there were just two things which could keep johnny quiet for more than two minutes at a time; one was having some one read aloud to him, and the other was playing checkers. he could read to himself, more or less, but stopping once in a while to spell a long word, or to wonder what it means, breaks the thread of the most entertaining story, so whenever anything very attractive-looking in the way of books and magazines came into the leslie family, johnny coaxed his mother to read it aloud.
but it is one thing to hear reading because you have begged for it, and have been running and jumping enough to make keeping still not only possible but really quite pleasant, and another to hear it because your mother asks you to stay in the house until it clears up, or your cold is well.
new year’s day had been bitterly cold and raw, and johnny, coming from the well-warmed church in the morning, had stopped on the way home to do a little snowballing. he had “cooled off,” as he expressed it, rather too quickly, and the result was an unpleasant cough. now johnny did not in the[51] least object to drinking the agreeable beverage made of irish moss and lemons and sugar, which his mother had prepared for him, but it was hard work to stay in the house when all the other boys were building a snow-fort, and making ready for a magnificent battle.
“oh, mammy dear!” he implored, “if you’d ever in your life been a boy, you’d know how i feel when i look out of the window! if you’ll let me out for just one little hour, right in the middle of the day, i’ll put on my rubber-boots, and my overcoat, and my fur cap, and my ear-tabs, and wind my neck all up in tiny’s red scarf, and not stand still one single moment—oh, please, please! they’re just building the tower!”
“poor johnny!” said tiny, with much sympathy, “would it hurt him that way, mamma?”
“yes, dear, i’m afraid it would,” said mrs. leslie, and turning to johnny, she asked, “my johnny, were you quite in earnest, when you said you would try to win back my sleeve?”
“why mammy! of course i was!” he answered, opening his eyes very wide, and for a moment forgetting his woes. no opportunity which he considered large enough had yet occurred, for him to try to win back his mother’s “silken sleeve,” which he had worn twisted around his hat to show that he meant to render her knightly service, and which he had given back to her the day after the circus, because he felt that he was unworthy to wear it, and he often looked at it sorrowfully as it hung, where he had placed it, above his mother’s picture, in his little room.
very well,” she said, gently pulling him down upon her lap, and turning his face away from the distracting window. “imagine that you are really a knight, and that you are storm bound in my castle, as the foreign knight was in sintram’s. you’d be too polite, in that case, i hope, to be grumbling and howling because you were compelled to pass a whole day in the charming society of the lady of the castle—now, wouldn’t you?”
“well, yes, mamma, i suppose i should,” admitted johnny, reluctantly, “but somehow it doesn’t seem exactly the same thing. you see, the snow may all be melted before you let me out again, and when the real old knights were storm bound, or anything, they always knew that their enemies and battles and things would keep!”
“very well then,” replied his mother, promptly, “that gives you a chance to be just so much more knightly than the ‘real old knights’ were! and if you don’t give another howl, or scowl, or grumble, all day, but are my very best johnny, instead of my second best or third best, i’ll twist my sleeve around your new school cap this very night!”
“oh, mammy! will i really and truly be winning it, that way?” asked johnny, eagerly.
“indeed you will,” said his mother, kissing him, “for you’ll never, even if you should some day be a soldier, and fight for your country, find a worse enemy, or one that will take more conquering, than my third-best johnny leslie!”
johnny returned the kiss with interest, and then, resolutely turning his back to the window, he said,—
“tiny, if you’ll bring your old black dinah here, i’ll get out all the blocks, and my pea-shooter, and my little brass cannon, and we’ll make a huge fort, and put dinah in the tower, and storm it! you don’t mind our making a muss here, mammy, if we clear it up again, do you?”
“not a bit,” said his mother, cheerfully, while tiny, with a little scream of delight rushed off for dinah. the playroom stove was out of order, and the children were obliged to play in the dining-room, which made johnny’s imprisonment all the harder to bear.
tiny came back presently, with an assorted cargo, presided over by dinah, in the basket.
“i brought all my tin housekeeping things,” she explained, as she proceeded to unload. “i thought we could put them on top, and they’d make such a lovely clatter when the fort fell!”
