Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1874 — Our Young Folks. [ARTICLE]

Our Young Folks.

MABEL’S TROUBLES.

BY BENJAMIN E. WOOLF.

Mabel Wanted very much to know all about it, and that is why she was so vexed that she could not get it into her head If she had not cared for it, then it would have been quite another affair; but she did care, and that is where her troubles began. She knew she must learn to spell, and therefore tried her best to please her governess. But Miss Prim was so very thin; she had such a funny row.of tight little curls on each side other head; wore such big silver spectacles on the tip of her nOse; and had such a very stiff way of sitting upright in her chair, with her lips sticking out, as if she was only waiting for a good chance to say “ Pooh, pooh!” that Mabel felt herself obliged to s'tudy her’governess all the time instead of her book. Mabel tried to study her spelling sons very hard; but she grew to be no. tired of saying the same thing over and over again; and'there was no sense in it either. B-a, ba; B-e, be; B-i, bi; B-o bo; B-u, bu—and so on all through the alphabet—was so slow and so awfully Stupid! Now, thought Mabel, if it was B-a, ba, B-e, be, Baby, there would be something gained; but who ever says -Bjfficffibobur—if this were spelling, shir would rather go out and play awhile. There wan some sense in that. Why, learning to spell was not half as jolly as learning the alphabet. There were pictures to that, and poetry too. There was “A was an Archer, who Aimed high and low,” and “ B was a Booby who couldn’t stay‘Bo!’” There was “ C was a Chicken who Clucked after Corn;” and “D was a Dog that the Draughtsman had Drawn.” And lots more beside. Mabel knew she would fall asleep in a few minutes if the lesson did .not come to an end—she was so drowsy. The letters danced up and down the page in such a droll way that she could not see one of them plainly. P-a, pa, was somehow or another mixed tip with N-o, no; and M-e, me, was trying to play at leapfrog with Y-u, yu. “ Miss Prim,” said Mabel, covering the page with her hand, and shaking her head so earnestly that her yellow curls tumbled all over her face, “ I can’t say any more, please. I’m very stupid, I kno\v, and 1 suppose I’m a bad little girl; but I can’t help it.” Mabel was sit ting on a stool at Miss Prim’s feet, and her book was resting on Miss Prim’s knees. She saw that her governess' lips stuck out more than ever, and felt sure that “ Pooh, pooh!” must come at last; but it didn’t. Miss Prim only said; “Why, Mabel!” and stared through her spectacles till her blue eyes looked as large as willowpattern saucers. . ! “ Do you like all of this?” asked Mabel, pointing to her book. “Of course 1 do, Mabel,” answered Miss Prim, severely. “Why do you ask?” “Because / don’t,” said Mabel, positively;*■• and what is more, 1 never shall” “ But, Mabel, said, Miss Prim, frowning, “ you will have to learn it if you ever hope to be able to read.” “But suppose I don’t hope to be able to read?” asked Mabel. “Suppose I don’t care anything about it?” “ But you must care something about it," insisted Miss Prini.. “What will you do if you cannot read when you grow up to be a woman?” Mabel, and wondering how Miss Prim would get over that. Miss Prim did not try to get over it, but looked at Mabel in astonishment. “ You can read for me, you know’,” continued Mabel, “ and I can pay you for it. I can save up my pocket-money that papa gives me every week, and that will be enough. Don’t you see?” “ But that will never do,” said 31 iss Prim, shaking her head very angrily. “ Does Dora have to learn this, too?” asked Mabel, after a pause. “ Certainly, miss! Everybody has to learn .it,” answered Miss Prim; “so go' on with your lesson at once.” “Did ma and pa?” persisted Mabel, with tears in her eyes, and looking anxiously up to the face of her governess, “ 1 have said that everybody lias to learn it, Mabel,” said Miss I’rim, solemnly. “ Well,” returned Mabel, disappointed, “I think they might have found something better to do at their age.” “ Come, come!” said Miss Prim, impatiently. “Let us have no more of this. Go on with your lesson.” “ “ 1 can’t, Miss Prim. I’m tired, please; anxW’m so puzzled that I can’t think any more. And if you will let me, I will go into the garden to get my face cool, and come back as soon as I feel rested. If mamma says anything, tell her I’m to blame, please. And I’m sorry, Miss Prim, I’m sure; but my head will not hold it all.” Mabel rose from her seat and went through the balcony window into the garden. It was a cool afternoon in summer, and hundreds of flowers were in bloom. The cypress vine, with its bright red flowers, twined and clambered up the pole to the little pigeon-house on its top; and the big bunches of green grapes that hung against the wall and peeped out from underneath the broad leaves Were just beginning to blush purple. The four-o'clocks, pansies, carnations and verbenas seemed so.fresh and happy to Mabel, as they fluttered to and fro in I the soft breeze—swaying first one way and then the other—that, she almost wished she- were a flower too.’ Roses—red, white and pink—swarmed aioug the wall; and there were some that stood out on branches all alone, which bowed and nodded to her as she walked along the gravel-path toward the shady arbor at the foot of the garden where she had left her do,ll and her hoop. “Good-day!” she said to them in return for. their politeness. "I'm quite w ell, thank you. How are you?” -* “They do not have to learn how to spell,’ she thought, as she passed on. “ They would not look any prettier or j smell any sweeter if they knew how to ! | read all the books in the world. 1 don't : , believe they would be half so agreeable. I I think Miss Prim Would be handsomer ; it she did not know so much: and ail the ! governesses I know-are exactly like .Miss | Prim.” . ’ .. Mabel w-ent- on her wav thinkim: of hid; trbubles and wishing that she eoum learn something, because Miss Prim took so much pains to teach her; and she supposed that it must be all right for her to study, or else her mother would not have asked Miss Prim to give her lessons. » She reached the arbor at last and went • in. It was a large, shady place* covered all over with vines, and'tlie leaves were so thick that the sunbeams made their way through in little spots that

speckled the ground, and as the breeze fluttered the leaves kept on changing their places like the bits .of glass in a kaleidoscope. A* bench ran all around the arbor, and lying on this in a corner Mabel saw her doll. It had bright golden hair, large blue eyes and plump little cheeks, just like Mabel’s; ancj its mouth was not a bit prettier than was hers and it was not ipqch smaller either, d - “ Did yoii tfiini? I was never coming, you poor, neglected Dolly?” she said, taking it up and smoothing its hair from its eyes. “ It’s all Miss Prim’s fault, and if you have any complaints to make you must make them to her. Y r ou needn’t' pout at hie in that naughty manner, miss',. It isn’t good for little girls to pout; and you’ll grow so if you do not stop it at once, bit there, please, till I get up on the bench too, and then I’ll make it all up with you.” _ Mabel placed her doll on the bench with its back against the trellis work and then climbed up herself and sat by its side. • . “Oh; dear!” she said, sighing, as she took her doll again and held it in her lap. “I do wish people would not make benches so high; it is so hard to get up, and it makes me so out of breath! You’re all right, Dolly, because I lift you up, a,nd you don't scratch yous legs as I do tnine. . Are you sleepy? I am; but I don’t want to go to sleep, because I must soon go back to Miss Prim.” The place was so quiet and the air was so soft and warm that Mabel grew more and more drowsy every moment. She could scarcely keep her eyes open, and her head felt so heavy that she had great trouble to hold it up. She would have fallen asleep in spite of herself if something had not attracted her attention all of a sudden. As she saw it her eyes opened a little, then a little more, and then wider still, until at last they were almost as large as Miss Prim’s when she was astonished. “ Why, what is this?” said Mabel to herself. “Upon my word, these are pretty doings! All the letters of the alphabet have, somehow or another, got out of my book and sire running about here loose. There’s ‘A was an Archer’ playing tag with ‘ H was a House;’ and there's LQ, a Queen’ trying to get away from ‘ U was an Urn,’ who is holding On to her skirt. Yes! and there is ‘K was a King’ trundling ‘ O was an Owl’ along like a hoop. They are all there, every one of them.” Mabel could not make it out at all. There were the letters leaping; laughing, running, turning somersaults and mixing themselves up in all sorts of ways. How they got out of the book without being discovered Mabel could not conceive. Yet there they were, having sports of every kind all by themselves, and seeming to enjoy them. Suddenly, and right in the middle of a game of blind-man’s buff, Miss Prim darted in among them with a ruler, and set them scampering in every direction, striking at them right and left all around the arbor. Mabel got down from the bench and ran to her governess. “Don’t frighten them, please, Miss Prim,” she said. “ They are only amusing themselves ; and I don’t wonder at it, so long.” But Miss Prim took no notice of Mabel, and kept chasing the letters about,Till they hopped and skipped like so many fleas to get out of her way. Some of them got under the bench to hide from her; but she went down on her hands and knees to stir them out. As she did so the remainder of the letters jumped on her back and upset her; and made her incapable of further mischief. \ “ Ah!” said letter W, the biggest one of the lot, taking her ruler and standing guard over her with it; “so you are not satisfied with putting us in a~ book, but you try to cram us Info people’s heads too, do you? Suppose I was to cut your head oil with this ruler, how could you put us in your head any more?” Miss Prim kicked and struggled to get free, but she was not strong enough. W did not cut her head oil', at which Ylabel was very, glad; but he called all the other letters to stand around Miss Prim while he made her say her letters over seventy-four times. He then gave her a spelling-lesson, and rapped her on the knuckles every time she said it - correctly. Mabel was sorry for Miss Prim; but she thought it served her right for interfering with the letters when they were doing no harm. She therefore did not make any objections; but when they got the poor lady into words of three syllables Mabel couhl stand it no longer, for slie thought that was nothing less than cruelty; So she went up to “W was a Wheel” and t ook hold-of his arm. “ Please don’t punish her any more,” she said, “ because it will make her head ache. Three syllables are too many for anybody. Let her go this time, because it is not gentlemanly to strike a lady.” “Well,” said W, “it isn’t gentlemanly for her to go and chase us around with a ruler and try to hammer us into people’s heads as if we were nails, i’ll let her off this time because you ask it; but if she ever comes here again we’ll give her words in a hundred syllables, and so she had better look out for herself.” They then untied Miss Prim and let her -go away. “So you like Miss Print,” said A to 'Mabel.* " if I was iii your pla.ee I would bqther her and stick pins into her.” Mabel was going to give him a pretty sharp answer when she saw a humpbacked letter that she did not recognize coining toward her. “How do you do?” he asked her. “ Don't you remember me? Don't you recollect that you were introduced to me last Wednesday?’’ “ Oil, yes!” said Mabel. “ You are Unterrogation- Mark. You a 1 ways -askquestions. Papa says it's wrong to ask too many questions!” “ What does lie .know about it?” Inquired Interrogation Mark, with a sneer. “Is he any authority here*!’ Mabel did not condescend to reply to him but went to O, who seemed an easy, good-natured letter, and spoke to him. “Tell me,” she said, “how you all came to be here.’’ - ' “I mustn't do that,” replied O, “because then you would know all about it.” “ Oh!” said Mabel, disappointed. “I’m sure I didn’t mean any harm.”. “I know,” answered O, “ and I would tell you, but you see we are all afraid of Miss Prim. If she finds outhowwe.do R she will lock us up and then we can't come here any more When m amuse ourselves here we are often quite rough and some of us get tuirt. There’s ,N, who is limping along there, for example., He was'am H once, but he fell down and broke his legs and now he is knockkneed, as you see him. Y used to walk like A; but he was too fond of turning somersaults and one day he only Went

