The Classic Children's Literature Collection: 39 Classic Novels

by Various Authors

  “Come on,” said Sara; “I’m not a trap. You can have them, poor thing! Prisoners in the Bastille used to make friends with rats. Suppose I make friends with you.”

  How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words and everything in the world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul. But whatsoever was the reason, the rat knew from that moment that he was safe—even though he was a rat. He knew that this young human being sitting on the red footstool would not jump up and terrify him with wild, sharp noises or throw heavy objects at him which, if they did not fall and crush him, would send him limping in his scurry back to his hole. He was really a very nice rat, and did not mean the least harm. When he had stood on his hind legs and sniffed the air, with his bright eyes fixed on Sara, he had hoped that she would understand this, and would not begin by hating him as an enemy. When the mysterious thing which speaks without saying any words told him that she would not, he went softly toward the crumbs and began to eat them. As he did it he glanced every now and then at Sara, just as the sparrows had done, and his expression was so very apologetic that it touched her heart.

  She sat and watched him without making any movement. One crumb was very much larger than the others—in fact, it could scarcely be called a crumb. It was evident that he wanted that piece very much, but it lay quite near the footstool and he was still rather timid.

  “I believe he wants it to carry to his family in the wall,” Sara thought. “If I do not stir at all, perhaps he will come and get it.”

  She scarcely allowed herself to breathe, she was so deeply interested. The rat shuffled a little nearer and ate a few more crumbs, then he stopped and sniffed delicately, giving a side glance at the occupant of the footstool; then he darted at the piece of bun with something very like the sudden boldness of the sparrow, and the instant he had possession of it fled back to the wall, slipped down a crack in the skirting board, and was gone.

  “I knew he wanted it for his children,” said Sara. “I do believe I could make friends with him.”

  A week or so afterward, on one of the rare nights when Ermengarde found it safe to steal up to the attic, when she tapped on the door with the tips of her fingers Sara did not come to her for two or three minutes. There was, indeed, such a silence in the room at first that Ermengarde wondered if she could have fallen asleep. Then, to her surprise, she heard her utter a little, low laugh and speak coaxingly to someone.

  “There!” Ermengarde heard her say. “Take it and go home, Melchisedec! Go home to your wife!”

  Almost immediately Sara opened the door, and when she did so she found Ermengarde standing with alarmed eyes upon the threshold.

  “Who—who ARE you talking to, Sara?” she gasped out.

  Sara drew her in cautiously, but she looked as if something pleased and amused her.

  “You must promise not to be frightened—not to scream the least bit, or I can’t tell you,” she answered.

  Ermengarde felt almost inclined to scream on the spot, but managed to control herself. She looked all round the attic and saw no one. And yet Sara had certainly been speaking TO someone. She thought of ghosts.

  “Is it—something that will frighten me?” she asked timorously.

  “Some people are afraid of them,” said Sara. “I was at first—but I am not now.”

  “Was it—a ghost?” quaked Ermengarde.

  “No,” said Sara, laughing. “It was my rat.”

  Ermengarde made one bound, and landed in the middle of the little dingy bed. She tucked her feet under her nightgown and the red shawl. She did not scream, but she gasped with fright.

  “Oh! Oh!” she cried under her breath. “A rat! A rat!”

  “I was afraid you would be frightened,” said Sara. “But you needn’t be. I am making him tame. He actually knows me and comes out when I call him. Are you too frightened to want to see him?”

  The truth was that, as the days had gone on and, with the aid of scraps brought up from the kitchen, her curious friendship had developed, she had gradually forgotten that the timid creature she was becoming familiar with was a mere rat.

  At first Ermengarde was too much alarmed to do anything but huddle in a heap upon the bed and tuck up her feet, but the sight of Sara’s composed little countenance and the story of Melchisedec’s first appearance began at last to rouse her curiosity, and she leaned forward over the edge of the bed and watched Sara go and kneel down by the hole in the skirting board.

  “He—he won’t run out quickly and jump on the bed, will he?” she said.

