Read Ebook: Pop-Guns: One Serious and One Funny by Fanny Aunt

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Ebook has 403 lines and 26492 words, and 9 pages

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PREFACE

TO PARENTS AND GUARDIANS.

In these little books, I have complied with a request repeatedly expressed to me, to write stories avowedly for the purpose of "pointing a moral."

POP-GUNS.

A POP-GUN LETTER FROM AUNT FANNY.

DARLING CHILDREN,--

Last summer, when I was in the country, I met a family of six charming children. As soon as they heard who I was, they did not stop one minute to think about it, but just ran up and kissed and hugged me, and told me they loved me dearly.

Oh! how sweet that was to know: but I put on a funny grave face, and said--

"I cannot imagine why you should love such a little brown woman; don't you think you have made some mistake?"

There was no resisting that "Oh, do!" with six pair of loving bright eyes looking into mine; so I answered--

"Well, let us all get in a corner together, and have a nice long talk."

At this one of the boys threw up his hands, made a dry dive down on the carpet, and bumped the top of his head, in his joy; another, hopped on one foot till he lost his balance, and had to make a one-sided somerset, to bring himself up on his feet again; the third and smallest laid his curly head lovingly against my dress; while the little girls danced and skipped so lightly around me, that I caught myself wishing for the hundred and fiftieth time that I were a child too.

But never mind. I love children with my whole heart, and that helps to comfort me, when I think what an old "Aunt Fanny" I am getting to be.

So we all sat down in the corner, just as close together as we could get, and I told them how, as they knew already from the "Mitten" books, that George was a captain in the army, and as he had always been a good boy, he was now a noble and good young man; and how Harry had gone to the naval school at Newport, and could run about the rigging of a ship, like any monkey; and Anna was engaged to be married; at which they were greatly surprised.

"W-h-a-t?" cried all the children, with breathless interest.

I put on a monstrous solemn face, and raising my arms as if I was going to shoot, uttered the first four words very slowly, and the last four, very quickly--

"You--will--be--called--THE POP-GUN CHILDREN--BANG!"

But I could not help a merry twinkle in my eyes, and the children saw it; so after the first instant of surprise at their new and queer title, they burst out into hearty chuckling laughter, exclaiming, "Oh, what fun! We are to be the 'Pop-gun Children!' Shoot away, Aunt Fanny. Make ready! Take aim! Fire! Bang! bang! bang!" and they commenced to shoot each other with their fore-fingers, and made such a terrible racket, that two very grave and very prim old ladies, who were knitting stockings on the other side of the room, looked at us so severely through their big round spectacles, that I had a great mind to tell the children to take hold of hands, and we would all march up in one long row, and with a One, two, three! fall down plump on our fourteen knees, and say we were sorry for being happy so loud.

But the next moment, I thought, that perhaps these poor old souls had no children in their own homes, and were not used to so much noise--perhaps they had only cats and parrots to love them--and then I felt sorry for them in earnest, and whispered to the children, "Come, let us go out under the trees, and finish our talk."

This made me laugh so, that I did not perceive that a lady and gentleman who had been sitting reading under another tree a little way off, had left their seats, and were standing close to us smiling, until Sophie said, "Dear mamma and papa, this is 'Aunt Fanny.'"

I tried to look grave, as I shook hands with "mamma and papa," and heard their kind words of welcome: words so kind, that I do not like to tell them--and then all the children speaking at once, told about their new funny name, and my new stories, at which mamma and papa seemed very much delighted.

"But when will they begin?" asked the children; "to-morrow?"

"Not till next October."

"Why, my darlings," I said, "I want to rest here in this lovely country place, and laugh and frolic with you, and climb over ninety-nine fences, and eat apples, and drink milk, and hear the birds sing, and watch the dimples of sunlight peeping through the leaves of the trees, and feed the chickens, and ride on the top of a load of hay, with forty thousand grasshoppers in it, and sail or row on that beautiful little lake in front of us, and forget all about the hard brick and stone city, until the sweet summer is over."

"Oh! Will you do all that with us, dear Aunt Fanny? then we will wait as long as you like. When will you begin to climb the fences and row on the pond? Let's have a row now."

The very minute we were on dry land again, Peter said, with a hop, skip, and jump, "Now, Aunt Fanny, when shall we begin to climb the fences?"

"At five o'clock this afternoon," I answered, laughing, "we will all go out, for a nice long walk, and you shall hunt up the fences, and that little pug-nosed dog, with no tail to speak of, shall go with us."

"Why, that's our dog!" cried the children.

"Is it? what is his name?"

"Something short."

"Short? Is it Tip?"

"No, Aunt Fanny; something short."

"Nip? Bip? Rip? Sap? Top?"

How they laughed as they said again, "Something short."

Then I began to suspect the joke, and said, "Very well. I'll fire one of my pop-guns at Mr. Something Short, the very first time I catch him chasing a cat, or rushing at cows' noses to bite them."

"Yes do, Aunt Fanny!" they answered. Then I got a good kiss and hug from each, and went back into the house.

Forgive me for this grave little lecture. It all came out of LOVE--that best love which seeks your good. If you love me, I know you will understand this.

And now here are the Pop-gun Stories, which I send with a--Take aim! fire! bang!! and on top of all a kiss and a blessing, from your loving

AUNT FANNY.

ABOUT THE CHILDREN.

One clear soft autumn evening, in the beginning of October, just after dinner, Aunt Fanny went up into her bedroom, and put on her bonnet and sack. They were both black, and trimmed with crape, for she had lately lost a relative she dearly loved. Then opening a drawer in her precious little library-table, upon which she wrote all her stories, she took out a manuscript, and tried to get it into her pocket.

But it was written on such wide paper that the end would stick out, so she had to return to the dining-room with a quarter of the roll in full view.

"Why, mamma!" exclaimed Alice, "where are you going? and what is that sticking out of your pocket?"

"I am going to see my new children, and this is the but-end of a pop-gun."

"Oh, mamma, take me! I want to go."

"But, darling, I thought Lizzie Lyman was coming to help you make a new Spanish waist for Ginevra."

"So she is; I forgot;" and Alice pulled out Miss Ginevra, who was a lovely little porcelain doll, and who lived in the top of her own trunk, and kissed her fondly.

So Aunt Fanny and her tall husband, after a dozen kisses or so from Sarah and Alice, trotted off.

If you will promise never to tell, I will mention that the new children lived in Twenty-third street, in the very middle of a long row of brown-stone houses. It was not a very long walk, and soon Aunt Fanny had pulled the bell, which was one of those funny spring bells which give one loud "tching," as if they had jumped out of their skins with a jerk and a scream; and jumped in again with another, the next time anybody pulled them. As the door was opened, she saw a bright little face peeping from the dining-room, and the very next instant she heard the joyous exclamation, "If it isn't Aunt Fanny!"--and then came a rushing, and a tumbling, and a racing, and a laughing! and all the six children fell lovingly upon her, and knocked down--not Aunt Fanny, not a bit of it, or of her, but two hats, three umbrellas, a great-coat, a whisk-broom, and a paper parcel marked "From A. T. Stewart,"--all of which had been peacefully hanging or resting upon the hat-stand; and when papa and mamma came out to see who was creating such a riot, there was Aunt Fanny with the whisk-broom perched like a flower on top of her bonnet, Peter and Fred rushing after the hats which had rolled off in different corners; all the rest of the articles scattered on the floor; Bob and the three little girls jumping straight up and down, kissing Aunt Fanny, and begging pardon for upsetting so many things over her; while the waiter and Aunt Fanny's husband were standing near, laughing as hard as ever they could at the fun.

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