half-way over and stuck on his head. He has never been able to get back again.” Mabel was not surprised to hear all of this for she had suspected something of the sort before, and was very glad to learn it was true. “How old are you?” O suddenly inquired. “Six,” answered Mabel. “You could be sixty if vou wanted,” O replied. * “llow?” asked Mabel. “By adding fifty-four to yourself,” answered O, looking very seriq.usly at her. “ I would do it if I was in your place. It will save you the trouble of growing.” Mabel saw that it was true, but she did not know how to do it; and she was not exactly sure that she wanted to add fifty-four to herself without thinking about it. While she was turning it over in her mind, Ac. came up to Mabel and shook bands with her. He seemed quite gloomy, and had a tired look that made her feel very sorry for him. “Please, sir,” said Mabel to him, kindly, “ are you ill?” “ Yes!” answered Ac., shedding tears and wiping his eyes on his cuff. •‘ Then you ought to take something for it,” said Mabel. “Take what?” asked &c., sighing. “ Take some medicine,” returned Mabel. “ What should I take medicine for?” inquired Ac., a little fiercely, as Mabel imagined. “Dear me!’’ said Mabel to herself. “He asks almost as many questions as Interrogation Mark. Because you are ill,” she said aloud, somewhat timidly. “But I am not ill,” said Ac., very positively. “Y r ou said you were, if you please,” pleaded Mabel, almost-crying .with vexation at being so constantly contradicted. “If I said it, U meant it,” answered Ac., growing sad again. “And now 1 say I’m not. and I mean that too.” “O dear!” said Mabel, greatly puzzled. “ What do you mean, for I can’t make you out?” - Gr-. -r L* • “ That’s where it is,” returned Ac., bursting into 'tears. “ 1 mean everything! A means something positive; I don't. B means something positive; I don’t. I am not allowed to mean the same thing for two minutes. One moment I mean one thing and the next moment I mean something quite different. And I never say what I mean, but leave everybody to guess it. It is too bad!” Mabel felt a great deal of pity for him as he stood there . weeping and screwing his knuckles into his eyes. The tears fell so fast from him that his feet were in a puddle of water. Mabel thought he would catch cold, and was about to tell him so, but O winked his eye at her, and, tapping his forehead, shook his head. “He is crazy,” -vvhispered 0 to Malxfi. “ Don’t mind what he says. He doesn’t know what he means. Nobody could ever find ont from him because he leaves half of it unsaid and you have to guess it like a riddle. He is very tiresome and disagreeable. Just ask him to explain himself and you’ll soon find out what sort of fellow he is.” Mabel did not like this liard-hearted way O had of talking about Ac., who was growing more tearful and more gloomy every moment. She really pitied the poor fellow, and told Q as much; but he merely replied, with contempt: “Pshaw! lie is only a foreigner, and has no business among us. If he does not like it, why does he stay here? What does a Latin person want to come mixing with us for? Besides, he is a dwarf, and is all out of shape at that. Look at his little head and his big body.” “ A dwarf !” said Mabel, astonished, because she saw that Ac. was quite as big as the rest of them, and a great deal fatter. “ Well,” said O, reading Mabel’s thoughts, “he is an Abbreviation, and that’s the same thing.” “Isn’t that Parenthesis I see* over there?” said Mabel, pointing to a figure Witli bowed legs that was hobbling along. - ’ • ' ; “ Yes, I feel very sorry for him,” said O. “ His parents did not take good care of him when lie was young. They tried to make him walk too early, and his legs became crooked, as you see. Look at Bracket yonder. He is all'right. His legs are as straight as an arrow. His nurse knew what she \Yas about. I don’t think. Parenthesis is very long-lived. He is quite weak, and little work now. Bracket does most of it for him.” ■» That disagreeable, ill-tempered and humpbacked Interrogation Mark came toward Mabel again. “Well; and how do you like us all?” he asked, in his impudent, prying manner. “Don’t you think we are a jolly set of fellows?” Mabel was going to tell him that she did not like him at all, and thajt she was very sorry she had made his acquaintance, when lie said to her, with a spiteful grin on his face: “You think you know us all, don’t you? Are you aware that you have got to be introduced to our brothers Old English and Italics, to say nothing of Script?” > “ I wish you would not tell me unpleasant things by asking me questions about them,” said Mabel, 'growing angry \vith him. Just at that moment Miss-Prim darted in amongst them again with another taler, and set them scampering in every direction onc-e more. Even W was knocked over this time, and Ac. received such a thump in his back that he forgot to cry. and ran away as fast as his legs could carry him. When Miss Prim had beaten thein as long as. she could she chased them before her with her apron as if they were a brood of chickens, and they all ran out of the arbor, followed by,.her, tumbling over each other and picking themselves up as well as they could. Mabel laughed so heartily that she almost cried. Then she suddenly found out she*was sitting on the bench, and could not tell how she got there; because a moment before she was standing in the middle of the. arbor talking with O and Interrogation Mark. She was greatly puzzled, but was so full of what she had seen that she did not think any more of how she came to be sitting down again. She hurried away to learn what had become of Miss Prim and the letters, but saw no trace of any of them. She then went into the house and spoke to Miss Prim about it, but her governess laughed at her and said she knew nothing about it. Mabel was sorry'for that, because she did not think Miss Prim would be guilty of doing so mean a thing as« telling a falsehood. If she would tell her a story about such a matter how could she depend on her in spelling lessons? - Everybody told her that she had been dreaming: but she knew better than that, for she had spoken to them, especially O and Aq, She found them all in her book again; but though she questioned them" frequently they took no no-

tice of her. In spite of that, nothing could convince her that it had not all happened just as she told of it. But she never saw them again though she often went into the arbor and waited for them to come.tgr And this added to Mabel’s troubles.—SL Nicholas.