“now, that’s what i call really bright!” and johnny nodded his head approvingly. “it’s almost a pity you’re a girl, tiny—you’d be such a jolly little fellow if you were only a boy!”
it made tiny very happy when johnny approved of her, so the building of the fort went merrily on with so much laughing and talking that mrs. leslie, who was in the kitchen, not “eating bread and honey,” but making doughnuts, looked in once or twice to see if any of the children’s friends had called. and when the stately fort, with its tin battlements, at last yielded to the fierce attack of the brass cannon and the pea-shooter, used after the manner of battering-rams, she rushed to the scene of conflict with the dreadful certainty that the stove had been knocked over, but an invitation to help hurrah for the victory quieted her fears.
the ruins had just been picked up and repacked in the basket, when ann came in to set the dinner table, and johnny found, to his astonishment, that the morning was gone.
“but there’s all the great long afternoon yet!” he thought, ruefully, “and mamma will have to lie down, i’m afraid, and tiny’s going to that foolish doll-party, and—hello! if i keep on this way i shall say something, and, if i do, tiny will stay at home; it would be just like her, she’s such a good little soul. brace up, johnny leslie, and win your sleeve!”
and johnny marched up and down, and tried to sing “onward, christian soldier!” but only succeeded in coughing.
“mamma, i wish to whisper something to you,” said tiny, after dinner. “don’t listen, please, johnny,” and she whispered, “don’t you think it would be dreadfully mean for me to go to the doll-party, mamma, when poor johnny has such a cough and can’t go out? because if you do, i’ll stay at home, and i wouldn’t mind it, or not so very much, if johnny would play with me as he has played this morning.”
“no, darling,” whispered her mother, “johnny would not be so selfish as to wish you to stay; and the other little girls you are to meet would be disappointed, for they all know about your new christmas doll. so run and get ready, and ann will carry you and your daughter across the street. you will have a great deal to tell us when you come home, you know.”
tiny went, but not very briskly, and, when she was gone, johnny said,—
“i’ll bet—i mean i think i know what tiny said, mamma; didn’t she offer to stay at home from her doll-party?”
“what a brilliant boy!” said his mother, smiling. “she did, but i knew you would not like her to make such a sacrifice; she has been counting upon the party for a week.”
“no, indeed!” said johnny, warmly, “i hope i’m not such a great bear as all that! but it was a jolly thing for the dear little soul to do, and i’ll not forget it.”
“would you like me to read to you again, dear?” asked his mother, when she had put the finishing touches to tiny’s dress, and seen her off.
“no, mrs. mother, thank you,” said johnny, stoutly, “i am going to read to myself, and you are going upstairs to lie down for at least an hour. you’re making your back ache face, and if you don’t lie down i’ll not eat one single doughnut or gingerbread—so there!”
“i couldn’t stand that, of course,” said his mother, laughing, and kissing him, “and i find my back does ache, now you mention it, so i will take you at your word, my own true knight!”
if they had been looking out of the window just then, they would have seen a bright-faced little girl running up the walk, and before mrs. leslie had started upon her upward journey the door-bell rang, and there was johnny’s especial friend, kitty mckee, with a little basket of rosy apples, and permission to spend the afternoon, “if it would be convenient.”
to say that johnny was glad to see her but faintly expresses his feelings. she was a year or two older than he was, and he considered her friendship for him a flattering thing. she played checkers so well that his occasional victories over her were triumphs indeed, and, what was better still, she never lost her temper with her game. so, after performing a war dance around her while she took off her cloak and hood, johnny rushed for the checker-board, and mrs. leslie, with an easy mind and a tired body, went upstairs for a delightful nap.
johnny took a white checker in one hand, and a black one in the other, mixed them up under the table, and held up his hand, asking,—
“which’ll you have?”
“right,” said kitty, and, as it happened, that gave johnny the first move.
the battle was fierce, but the advantage which the first move had given johnny was followed up until he felt so sure of victory that he began to grow a little careless, and was startled by losing a king and seeing kitty gain one in rapid succession. then he resumed his caution; his hand hung poised over the piece he was about to move until he had taken in all the possible consequences. slowly he pushed his man to the back row; two more well-considered moves and the game was his!
perhaps the triumph of winning the first game made him too self-confident; at any rate, victory perched upon kitty’s banner for the rest of the afternoon, and when the early dusk fell they drew their chairs to the cheerful fire, quite willing to exchange their battle for tiny’s eager account of the doll-party.
mrs. leslie had come down, rested and refreshed, and presently mr. leslie was heard stamping the snow from his boots in the porch, and kitty said she really must go, if she did live only next door but one, and mr. leslie said it was highly personal for her to rush off the minute she heard his fairy footsteps, and he should step in and tell her mother they were keeping her to tea. kitty thanked him with a kiss, and the supper was a very cheerful one. when it was over, the meeting adjourned to the parlor, and mr. leslie found a christmas graphic and a london news and a number of punch in his pockets, and it was time for kitty to go home and for johnny to go to bed before anybody knew it. tiny had gone an hour ago, too sleepy even to wish to sit up longer.
when mrs. leslie came to tuck johnny up and give him his last dose of cough mixture and last good-night kiss, she took down the sleeve, saying,—
“you’ll find it on your cap in the morning, my own true knight.”
“but, indeed, mamma,” said johnny, earnestly, “i don’t think i’ve half won it. it hasn’t been hard at all, but the very pleasantest day since christmas day.”
“and why has it been so pleasant?” asked his mother, drawing a chair to the bedside and sitting down. “begin at the beginning, and tell me.”
“why, you know all that happened, mammy,” replied johnny. “but i’ll go over it, if you like. first, i had some good fun with tiny, because she played fort so nicely, and then you made us laugh with the doughnut woman and gingerbread man, and then kitty came with those beautiful apples, and then i beat her the very first game of checkers we played—and i don’t see why in thund—i mean why i didn’t beat her any more, for we played six games after that, and she beat me every single one. and then tiny made us laugh telling about the doll-party, and then papa kept kitty to tea, and gave us those jolly papers, and if that isn’t a pretty good day, i should like to know what is!”
“but you didn’t begin at the beginning,” said his mother. “now i am going to suppose. suppose, when you found you could not go out this morning, you had kept on looking out of the window and watching the boys until your vexation and disappointment had made you cry, i am very certain that would have set you to coughing, and then your body would have felt worse, as well as your mind. suppose that, instead of offering to play with tiny, and doing it heartily, you had been cross and sulky, and hurt her feelings, and had spent the morning bemoaning your hard fate, and thinking how ill-used you were; you would have been in such a bad way by dinner-time that my doughnut woman and gingerbread man would scarcely have made you smile, and by the time kitty came, the sight of your face would have been enough to make her turn round and go home again. fretting and fuming all the afternoon would have left you too tired of yourself and everything else to care for tiny’s account of the party and papa’s papers. in short, everything would have looked to you the ugly color of your own dark thoughts.”
“then it’s just like checkers!” exclaimed johnny, sitting up in bed; “if you get the first move, and make that all right, the rest is pretty sure to come straight.”
“yes,” said his mother. “there is a french proverb which means, ‘it is only the first step that costs.’ if we make the first step, or the first move, in the right direction, we have gone a good deal more than one step toward the right end.”
“and it’s like checkers in another way,” said johnny, thoughtfully; “if we’re too uncommonly sure we’re all right, and can’t go wrong, we get tripped up before we know it. i do believe that the reason why kitty beat me every time but that one, was because i felt so stuck up about the first game that i didn’t try my best afterward; i thought i could beat her anyhow.”
“that is very likely,” answered his mother. “and now you see how needful it is to ask that we may obey god’s ‘blessed will’ in all things—not only large, important-looking things, which only come once in a while, but in the veriest trifles, or what seem to us like trifles, that are coming all the time. sometimes i think that there is no such thing as a trifle, johnny. good-night, darling—you will find my sleeve on your helmet in the morning, my own true knight!”
