The Nurse went back into Mamma’s room, and left Johnny and Lily staring at each other, too proud and happy to speak at first.
“Let’s sit right down on the floor and think!” said John. So down they sat.
“I think Claribel is a lovely name!” said Lily, after a pause. “Don’t you?”
“No!” replied Johnny, “it’s too girly.”
“But baby is a girl!”
“I don’t care. She needn’t have such a very girly name. How do you like Ellen?”
“Oh, Johnny! why, everybody’s named Ellen. We don’t want her to be just like everybody. Now Seraphina is not common.”
“I should hope not. I should need a mouth a yard wide to say it. What do you think of Bessie?”
“Oh, Bessie is very well, only – well, I should be always thinking of Bessie Jones, and you know she isn’t very nice. I’ll tell you what, Johnny! suppose we call her Vesta Geneva, after the girl Papa told us about yesterday.”
“Lily, you are a perfect silly! Why, I wouldn’t be seen with a sister called that! I think Polly is a nice, jolly kind of name.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“You needn’t get mad if you don’t. Cross-patch!”
“You’re perfectly horrid, John Brown; I sha’n’t play with you any more.”
“Much I care, silly Lily!”
“Well!” said Nurse, coming in again, “what is the name to be, dears? Mamma is anxious to know.”
Two heads hung very low, and two pairs of eyes sought the floor and stayed there. “Shall I tell you,” the good Nurse went on, taking no notice, “what I thought would be a very good name for baby?”
“Oh yes! yes! do tell us, ’cause we can’t get the right one.”
“Well, I thought your mother’s name, Mary, would be the very best name in the world. What do you think?”
“Why, of course it would! We never thought of that. Oh, thank you, Nurse!” cried both voices, joyously. “Dear Nurse! will you tell Mamma, please?”
Nurse nodded, and went away smiling, and Lily and John looked sheepishly at each other.
“I – I will play with you, if you like, Johnny, dear.”
“All right, Lil.”
BUTTERCUP GOLD
Oh! the cupperty-buts! and oh! the cupperty-buts! out in the meadow, shining under the trees, and sparkling over the lawn, millions and millions of them, each one a bit of purest gold from Mother Nature’s mint. Jessy stood at the window, looking out at them, and thinking, as she often had thought before, that there were no flowers so beautiful. “Cupperty-buts,” she had been used to call them, when she was a wee baby-girl and could not speak without tumbling over her words and mixing them up in the queerest fashion; and now that she was a very great girl, actually six years old, they were still cupperty-buts to her, and would never be anything else, she said. There was nothing she liked better than to watch the lovely golden things, and nod to them as they nodded to her; but this morning her little face looked anxious and troubled, and she gazed at the flowers with an intent and inquiring look, as if she had expected them to reply to her unspoken thoughts. What these thoughts were I am going to tell you.
Half an hour before, she had called to her mother, who was just going out, and begged her to come and look at the cupperty-buts.
“They are brighter than ever, Mamma! Do just come and look at them! golden, golden, golden! There must be fifteen thousand million dollars’ worth of gold just on the lawn, I should think.”
And her mother, pausing to look out, said, very sadly, —
“Ah, my darling! if I only had this day a little of that gold, what a happy woman I should be!”
And then the good mother went out, and there little Jessy stood, gazing at the flowers, and repeating the words to herself, over and over again, —
“If I only had a little of that gold!”
She knew that her mother was very, very poor, and had to go out to work every day to earn food and clothes for herself and her little daughter; and the child’s tender heart ached to think of the sadness in the dear mother’s look and tone. Suddenly Jessy started, and the sunshine flashed into her face.
“Why!” she exclaimed, “why shouldn’t I get some of the gold from the cupperty-buts? I believe I could get some, perfectly well. When Mamma wants to get the juice out of anything, meat, or fruit, or anything of that sort, she just boils it. And so, if I should boil the cupperty-buts, wouldn’t all the gold come out? Of course it would! Oh, joy! how pleased Mamma will be!”
Jessy’s actions always followed her thoughts with great rapidity. In five minutes she was out on the lawn, with a huge basket beside her, pulling away at the buttercups with might and main. Oh! how small they were, and how long it took even to cover the bottom of the basket. But Jessy worked with a will, and at the end of an hour she had picked enough to make at least a thousand dollars, as she calculated. That would do for one day, she thought; and now for the grand experiment! Before going out she had with much labor filled the great kettle with water, so now the water was boiling, and she had only to put the buttercups in and put the cover on. When this was done, she sat as patiently as she could, trying to pay attention to her knitting, and not to look at the clock oftener than every two minutes.
“They must boil for an hour,” she said; “and by that time all the gold will have come out.”
Well, the hour did pass, somehow or other, though it was a very long one; and at eleven o’clock, Jessy, with a mighty effort, lifted the kettle from the stove and carried it to the open door, that the fresh air might cool the boiling water. At first, when she lifted the cover, such a cloud of steam came out that she could see nothing; but in a moment the wind blew the steam aside, and then she saw, – oh, poor little Jessy! – she saw a mass of weeds floating about in a quantity of dirty, greenish water, and that was all. Not the smallest trace of gold, even in the buttercups themselves, was to be seen. Poor little Jessy! she tried hard not to cry, but it was a bitter disappointment; the tears came rolling down her cheeks faster and faster, till at length she sat down by the kettle, and, burying her face in her apron, sobbed as if her heart would break.
Presently, through her sobs, she heard a kind voice saying, “What is the matter, little one? Why do you cry so bitterly?” She looked up and saw an old gentleman with white hair and a bright, cheery face, standing by her. At first, Jessy could say nothing but “Oh! the cupperty-buts! oh! the cupperty-buts!” but, of course, the old gentleman didn’t know what she meant by that, so, as he urged her to tell him about her trouble, she dried her eyes, and told him the melancholy little story: how her mother was very poor, and said she wished she had some gold; and how she herself had tried to get the gold out of the buttercups by boiling them. “I was so sure I could get it out,” she said, “and I thought Mamma would be so pleased! And now – ”
Here she was very near breaking down again; but the gentleman patted her head and said, cheerfully, “Wait a bit, little woman! Don’t give up the ship yet. You know that gold is heavy, very heavy indeed, and if there were any it would be at the very bottom of the kettle, all covered with the weeds, so that you could not see it. I should not be at all surprised if you found some, after all. Run into the house and bring me a spoon with a long handle, and we will fish in the kettle, and see what we can find.”
Jessy’s face brightened, and she ran into the house. If any one had been standing near just at that moment, I think it is possible that he might have seen the old gentleman’s hand go into his pocket and out again very quickly, and might have heard a little splash in the kettle; but nobody was near, so, of course,