  “No,” answered Sara. “He’s as polite as we are. He is just like a person. Now watch!”

  She began to make a low, whistling sound—so low and coaxing that it could only have been heard in entire stillness. She did it several times, looking entirely absorbed in it. Ermengarde thought she looked as if she were working a spell. And at last, evidently in response to it, a gray-whiskered, bright-eyed head peeped out of the hole. Sara had some crumbs in her hand. She dropped them, and Melchisedec came quietly forth and ate them. A piece of larger size than the rest he took and carried in the most businesslike manner back to his home.

  “You see,” said Sara, “that is for his wife and children. He is very nice. He only eats the little bits. After he goes back I can always hear his family squeaking for joy. There are three kinds of squeaks. One kind is the children’s, and one is Mrs. Melchisedec’s, and one is Melchisedec’s own.”

  Ermengarde began to laugh.

  “Oh, Sara!” she said. “You ARE queer—but you are nice.”

  “I know I am queer,” admitted Sara, cheerfully; “and I TRY to be nice.” She rubbed her forehead with her little brown paw, and a puzzled, tender look came into her face. “Papa always laughed at me,” she said; “but I liked it. He thought I was queer, but he liked me to make up things. I—I can’t help making up things. If I didn’t, I don’t believe I could live.” She paused and glanced around the attic. “I’m sure I couldn’t live here,” she added in a low voice.

  Ermengarde was interested, as she always was. “When you talk about things,” she said, “they seem as if they grew real. You talk about Melchisedec as if he was a person.”

  “He IS a person,” said Sara. “He gets hungry and frightened, just as we do; and he is married and has children. How do we know he doesn’t think things, just as we do? His eyes look as if he was a person. That was why I gave him a name.”

  She sat down on the floor in her favorite attitude, holding her knees.

  “Besides,” she said, “he is a Bastille rat sent to be my friend. I can always get a bit of bread the cook has thrown away, and it is quite enough to support him.”

  “Is it the Bastille yet?” asked Ermengarde, eagerly. “Do you always pretend it is the Bastille?”

  “Nearly always,” answered Sara. “Sometimes I try to pretend it is another kind of place; but the Bastille is generally easiest—particularly when it is cold.”

  Just at that moment Ermengarde almost jumped off the bed, she was so startled by a sound she heard. It was like two distinct knocks on the wall.

  “What is that?” she exclaimed.

  Sara got up from the floor and answered quite dramatically:

  “It is the prisoner in the next cell.”

  “Becky!” cried Ermengarde, enraptured.

  “Yes,” said Sara. “Listen; the two knocks meant, ‘Prisoner, are you there?’”

  She knocked three times on the wall herself, as if in answer.

  “That means, ‘Yes, I am here, and all is well.’”

  Four knocks came from Becky’s side of the wall.

  “That means,” explained Sara, “‘Then, fellow-sufferer, we will sleep in peace. Good
night.’”

  Ermengarde quite beamed with delight.

  “Oh, Sara!” she whispered joyfully. “It is like a story!”

  “It IS a story,” said Sara. “EVERYTHING’S a story. You are a story—I am a story. Miss Minchin is a story.”

  And she sat down again and talked until Ermengarde forgot that she was a sort of escaped prisoner herself, and had to be reminded by Sara that she could not remain in the Bastille all night, but must steal noiselessly downstairs again and creep back into her deserted bed.

