Last Words: A Final Collection of StoriesEwing, Juliana Horatia
General
Last Words: A Final Collection of Stories
Ewing, Juliana Horatia
Children's stories; Conduct of life -- Juvenile fiction
"It's like a Rushlight-tin, to be sure," said Jael. "And it's not been
used since your Pa and Ma's last illness. So it's safe to be thick
with dust, and a pretty job it is for me to have to do, losing the pin
out of my cap, and tearing my apron on one of them old boxes, all to
find a dirty old Rushlight, just because of _your_ whims and fancies,
Miss Grace!"
"Jael, I am so sorry for your cap and apron. I will go in and find the
Rushlight for you. Tell me, is it painted black, with a lot of round
holes in the sides, and a little door, and a place like a candlestick
in the middle? If it is, I know where it is."
I knew quite well. It was behind a very old portmanteau, and a tin box
with a wig and moths in it, and the bottom part of the shower-bath,
just at the corner, which Margery and I call Bass's Straits. So I made
a Voyage of Discovery, and brought it out, "thick with dust," as Jael
had said.
And Jael took it, and went away very cross and very ogre-footed, with her
cap still awry; and as she stumped down the attic-stairs, and kept
clattering the Rushlight against the rails, I could hear her muttering--"A
sinful waste of candle-grease--whims and fancies--scandilus!"
CHAPTER III.
PAIN PAST. A REPRIEVE FROM THE BARBER. SUNFLOWER SLEEP. LITTLE
MICHAELMAS GOOSE. SNUFFING A RUSHLIGHT. A PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE
UNDER DIFFICULTIES. GRANDMAMMA WITH A WATCHMAN'S RATTLE.
Jael's ogre-footsteps had hardly ceased to resound from the wooden
stairs, when these shook again to the tread of Dr. Brown.
He said--"How are you??" and I said--"Very happy, thank you," which
was true. For the only nice thing about dreadful pain is that, when it
is gone, you feel for a little bit as if you could cry with joy at
having nothing to bear.
Then I thanked him for asking Grandmamma to let me have the Rushlight
till Margery came home; and he said I ought to be very much obliged to
him, for he had begged me off the barber too. So I asked him if he
thought my hair gave me headaches, and he felt it, and said--"No!"
which I was very glad of. He said he thought it was more what I grew
inside, than what I grew outside my head that did it, and that I was
not to puzzle too much over books.
I was afraid he meant the Puzzling Tale, so I told him it was very
short, and the answer was given; so he said he should like to hear
it--and I read it to him. He liked it very much, and he liked the
picture; and I told him we thought they were Sunflowers, only that the
glory-leaves were folded in so oddly, and we did not know why. And he
said--"Why, because they're asleep, to be sure. Don't you know that
flowers sleep as soundly as you do? _They_ don't lie awake in the
dark!"
And then he shook with laughing, till he shook the red into his face,
and the tears into his eyes, as he always does.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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