Read Ebook: Jessie Carlton The Story of a Girl who Fought with Little Impulse the Wizard and Conquered Him by Wise Daniel

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1054 lines and 42817 words, and 22 pages

face left the room.

The sunshine came back into Jessie's face in a moment. She looked her thanks to Uncle Morris, while she nervously opened the envelope of her letter. Having unfolded it, she read as follows:

Morristown, New Jersey, October 10th, 18--

Dear Cousin Jessie,

Pa and Ma have just given their consent to have me and my brother Charlie visit you at Glen Morris Cottage. I am so glad I can hardly hold my pen to write you about it. Charlie is jumping about the room, and shouting hurrah, for joy. We are to start Thursday, in the afternoon train, and shall get to your house to tea. With ten thousand kisses for you, I remain,

Your affectionate cousin, Emily Morris. Miss Jessie Carlton.

"Oh, won't it be nice, Uncle Morris!" cried Jessie, after reading this note. "What good times I shall have with my cousins! I'm so glad I don't know what to do with myself."

"You are a happy little puss generally, and I am glad to see you made happier than usual by this pleasant letter from your cousin. But are you sure, my dear Jessie, that you will enjoy your cousins' visit?"

"Why, Uncle!" cried Jessie, with an air of surprise. "How can you ask me such a question? I am sure I shall love my cousins very much, and we shall enjoy ourselves very finely together."

"Well! Well! I hope it may be so," said Uncle Morris, with a sigh which made Jessie think that the good old man's hope was not a very strong one. She said nothing, however, and Uncle Morris asked--

"When are your cousins coming?"

Jessie looked at her letter and read, "'We are to start Thursday,'"--pausing, and looking up, she exclaimed--

"Why, that's this very day! I declare they will be here this afternoon. Won't it be nice!"

Jessie hurried to her mother's apartment with the unopened letter and the news. Mrs. Carlton's letter was from Emily's mother and contained the same information.

Jessie was in ecstasies during the next two hours. To be sure, there was that question and that sigh of Uncle Morris to cast a slight shadow on her joy. But shadows never tarried long on Jessie's spirit, which was so bright and joyous that it seemed as if it was made of sunshine. Happy little Jessie Carlton!

Emily's letter had put all thought of her work out of Jessie's head. Her patchwork lay on the floor beside the overturned work-basket, until her mother going to prepare the parlor for company, picked both up and put them away. In fact, Jessie's little wizard had her in his chains again. She was once more the simple-hearted child of impulse.

Having fixed her hair and changed her dress, Jessie ran out on to the piazza to watch for the coming of her cousins. First she seated herself on the settee, which stood there, and made the air ring again with her joyous song. After a few minutes, she sprang from her seat and seizing old Rover by the head, began to tell him that her cousins were coming, and, therefore, he must be the very best behaved dog in the world. Then seating herself lightly on old Rover's back, she patted his neck, and said--

"Noble old Rover, won't you give your mistress a ride?"

Rover was a grand old dog, large and strong enough to carry a much heavier miss than Jessie. He was good-natured too. Still he had no notion of being used for a pony. So, after standing quite still for a moment or two, he suddenly started and sent Jessie sprawling on the piazza, while he trotted down the steps and made a bed for himself in the greensward, on the lawn, as quietly as if nothing had happened. A knowing old dog was Rover.

Jessie picked herself up and began singing again. Scarcely had she trilled out two lines before she saw Guy coming towards the house. With the light spring of a fairy she bounded across the lawn, and meeting him at the gate exclaimed--

"O Guy, cousin Emily and cousin Charlie are coming here to-night. Aren't you glad?"

"To be sure I am. I'm glad of any thing that pleases my sister."

Jessie kissed him, and taking his hand, walked with him back to the piazza, where she resumed her watching, beguiling the time by humming her songs and by an occasional frolic with old Rover.

At last, the sound of wheels told her that the carriage was coming up from the railroad station. A few minutes later it rolled along the road which ran through the lawn and in front of the piazza. Four bright eyes peeped over the door, which the coachman speedily opened. Mr. Carlton stepped out first and then came Emily and Charlie. Never did cousins meet with warmer greetings than they received from Jessie and Guy, and Mrs. Carlton, and Uncle Morris. Never was little girl happier than Jessie, when, a few minutes later, she had Emily all to herself, in her own sweet little chamber, showing her the contents of drawer and trunk and doll-house, and whatever else might be included in the term "playthings." When Emily and Charlie went to bed that night, they were in ecstasies over the pleasant things they had seen and felt on the first evening of their visit to Glen Morris Cottage.

See Frontispiece.

Jessie's Two Cousins.

The first few days of her cousins' visit were like a pleasant dream to Jessie. She had so much to say, and so many things to show to her visitors, that they could scarcely help sharing the joy which welled up within her like a crystal stream from a mountain spring. Seeing them so cheerful and happy, Jessie wondered more and more at the question her uncle had asked her about enjoying their visit.

