to keep a general oversight.
The twins were playing church, which was one of their favourite amusements. George Washington was the minister. He was clad in a doll’s petticoat, fastened about his neck for a surplice, and a black ribbon for a stole. He was sitting up in state behind a pile of books that served for a lectern. He knew his part perfectly, and sat as still as any bishop. By pinching his tail very slightly and carefully, he could be made to mew at the proper moments, without disturbing him much.
Helen played the mother, bringing her child, Zaidie, to church. Zaidie, of course, pretended she was a naughty girl, and talked out loud in service. Kenneth played the father, who was to take Zaidie out of church, when she grew too naughty. It was also his business to pinch George Washington’s tail at the right time,—which was whenever Zaidie gave him orders. Just a little pinch, most carefully given, was all that was required, but now and then Kenneth forgot, and gave too hard a squeeze. When this happened, George Washington turned and slapped at them with his paw, with a very emphatic mew, which plainly meant, “I am quite willing to do my part towards your amusement, but if you take too many liberties, I won’t play.”
On one of these occasions, Zaidie suddenly stopped in the midst of a pretended roar at having her ears boxed by Helen,—very tenderly boxed,—and listened.
“I don’t think that George Washington has his usual kind of mew to-day,” she said, criticisingly. “Don’t you think he squeaks a little?”
Helen listened, with her head on one side.
“Pinch him again, Kenneth,” she said. “Just a little, very carefully. Yes, I think he does squeak. Do you think he is getting rusty inside? He drinks a lot of water, and it made the sewing-machine all rusty when you poured water over it.”
Here George Washington mewed again vigorously, in response to Kenneth’s invitation.
“Where does the mew come from, I wonder,” said Zaidie, thoughtfully, surveying the cat. “Is it in his mouth, or down in his throat?”
She poked her fingers in his mouth, and felt around a little. George Washington rebelled.
“Don’t scratch me, George. I aren’t hurting you a bit,” said Zaidie, reprovingly. “I want to know where your mew is, cause, if it’s getting rusty, I’m going to oil you, same as ’Liza does the machine.”
“Can cats be oiled?” asked Helen, doubtfully.
“Oh, yes, I ’xpect so,” returned Zaidie, cheerfully. “Don’t you think so? Don’t you s’pose they get dried up inside sometimes? Kenneth’s little squeaky lamb does. I’ll get the machine-oiler.”
Marjorie, curled up on the window-seat, did not heed the children’s chatter. Zaidie got the little machine-can, which once, in an evil hour, Eliza had shown her how to use.
“Mew again, George Washington,” ordered Zaidie, “so I can find out where it comes from. If he mews in his mouth, I can put the oil on his tongue.”
A slight pinch immediately brought an answer from George Washington. Zaidie listened carefully, with her ear close at his head.
“It isn’t in his mouth,” she said, positively. “I think it’s down his throat. How can I oil him down there? I’m afraid I’ll hurt him if I stick this long end down.”
“Do you s’pose those little holes in his ears are oil-holes?” asked Helen, brightening.
Zaidie immediately experimented with her tiny finger, much to George Washington’s disgust.
“They go pretty far down,” she said, soothing and petting him.
“Never mind, I’m not going to hurt you,” she said, reassuringly. “I’m just going to put some nice, soft oil down your little oil-holes, and then you’ll feel so better, you can’t think! Your voice is all rusty. ’Liza says things won’t go if they’re rusty, and bimeby your voice won’t go, and you’d be sorry, for you like to talk, you know.”
As she spoke, Zaidie tried to poke the oil-can down his ears. George Washington jerked away.
“Here, Helen, you hold his hands, and Kenneth, you hold his feet tight. That’s right. Don’t let go,” ordered Zaidie, getting her assistants into place. “Now, George, I won’t hurt you much, and it’s for your own good, you know,” with a funny imitation of Eliza’s tone.
Zaidie tipped the little oil-can and poked it carefully down into George Washington’s unwilling ear. It tickled him, and he shook his head impatiently. The children held him rigidly, and Zaidie let the cold oil trickle down. At the first touch of it, George Washington gave a wild yelp, and with extended claws and uprising fur, he sprang from the children’s grasp, leaving such a dig in Kenneth’s soft little hand that he immediately set up an unearthly howl, which brought Marjorie to the rescue.
The astonished twins stood staring at each other. Marjorie took up Kenneth in her arms, kissed the hurt place, and asked the children what they had been doing to excite George Washington to such an unusual pitch of wrath.
“We only tried to oil him in his little oil-holes in his ears, ’cause he squeaked so, Marjorie,” explained bewildered Zaidie, “and I don’t believe he liked it. But his voice was dreffully rusty,—truly it was.”
“Oil him?” said Marjorie. “You absurd child! Animals don’t need oiling.”