  10.The Indian Gentleman

  But it was a perilous thing for Ermengarde and Lottie to make pilgrimages to the attic. They could never be quite sure when Sara would be there, and they could scarcely ever be certain that Miss Amelia would not make a tour of inspection through the bedrooms after the pupils were supposed to be asleep. So their visits were rare ones, and Sara lived a strange and lonely life. It was a lonelier life when she was downstairs than when she was in her attic. She had no one to talk to; and when she was sent out on errands and walked through the streets, a forlorn little figure carrying a basket or a parcel, trying to hold her hat on when the wind was blowing, and feeling the water soak through her shoes when it was raining, she felt as if the crowds hurrying past her made her loneliness greater. When she had been the Princess Sara, driving through the streets in her brougham, or walking, attended by Mariette, the sight of her bright, eager little face and picturesque coats and hats had often caused people to look after her. A happy, beautifully cared for little girl naturally attracts attention. Shabby, poorly dressed children are not rare enough and pretty enough to make people turn around to look at them and smile. No one looked at Sara in these days, and no one seemed to see her as she hurried along the crowded pavements. She had begun to grow very fast, and, as she was dressed only in such clothes as the plainer remnants of her wardrobe would supply, she knew she looked very queer, indeed. All her valuable garments had been disposed of, and such as had been left for her use she was expected to wear so long as she could put them on at all. Sometimes, when she passed a shop window with a mirror in it, she almost laughed outright on catching a glimpse of herself, and sometimes her face went red and she bit her lip and turned away.

  In the evening, when she passed houses whose windows were lighted up, she used to look into the warm rooms and amuse herself by imagining things about the people she saw sitting before the fires or about the tables. It always interested her to catch glimpses of rooms before the shutters were closed. There were several families in the square in which Miss Minchin lived, with which she had become quite familiar in a way of her own. The one she liked best she called the Large Family. She called it the Large Family not because the members of it were big—for, indeed, most of them were little—but because there were so many of them. There were eight children in the Large Family, and a stout, rosy mother, and a stout, rosy father, and a stout, rosy grandmother, and any number of servants. The eight children were always either being taken out to walk or to ride in perambulators by comfortable nurses, or they were going to drive with their mamma, or they were flying to the door in the evening to meet their papa and kiss him and dance around him and drag off his overcoat and look in the pockets for packages, or they were crowding about the nursery windows and looking out and pushing each other and laughing—in fact, they were always doing something enjoyable and suited to the tastes of a large family. Sara was quite fond of them, and had given them names out of books—quite romantic names. She called them the Montmorencys when she did not call them the Large Family. The fat, fair baby with the lace cap was Ethelberta Beauchamp Montmorency; the next baby was Violet Cholmondeley Montmorency; the little boy who could just stagger and who had such round legs was Sydney Cecil Vivian Montmorency; and then came Lilian Evangeline Maud Marion, Rosalind Gladys, Guy Clarence, Veronica Eustacia, and Claude Harold Hector.

  One evening a very funny thing happened—though, perhaps, in one sense it was not a funny thing at all.

  Several of the Montmorencys were evidently going to a children’s party, and just as Sara was about to pass the door they were crossing the pavement to get into the carriage which was waiting for them. Veronica Eustacia and Rosalind Gladys, in white-lace frocks and lovely sashes, had just got in, and Guy Clarence, aged five, was following them. He was such a pretty fellow and had such rosy cheeks and blue eyes, and such a darling little round head covered with curls, that Sara forgot her basket and shabby cloak altogether—in fact, forgot everything but that she wanted to look at him for a moment. So she paused and looked.

  It was Christmas time, and the Large Family had been hearing many stories about children who were poor and had no mammas and papas to fill their stockings and take them to the pantomime—children who were, in fact, cold and thinly clad and hungry. In the stories, kind people—sometimes little boys and girls with tender hearts—invariably saw the poor children and gave them money or rich gifts, or took them home to beautiful dinners. Guy Clarence had been affected to tears that very afternoon by the reading of such a story, and he had burned with a desire to find such a poor child and give her a certain sixpence he possessed, and thus provide for her for life. An entire sixpence, he was sure, would mean affluence for evermore. As he crossed the strip of red carpet laid across the pavement from the door to the carriage, he had this very sixpence in the pocket of his very short man-o-war trousers; And just as Rosalind Gladys got into the vehicle and jumped on the seat in order to feel the cushions spring under her, he saw Sara standing on the wet pavement in her shabby frock and hat, with her old basket on her arm, looking at him hungrily.