"I don't see what Uncle Morris meant," said she to herself one afternoon, while her cousins were on the lawn laughing and playing with Guy, and she was washing her hands by way of preparation for tea. "He looked and sighed," she went on to say, "as if he thought I should be disappointed in them. But I am not. They are the kindest, merriest cousins in the world. I declare I'll ask Uncle Morris what he meant, the next time I see him alone."

That next time came very soon, for as Jessie skipped down stairs, with laughter twinkling in her eyes, and a song tripping from her tongue, she met her uncle in the hall. Running right to him, she seized his arm, peered curiously into his face, and said--

"Uncle Morris?"

"Well, little puss, what now?" replied the old gentleman, as he kissed her rosy cheeks.

"I want you to tell me what you sighed and shook your head for, last week, when I told you what good times I was going to have with my cousins?" said Jessie, closely watching the expression of the old gentleman's face.

"How funny!" exclaimed the little girl; and then, putting on a thoughtful air, she repeated the proverb slowly, in an undertone; after which, she added aloud, "I don't see what shoes and stockings have to do with my cousins and me. What a funny man you are, Uncle Morris!"

Uncle Morris had, by this time, reached the door leading to the back piazza. He heard this exclamation, however, and turning round, with the door-knob in his hand, he peeped through the opening, shook his forefinger at her, and said--

"When Jessie knows her cousins as the shoe knows the stocking, she will be able to tell why I sighed. Ha! ha! ha! Uncle Morris is a funny man, is he?"

Just then a loud voice was heard ringing through the hall, and saying--

"Cousin Jessie! Cousin Jessie! come here quick! Your ugly old dog is killing my sister!"

"Not quite so bad as that, I guess," said Jessie, when she reached the front door, where she saw Emily sitting on the greensward, rubbing the back of her head. Old Rover was standing on the piazza, uttering a low growl at Charlie, by way of warning him not to throw any more stones at his dogship.

"He's an ugly monster, that he is," said the boy, hurling another stone at Rover, as he moved toward his mistress, and began to rub his nose against her hands.

"Down, Rover!" said Jessie, patting the dog's head, and thus quieting his temper, which was somewhat ruffled by the last stone, which Charlie had sent right against his ribs.

"No, no, Charlie, you must not stone old Rover. It is not kind to hurt a poor, harmless dog, nor is it quite safe, either, for, you see, Rover has big teeth, and he may bite you if you hurt him," said Guy, still holding the angry boy.

"I don't care! He hurt my sister. I'll kick you if you don't let me stone him as much as I like. Let me go, you ugly fellow!" and with these words, Charlie kicked and struggled with such violence, that Guy could scarcely hold him.

Meanwhile, Jessie, having sent old Rover to his kennel, was trying to comfort Emily. The whole difficulty had grown out of her attempt to mount the dog's back, in defiance of Guy's advice. He told her that Rover did not like to do service as a pony, and that he would certainly throw her off if she tried to ride him. But, urged on by Charlie, she had seated herself on the dog, and had been thrown down just as Jessie had been, a few days before. She was not much hurt, a slight bruise on the back of her head being the only damage she had sustained. Jessie would have laughed over such a trifle. But Emily was not like Jessie. She had been pleasant thus far, since her coming to Glen Morris. But now, her good-nature being played out, she began to show the selfish and ugly side of her character.

"I won't go in; and if your father don't have that ugly dog killed, I'll go home to-morrow, that I will!"

"What! have Rover killed? Oh, no! Pa won't do that, I'm sure," said Jessie, a little startled at the idea of dear old Rover's death.

"I'll kill him!" screamed Charlie, who was still a sulky prisoner in Guy's hands.

"You are a little fellow to play the part of a butcher!" said Mr. Morris, who had now come to the front of the house, and had been quietly surveying the scene, for a few moments past, from behind a large evergreen, unperceived by all but Guy.

"I'm glad you are come, Uncle," said Guy, "for I did not know what to do with this little lump of spunk. I guess that Jessie is glad, too, for she seems puzzled to know what to do with Emily, who is as sulky as Charlie here is spunky."

The presence of Uncle Morris quieted Charlie, and made Emily rise from the grass. But nothing that he could say, after hearing the whole story, could restore them to good humor. Charlie bit his thumb, and scowled; while Emily, pushing Jessie from her side, kept rolling her pocket-handkerchief into a ball, pouted, and refused to say a word, either to her uncle or cousin.

In this wretched mood they went in to tea, sitting at the table like two dark shadows falling across a room full of sunshine. Everybody was kind to them. Jessie did her utmost to restore them to good humor. Uncle Morris said funny things, hoping to make them smile. But it was no use. Smile they would not; and when tea was over, they both slunk away to a distant part of the room, and kept up their sulks until bedtime. Even then, when Jessie tried to kiss Emily, she was rudely pushed aside.

"I don't want to kiss anybody in this house," muttered the ugly child; and poor Jessie, shrinking from her, went to her uncle, laid her head upon his shoulder, and wept.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet