Every Girl's Book. Lt.-Colonel Lewis William George Butler
taken the story up where the daughter left it, and shown its importance. But Elsie and her mother were like two sisters, a big and a little one, and there were not many things that happened to the one that the other did not hear of very soon. So away went Elsie singing and laughing and swinging her pail of water, her bright hair blowing in wisps around her sweet face with its red lips and cheeks and white teeth, the prettiest, loveliest picture in the whole lovely landscape of foliage and flowers and pastures and meadows.
Nobody in the world ever yet found a prettier picture anywhere than a fresh and clean girl is, as everybody will admit if asked, and Elsie was fresh and clean even if she had just been rudely aroused from sleep. She bathed her whole body twice every day, washed her face and hands often, brushed her teeth always after eating, smiled a great deal, and got plenty of fresh air and sunshine, and this was enough to make any girl fresh and clean and pretty, or almost enough.
Of course a girl must eat sufficient food, and must brush her hair and take care of her nails, and all those little things – everybody knows that. But the main things, beside food, the things, too, that some little girls fail in, are air, sunshine, water and smiles. Elsie had all these and therefore she looked clean and fresh and pretty.
She had on a dress too, naturally, but I don’t know just what kind of a one it was, for that is a small matter compared with the body itself. I think it was some kind of a calico, made for vacation frolicing, for Elsie was a city girl staying in the country for the summer, and almost anything was good enough for that.
So Elsie, fresh and clean, dancing and singing up the lane, swinging her pail of crystal water, the loveliest sight in the whole lovely landscape, came in view of the house where they were staying. And no sooner had she caught a glimpse of her mother on the porch than, eager to tell her funny experience, she ran forward in pleasant excitement, crying out:
“Oh, mamma! Such a queer thing – Oh, Oh, it was an engine, the biggest, biggest you ever saw – and – and it stepped on my nose – I mean it was only a bumble-bee and – it – it almost ran right over me – ”
“Isn’t my little girl somewhat mixed in her speech!” smiled her mother as Elsie paused for breath.
“I – I guess I – I am!” Elsie faltered. “But then, I’m so excited!”
“Yes, you are excited,” smiled her mother, putting her arm around her shoulders and walking with her to the kitchen. “And when you are calm you may tell me all about it.”
So Elsie carried the pail of water to the sink and set it on its shelf. And when she had worked off her surplus energy in this way she felt sober enough to tell her story clearly, and she did so, snuggled in her mother’s arms in the hammock on the porch. She finished by saying:
“Wasn’t that a funny thing, mamma, that I should dream that the bumble-bee was an engine just going to run over me!”
Then the really important part of the story began. Her mother answered:
II
WHAT THE BEE WANTED OF ELSIE’S NOSE
“Yes, it may seem funny, but it is natural. When you were asleep you heard the bee buzzing and rumbling, and the sound reminded you of an engine, so you began to picture an engine in your mind, and with the queer mixture of fact and fancy that are common to dreams you thought it was coming right at you. And it was only a bumble-bee taking a look at your little red-and-white nose.”
Elsie clapped her hands and laughed. Then she asked:
“What did the bee want to see my nose for, mamma?”
“He thought, perhaps, that it was some new kind of a bud, and he wished to examine it,” Mrs. Edson smiled. “A little girl’s face is very much like a pretty flower. Your hair was tumbled all about your head, I suppose, and your little rosebud of a nose, peeking through, attracted the bee.”
At this idea Elsie laughed again, joyously.
“But, mamma,” she asked, “why should the bee wish to see my nose, even if he did think it might be a flower? Do bees eat flowers, mamma?”
Elsie’s mother threw her a sudden look that was almost a startled one. Then she hugged her close and kissed her.
“What a great big little girl you are getting to be, darling!” she said, gazing fondly at her. This did not seem to Elsie much like an answer to her question, and she fixed her eyes brightly on her mother’s face as if waiting for her to go on with her words. But her mother only said: “I scarcely realized that you were no longer my little baby-girl, and that you were instead almost a young lady, old enough to understand many new things, among them the reason why a bee goes to flowers.”
She paused again, looking at her big little girl wistfully. She was thinking: “Elsie has begun to be a woman now, and I shall soon, all too soon, lose my baby-girl, for she will grow up and marry and go away to a home of her own and have a little girl like herself, just as I have had her!”
This made her feel sad, but she said nothing to Elsie of this feeling, for she would not be able to understand it and it would only make her feel sad too. By and by she would tell her what it meant to have a husband and children and home of her own, after her parents were passed away, and she must begin to prepare her for this knowledge now. So, finally, she said:
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