  He thought that her eyes looked hungry because she had perhaps had nothing to eat for a long time. He did not know that they looked so because she was hungry for the warm, merry life his home held and his rosy face spoke of, and that she had a hungry wish to snatch him in her arms and kiss him. He only knew that she had big eyes and a thin face and thin legs and a common basket and poor clothes. So he put his hand in his pocket and found his sixpence and walked up to her benignly.

  “Here, poor little girl,” he said. “Here is a sixpence. I will give it to you.”

  Sara started, and all at once realized that she looked exactly like poor children she had seen, in her better days, waiting on the pavement to watch her as she got out of her brougham. And she had given them pennies many a time. Her face went red and then it went pale, and for a second she felt as if she could not take the dear little sixpence.

  “Oh, no!” she said. “Oh, no, thank you; I mustn’t take it, indeed!”

  Her voice was so unlike an ordinary street child’s voice and her manner was so like the manner of a well-bred little person that Veronica Eustacia (whose real name was Janet) and Rosalind Gladys (who was really called Nora) leaned forward to listen.

  But Guy Clarence was not to be thwarted in his benevolence. He thrust the sixpence into her hand.

  “Yes, you must take it, poor little girl!” he insisted stoutly. “You can buy things to eat with it. It is a whole sixpence!”

  There was something so honest and kind in his face, and he looked so likely to be heartbrokenly disappointed if she did not take it, that Sara knew she must not refuse him. To be as proud as that would be a cruel thing. So she actually put her pride in her pocket, though it must be admitted her cheeks burned.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You are a kind, kind little darling thing.” And as he scrambled joyfully into the carriage she went away, trying to smile, though she caught her breath quickly and her eyes were shining through a mist. She had known that she looked odd and shabby, but until now she had not known that she might be taken for a beggar.

  As the Large Family’s carriage drove away, the children inside it were talking with interested excitement.

  “Oh, Donald,” (this was Guy Clarence’s name), Janet exclaimed alarmedly, “why did you offer that little girl your sixpence? I’m sure she is not a begga
r!”

  “She didn’t speak like a beggar!” cried Nora. “And her face didn’t really look like a beggar’s face!”

  “Besides, she didn’t beg,” said Janet. “I was so afraid she might be angry with you. You know, it makes people angry to be taken for beggars when they are not beggars.”

  “She wasn’t angry,” said Donald, a trifle dismayed, but still firm. “She laughed a little, and she said I was a kind, kind little darling thing. And I was!"—stoutly. “It was my whole sixpence.”

  Janet and Nora exchanged glances.

  “A beggar girl would never have said that,” decided Janet. “She would have said, ‘Thank yer kindly, little gentleman—thank yer, sir;’ and perhaps she would have bobbed a curtsy.”

  Sara knew nothing about the fact, but from that time the Large Family was as profoundly interested in her as she was in it. Faces used to appear at the nursery windows when she passed, and many discussions concerning her were held round the fire.

  “She is a kind of servant at the seminary,” Janet said. “I don’t believe she belongs to anybody. I believe she is an orphan. But she is not a beggar, however shabby she looks.”

  And afterward she was called by all of them, “The-little-girl-who-is-not-a-beggar,” which was, of course, rather a long name, and sounded very funny sometimes when the youngest ones said it in a hurry.

  Sara managed to bore a hole in the sixpence and hung it on an old bit of narrow ribbon round her neck. Her affection for the Large Family increased—as, indeed, her affection for everything she could love increased. She grew fonder and fonder of Becky, and she used to look forward to the two mornings a week when she went into the schoolroom to give the little ones their French lesson. Her small pupils loved her, and strove with each other for the privilege of standing close to her and insinuating their small hands into hers. It fed her hungry heart to feel them nestling up to her. She made such friends with the sparrows that when she stood upon the table, put her head and shoulders out of the attic window, and chirped, she heard almost immediately a flutter of wings and answering twitters, and a little flock of dingy town birds appeared and alighted on the slates to talk to her and make much of the crumbs she scattered. With Melchisedec she had become so intimate that he actually brought Mrs. Melchisedec with him sometimes, and now and then one or two of his children. She used to talk to him, and, somehow, he looked quite as if he understood.