Somebody said once to Susy and Flossy, when they were having a frolic in “Prudy’s sitting-room,” up stairs, “What happy little things!  You don’t know what trouble is, and never will, till you grow up!”

The little girls preserved a respectful silence, till the lady was out of hearing, and then held an indignant discussion as to the truth of what she had said.  It would have been a discussion, I mean, if they had not both taken the same side of the question.

“How she sighed,” said Susy, “just as if she was the melancholiest person that ever was!” Susy was famous for the use she made of adjectives, forming the superlatives just as it happened.

“Yes, just the way,” responded Flossy.  “I’d like to know what ever happened to her?  Pshaw!  She laughed this afternoon, and ate apples fast enough!”

“O, she thinks she must make believe have a dreadful time, because she is grown up,” said Susy, scornfully.  “She’s forgot she was ever a little girl!  I’ve had troubles; I guess I have!  And I know one thing, I shall remember ’em when I grow up, and not say, ‘What happy little things!’ to children.  It’s real hateful!”

Little folks have trouble, to be sure.  Their hearts are full of it, and running over, sometimes; and how can the largest heart that ever beat be more than full, and running over?

Susy had daily trials.  They were sent to her because they were good for her.  Shadows and night-dews are good for flowers.  If the sun had shone on Susy always, and she had never had any shadows and night dews, she would have scorched up into a selfish girl.

One of her trials was Miss Dotty Dimple.  Now, she loved Dotty dearly, and considered her funny all over, from the crown of her head to the soles of her little twinkling feet, which were squeezed into a pair of gaiters.  Dotty loved those gaiters as if they were alive.  She had a great contempt for the slippers she wore in the morning, but it was her “darlin’ gaiters,” which she put on in the afternoon, and loved next to father and mother, and all her best friends.

When ladies called, she stepped very briskly across the floor, looking down at her feet, and tiptoeing about, till the ladies smiled, and said, “O, what sweet little boots!” and then she was perfectly happy.

Susy was not very wide awake in the morning; but Dotty was stirring as soon as there was a peep of light, and usually stole into Susy’s bed to have a frolic.  Nothing but a story would keep her still, and poor Susy often wondered which was harder, to be used as a football by Dotty, or to tell stories with her eyes shut.

“O, Dotty Dimple, keep still; can’t you?  There’s a darling,” she would plead, longing for another nap; “don’t kill me.”

“No, no; me won’t kill,” the little one would reply; “’tisn’t pooty to kill!”

“O, dear, you little, cunning, darling plague, now hush, and let me go to sleep!”

Then Dotty would plant both feet firmly on Susy’s chest, and say, in her teasing little voice, as troublesome as the hum of a mosquito, ­

“Won’t you tell me ’tory ­tell me a ’tory ­tell me a ’tory, Susy.”

“Well, what do you want to hear?”

Now, it was natural for Susy to feel cross when she was sleepy.  It cost her a hard struggle to speak pleasantly, and when she succeeded in doing so, I set it down as one of her greatest victories over herself.  The Quaker motto of her grandmother, “Let patience have her perfect work,” helped her sometimes, when she could wake up enough to remember it.

“Tell ’bout little yellow gell,” said the voice of the mosquito, over and over again.

Susy roused herself after the third request, and sleepily asked if something else wouldn’t do?

“I had a little nobby-colt.”

“No, no, you di’n’t, you di’n’t; grandma had the nobby!  Tell yellow gell.”

“O,” sighed Susy, “how can you want to hear that so many, many times?  Well, once when I was a little bit of a girl ­”

“’Bout’s big as me, you said,” put in Dotty.

“O, yes, I did say so once, and I suppose I must tell it so every time, or you’ll fuss!  Well, I had a yellow dress all striped off in checks ­”

“Di’n’t it go this way?” said Dotty, smoothing the sheet with her little hand, “and this way?”

“What?  What?” Susy roused herself and rubbed her eyes.  “O, yes, it went in checks; and I was at grandma Parlin’s, and Grace ­Grace ­O, Grace and I went into the pasture where there were a couple of cows, a gray cow and a red cow.”

“Now you must say what is couple,” says Dotty.

“Then what is couple?”

“Gray cow,” answers Dotty, very gravely.

“So when the cows saw us coming, they ­they ­O, they threw up their heads, and stopped eating grass ­in the air.  I mean ­threw ­up ­their heads.”  Susy was nearly asleep.

“Up in the air?”

“Yes, of course, up in the air. (There, I will wake up!) And the gray cow began to run towards us, and Grace says to me, ’O, my, she thinks you’re a pumpkin!’”

“You?”

“Yes, me, because my dress was so yellow.  I was just as afraid of the cow as I could be.”

“Good cow! He wouldn’t hurt!”

“No, the cow was good, and didn’t think I was a pumpkin, not the least speck.  But I was so afraid, that I crept under the bars, and ran home.”

“To grandma’s house?”

“Yes; and grandma laughed.”

“Well, where was me?” was the next question, after a pause.

Then, when the duty of story-telling was performed, Susy would gladly have gone back to “climbing the dream-tree;” but no, she must still listen to Dotty, though she answered her questions in an absent-minded way, like a person “hunting for a forgotten dream.”

One morning she was going to ride with her cousin Percy.  It had been some time since she had seen Wings, except in the stable, where she visited him every day.

But Dotty had set her heart on a rag-baby which Susy had promised to dress, and Prudy was anxious that Susy should play several games of checkers with her.

“O, dear,” said the eldest sister, with the perplexed air of a mother who has disobedient little ones to manage.  “I think I have about as much as I can bear.  The children always make a fuss, just as sure as I want to go out.”

The old, impatient spirit was rising; that spirit which it was one of the duties of Susy’s life to keep under control.

She went into the bathing-room, and drank off a glass of cold water, and talked to herself a while, for she considered that the safest way.

“Have I any right to be cross?  Yes, I think I have.  Here Dotty woke me up, right in the middle of a dream, and I’m sleepy this minute.  Then Prudy is a little babyish thing, and always was ­making a fuss if I forget to call her Rosy Frances!  Yes, I’ll be cross, and act just as I want to.  It’s too hard work to keep pleasant; I won’t try.”

She walked along to the door, but, by that time, the better spirit was struggling to be heard.

“Now, Susy Parlin,” it said, “you little girl with a pony, and a pair of skates, and feet to walk on, and everything you want, ain’t you ashamed, when you think of that dear little sister you pushed down stairs ­no, didn’t push ­that poor little lame sister! ­O, hark! there is your mother winding up that hard splint!  How would you feel with such a thing on your hip?  Go, this minute, and comfort Prudy!”

The impatient feelings were gone for that time; Susy had swallowed them, or they had flown out of the window.

“Now Rosy Frances Eastman Mary,” said she, “if your splint is all fixed, I’ll comb your hair.”

The splint was made of hard, polished wood and brass.  Under it were strips of plaster an inch wide, which wound round and round the poor wounded limb.  These strips of plaster became loose, and there was a little key-hole in the splint, into which Mrs. Parlin put a key, and wound up and tightened the plaster every morning.  This operation did not hurt Prudy at all.

“Now,” said Susy, after she had combed Prudy’s hair carefully, and put a net over it, until her mother should be ready to curl it, “now we will have a game of checkers.”

Prudy played in high glee, for Susy allowed her to jump all her men, and march triumphantly into the king-row, at the head of a victorious army.

“There, now, Rosy,” said Susy, gently, “are you willing to let me go out riding?  I can’t play any more if I ride, for I must dress Dotty’s doll, and feed my canary.”

“O, well,” said Prudy, considering the matter, “I’m sick; I tell you how it is, I’m sick, you know; but ­well, you may go, Susy, if you’ll make up a story as long as a mile.”

Susy really felt grateful to Prudy, but it was her own gentle manner which had charmed the sick child into giving her consent.

Then Susy proceeded to dress Dotty’s doll in a very simple fashion, with two holes for short sleeves, and a skirt with a raw edge; but she looked kind and pleasant while she was at work, and Dotty was just as well pleased as if it had been an elegant costume she was preparing.  And it was really good enough for a poor deformed rag-baby, with a head shaped like a stove-pipe.

Susy was delighted to find how well a little patience served her in amusing “the children.”  Next, she went to give Dandy his morning bath.  Mrs. Parlin still thought it a dangerous practice, but had not seen Mrs. Mason, to question her about it, and Susy was too obstinate in her opinion to listen to her mother.

“I must do it,” said Susy; “it has been ever so long since Dandy was bathed, and I shouldn’t take any comfort riding, mamma, if I didn’t leave him clean.”

Susy plunged the trembling canary into his little bathing-bowl, in some haste.  He struggled as usual, and begged, with his weak, piping voice, to be spared such an infliction.  But Susy was resolute.

“It’ll do you good, Ducky Daddles; we mustn’t have any lazy, dirty birdies in this house.”

Ducky Daddies rolled up his little eyes, and gasped for breath.

“O, look, mother!” cried Susy, laughing; “how funny Dandy acts!  Do you suppose it’s to make me laugh?  O, is he fainting away?”

“Fainting away!  My dear child, he is dying!”

This was the sad truth.  Mrs. Parlin fanned him, hoping to call back the lingering breath.  But it was too late.  One or two more throbs, and his frightened little heart had ceased to beat; his frail life had gone out as suddenly as a spark of fire.

Susy was too much shocked to speak.  She stood holding the stiffening bird in her hands, and gazing at it.

Mrs. Parlin was very sorry for Susy, and had too much kindness of feeling to add to her distress by saying, ­

“You know how I warned you, Susy.”

Susy was already suffering for her obstinacy and disregard of her mother’s advice; and Mrs. Parlin believed she would lay the lesson to heart quite as well without more words.  It was a bitter lesson.  Susy loved dumb creatures dearly, and was just becoming very fond of Dandy.

In the midst of her trouble, and while her eyes were swollen with tears, her cousin Percy came with Wings and the sleigh to give her the promised ride.  Susy no longer cared for going out:  it seemed to her that her heart was almost broken.

“Well, cousin Indigo, what is the matter?” said Percy; “you look as if this world was a howling wilderness, and you wanted to howl too.  What, crying over that bird?  Poh!  I can buy you a screech-owl any time, that will make twice the noise he could in his best days.  Come, hurry, and put your things on!”

Susy buried her face in her apron.

“I’ll compose a dirge for him,” said Percy.

    “My bird is dead, said Susy P.,
    My bird is dead; O, deary me! 
    He sang so sweet, te whee, te whee;
    He sings no more; O, deary me! 
    Go hang his cage up in the tree,
    That cage I care no more to see. 
    My bird is dead, cried Susy P.”

These provoking words Percy drawled out in a sing-song voice.  It was too much.  Susy’s eyes flashed through her tears.

“You’ve always laughed at me, Percy Eastman, and plagued me about Freddy Jackson, and everything, and I’ve borne it like a ­like a lady.  But when you go to laughing at my poor little Dandy that’s dead, and can’t speak ­”

Susy was about to say, “Can’t speak for himself,” but saw in time how absurdly she was talking, and stopped short.

Percy laughed.

“Where are you going with that cage?”

“Going to put it away, where I’ll never see it again,” sobbed poor Susy.

“Give it to me,” said Percy:  “I’ll take care of it for you.”

If Susy’s eyes had not been blinded by tears, she would have been surprised to see the real pity in Percy’s face.

He was a rollicking boy, full of merriment and bluster, and what tender feelings he possessed, he took such a wonderful amount of pains to conceal, that Susy never suspected he had any.  She would have enjoyed her ride if she had not felt so full of grief.  The day was beautiful.  There had been a storm, and the trees looked as if they had been snowballing one another; but Susy had no eye for trees, and just then hardly cared for her pony.

Percy put the cage in the sleigh, under the buffalo robes; and when they reached his own door, he carried the cage into the house, while Susy drew a sigh of relief.  He offered to stuff Dandy, or have him stuffed; but Susy rejected the idea with horror.

“No, if Dandy was dead, he was all dead; she didn’t want to see him sitting up stiff and cold, when he couldn’t sing a speck.”