“Yes, they do,” insisted Zaidie. “’Liza oiled Kenneth’s baa-lamb the other day. The big woolly one, up there, you know. She oiled it down in its squeaks. And she rubbed something greasy on my chest when I had the croup. Don’t you remember how my breath squeaked? She said she oiled me. There!”
“Oh, you funny little things!” said Marjorie, laughing at them. “Well, don’t try it again, anyway, on George Washington. He doesn’t like it, you see, and you don’t want to be scratched, do you? Don’t cry any more, baby, dear. You’re a little man, and men don’t cry for a scratch like that, you know.”
Marjorie set the children playing something else, and then returned to her book. She was usually a capable and efficient guardian in the nursery, eldest-daughter fashion, but this afternoon she was deep in a fascinating book that must go back to the library to-morrow. In two minutes she was absorbed in it again, to the exclusion of her little charges.
Zaidie looked around for pastures new. The children were not usually a mischievous set, but now and then, like grown people, they delighted in the unexpected.
As Helen wanted a drink, all three trooped into the nursery bathroom, which opened off the nursery. It was a pretty bathroom, with the walls covered with blue and white sanitary paper, in a pretty tile-pattern, each tile having on it a Mother-Goose figure. A big, white, fur rug lay by the white porcelain bath-tub. A small water-cooler stood on a shelf, low enough for the children to help themselves to water.
After the little flock had been watered all around, Zaidie’s quick eyes spied a bottle of vaseline on the wash-stand. It had been left there by mistake. All those things were generally put away in a little medicine closet, safely out of the children’s reach. It was quite a good-sized jar, and entirely full. Zaidie took out the cork.
“I think I’ve got a sore spot on me somewhere,” she said, feeling carefully all over her face. “I think I need some vasling on it. Do you see a sore spot on me, Helen?”
Helen looked, but could not find any place that seemed to need vaseline, even after the closest study of Zaidie’s round, satin-cheeked little face.
“Put it on anywhere,” she advised. “Perhaps it may get sore, and then the vasling will be already on.”
Smearing vaseline all over Zaidie’s face led, of course, to bedaubing Helen and Kenneth, also, with a liberal plaster of the sticky stuff.
“Doesn’t it stay on beautifully? Let’s paint the bathroom with it?” suggested Zaidie, “and make it all pretty. We can take our teeth-brushes.”
This idea was an inspiration. In a moment, arming themselves with their tooth-brushes, the children fell energetically to work. In five minutes the bathroom was a perfect bower of vaseline, and the small workers were sticky from head to foot.
Meanwhile Marjorie read on, obliviously.
“Doesn’t it make the room look beautiful?” cried Zaidie, rapturously. “I guess ’Liza’ll be pleased when she sees how pretty we’ve made it. And see the wood, too. It shines splendidly.”
Here an unguarded flourish on Kenneth’s part left a long smear of vaseline on Zaidie’s short, smooth locks.
“Oh, it makes it look like mine!” exclaimed Helen, struck by the yellow gleam on Zaidie’s black hair.
“Does it?” asked Zaidie, eagerly. Each little girl was smitten with a boundless admiration of the other’s hair, for Helen’s fluffy corn-silk mop was a great trial to her quiet little soul, and she admired Zaidie’s smooth, silky black hair, with all her heart; while Zaidie, on the other hand, longed to possess Helen’s golden tangle.
“Put vasling thick all over my head,” she demanded, instantly, “to make it yellow. Perhaps mamma will let me wear it all the time, and then perhaps it will grow yellow like yours. I’d love that.”
“Then I wish I could make mine black like yours,” sighed Helen, wistfully. “Couldn’t I paint it, do you suppose?”
Zaidie clapped her hands over this delightful idea.
“Then we would have changed hairs! What fun! Let’s find something to paint it with, Helen. Here’s ’Liza’s shoe-blacking. Wouldn’t that do? It makes her shoes so shiny and black.”
At the sight of the black liquid, dainty Helen shrunk back a little.
“It—it wouldn’t get on my face, would it?” she asked, doubtfully. “I’d like to paint my hair, but I don’t want my face painted too.”
“Pooh, no!” said Zaidie, drawing out the sponge. “We’ll be careful. Now hold very still, Helen.”
The little hair-dresser drew a long dab with the dripping sponge over Helen’s yellow curls. Helen held her breath. Zaidie repeated the dabs, growing more reckless, till a careless flirt of the sponge sent a liberal spatter down Helen’s face, and on her white apron.
“Ow! ow!” wailed Helen, who could bear a scratch better than dirt, or a stain. She instinctively put up her hands to her face, to rub it dry, and, of course, her hands were all streaked, also.
“There, Zaidie!” she half sobbed, “you have painted my face, too, ‘n’ I’m afraid it won’t come off, and I’ll have to go round looking like a little nigger-girl!”
At this tragic picture, Zaidie looked frightened, and instantly applied her wee handkerchief, with dire results to the handkerchief, and no good effect on the face.
“See how her looks!” cried Kenneth, gleefully, with his hands deep in his small trousers’ pockets.
Helen wailed. There were large tracts of shoe-polish on her pearly skin, and her tears chased little furrows along them. Zaidie scrubbed harder and harder with her handkerchief, but she began to grow rather frightened at the results of her painting.
“It doesn’t come off very well,” she admitted at last, pausing in some dismay. “And I don’t think I like your hair painted, anyway, Helen. It looks so mixy, you know.”
Truly, poor little Helen was a spectacle. Her soft hair was plastered down in black patches on her forehead, and big drops of blacking, gathering on the end of each plastered lock, dropped down on her nose and cheeks. Of course it did not stick where the vaseline had been rubbed, so her face was well smeared with a mixture of greasiness and shoe-polish. Her white apron was well spattered, and her hands were, by this time, like a little blackamoor’s.
“Her won’t ever get white any more, I ’xpect,” said Kenneth, cheerfully. “I blacked my Noah’s Ark once, and it didn’t ever come off. Don’t you remember?”
Here the children’s feelings completely overcame them, and Zaidie and Helen set up a shriek in concert that brought Marjorie to the bathroom.
“Oh, you naughty, naughty children!” she cried, in blank despair. “How shall I ever get you clean? Shoe-polish? Oh, horrors!”
Marjorie was really frightened lest the stain should not come out of Helen’s hair.
Zaidie roared louder, and Helen sobbed, while Kenneth, suddenly overcome by sympathy, added his voice to the uproar.
“Children, how could you?” said Marjorie again, walking around Helen, and wondering where to get hold of her best.
“You ought to have come here and told us to don’t,” sobbed Zaidie. “We always don’t when ’Liza tells us to. You readed and readed all the time, and you never told us to don’t.”
“Don’t shriek so, Zaidie; I’m not deaf,” said Marjorie, ignoring the other point for the present. “Don’t cry so, Helen. You may get the blacking in your eyes. Stand still, and I’ll try to strip your clothes off. Don’t touch me, dear, or you’ll stain my things.”
“Whatever’s the matter, Miss Marjorie?” said Eliza’s voice from the doorway. “Oh, you naughty children! How have you been and gone and gotten yourselves into such a mess?”
“Oh, ’Liza!” cried Marjorie, thankfully. “I’m so glad you’ve come! Will this black ever come out of her hair?”
“Land knows! Did I ever see such a place in all my born days?” casting a hurried glance around at the sticky, shiny bathroom.
“She readed all the time, and she didn’t ever tell us to don’t,” said Zaidie, pointing a reproachful finger at Marjorie, and thereby easing her own small conscience of a load.
“I jest guess you knew better’n that yourself,” said ’Liza. “But how could you let ’em do so, Miss Marjorie?”
“I was so interested in my book,” stammered conscience-stricken Marjorie. “They’re usually so good, you know.”
“When you take care of children, you’ve got to take care of children,” returned Eliza, somewhat tartly. “’Taint all their badness. I dunno what their mother will say to it all. You go on, Miss Marjorie. I’ll tend right up to ’em now, myself. Shoe-polish, of all things! Hope to goodness I’ll get it out of that child’s hair.”
Eliza’s deft, experienced fingers flew while she talked. Only stopping to throw off her out-of-door things, she had turned the water on in the bath-tub, had taken a cloth and wiped off the sides of the tub, which were reeking with vaseline, and had gotten hold of Helen at arm’s length and stripped her clothes off. She plunged the sobbing, frightened child in the tub, and began scrubbing her vigorously.
Marjorie retreated, feeling very low in her mind, because she had so neglected her little charges in the nursery. Mrs. Ward was always strict about the thorough, conscientious performance of any duty, and would never overlook any carelessness or neglect, either from children or servants. Besides the thought of her mother’s displeasure because she had not been faithful, she was really dreadfully worried lest the black stain should not come out of Helen’s hair. Kenneth was only just beginning to look like himself again, after his last-summer experience with the fire. It would be such a shame if Helen had to lose her lovely hair, too.
An hour later the nursery door opened and Helen, fresh and sweet and clean, ran joyfully across to Marjorie’s room.
“See! I’m all un-painted, Marjie! I’m never going to try to get black hair again,” she cried. “Look! it’s all out!” holding up with both hands her silken topknot, which, washed and dried, was shining again like spun gold.
“’Liza said she scrubbed me nearly out of the roots, but it’s all dry now, and the vasling is all off too. ’Liza doesn’t like the bathroom that way, either. She’s scrubbing the vasling off that now. I can’t stay any longer, ’cause ’Liza said only stay two minutes, else I’d get into some mischief here,—but I wouldn’t, truly.”
Marjorie winced, but there was nothing to be said. She kissed Helen and sent her back.
