 | Twice-told tales |  |
LITTLE ANNIE'S RAMBLE.
LITTLE ANNIE'S RAMBLE.
Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
The town-crier has rung his bell, at a distant corner,
and little Annie stands on her father's door-steps,
trying to hear what the man with the loud voice is
talking about. Let me listen too. Oh! he is telling
the people that an elephant, and a lion, and a royal
tiger, and a horse with horns, and other strange beasts
from foreign countries, have come to town, and will
receive all visiters who choose to wait upon them.
Perhaps little Annie would like to go. Yes; and I
can see that the pretty child is weary of this wide and
pleasant street, with the green trees flinging their shade
across the quiet sunshine, and the pavements and the
sidewalks all as clean as if the housemaid had just
swept them with her broom. She feels that impulse
to go strolling away—that longing after the mystery
of the great world—which many children feel, and
which I felt in my childhood. Little Annie shall take
and, like some bright bird in the sunny air, with her
blue silk frock fluttering upwards from her white
pantalets, she comes bounding on tiptoe across the
street.
Smooth back your brown curls, Annie; and let me
tie on your bonnet, and we will set forth! What a
strange couple to go on their rambles together! One
walks in black attire, with a measured step, and a
heavy brow, and his thoughtful eyes bent down, while
the gay little girl trips lightly along, as if she were
forced to keep hold of my hand, lest her feet should
dance away from the earth. Yet there is sympathy
between us. If I pride myself on anything, it is
because I have a smile that children love; and, on
the other hand, there are few grown ladies that could
entice me from the side of little Annie; for I delight
to let my mind go hand in hand with the mind of a
sinless child. So, come, Annie; but if I moralize as
we go, do not listen to me; only look about you, and
be merry!
Now we turn the corner. Here are hacks with two
horses, and stage-coaches with four, thundering to
meet each other, and trucks and carts moving at a
slower pace, being heavily laden with barrels from the
wharves, and here are rattling gigs, which perhaps will
be smashed to pieces before our eyes. Hitherward,
also, comes a man trundling a wheelbarrow along the
pavement. Is not little Annie afraid of such a tumult?
passes on with fearless confidence, a happy child
amidst a great throng of grown people, who pay the
same reverence to her infancy, that they would to
extreme old age. Nobody jostles her; all turn aside
to make way for little Annie; and what is most singular,
she appears conscious of her claim to such
respect. Now her eyes brighten with pleasure! A
street musician has seated himself on the steps of
yonder church, and pours forth his strains to the busy
town, a melody that has gone astray among the tramp
of footsteps, the buzz of voices, and the war of passing
wheels. Who heeds the poor organ-grinder? None
but myself and little Annie, whose feet begin to move
in unison with the lively tune, as if she were loth that
music should be wasted without a dance. But where
would Annie find a partner? Some have the gout in
their toes, or the rheumatism in their joints; some are
stiff with age; some feeble with disease; some are so
lean that their bones would rattle, and others of such
ponderous size that their agility would crack the flag-stones;
but many, many have leaden feet, because
their hearts are far heavier than lead. It is a sad
thought that I have chanced upon. What a company
of dancers should we be! For I, too, am a gentleman
of sober footsteps, and therefore, little Annie, let us
walk sedately on.
It is a question with me, whether this giddy child,
or my sage self, have most pleasure in looking at the
glow within the darkened premises of the spruce dry-goods
men; we are pleasantly dazzled by the burnished
silver, and the chased gold, the rings of wedlock
and the costly love-ornaments, glistening at the window
of the jeweller; but Annie, more than I, seeks for a
glimpse of her passing figure in the dusty looking-glasses
at the hardware stores. All that is bright and
gay attracts us both.
Here is a shop to which the recollections of my
boyhood, as well as present partialities, give a peculiar
magic. How delightful to let the fancy revel on the
dainties of a confectioner; those pies, with such white
and flaky paste, their contents being a mystery, whether
rich mince, with whole plums intermixed, or piquant
apple, delicately rose-flavored; those cakes, heart-shaped
or round, piled in a lofty pyramid; those sweet
little circlets, sweetly named kisses; those dark majestic
masses, fit to be bridal loaves at the wedding of
an heiress, mountains in size, their summits deeply
snow-covered with sugar! Then the mighty treasures
of sugarplums, white, and crimson, and yellow, in
large glass vases; and candy of all varieties; and
those little cockles, or whatever they are called, much
prized by children for their sweetness, and more for
the mottos which they enclose, by love-sick maids
and bachelors! Oh! my mouth waters, little Annie,
and so doth yours; but we will not be tempted, except
to an imaginary feast; so let us hasten onward, devouring
the vision of a plum cake.
Here are pleasures, as some people would say, of a
more exalted kind, in the window of a bookseller. Is
Annie a literary lady? Yes; she is deeply read in
Peter Parley's tomes, and has an increasing love for
fairy tales, though seldom met with now-a-days, and
she will subscribe, next year, to the Juvenile Miscellany.
But, truth to tell, she is apt to turn away from
the printed page, and keep gazing at the pretty pictures,
such as the gay-colored ones which make this shop-window
the continual loitering place of children.
What would Annie think, if, in the book which I
mean to send her, on New Year's day, she should find
her sweet little self, bound up in silk or morocco with
gilt edges, there to remain till she become a woman
grown, with children of her own to read about their
mother's childhood! That would be very queer.
Little Annie is weary of pictures, and pulls me
onward by the hand, till suddenly we pause at the
most wondrous shop in all the town. Oh, my stars!
Is this a toyshop, or is it fairy land? For here are
gilded chariots, in which the king and queen of the
fairies might ride side by side, while their courtiers,
on these small horses, should gallop in triumphal procession
before and behind the royal pair. Here, too,
are dishes of china ware, fit to be the dining set of
those same princely personages, when they make a
regal banquet in the stateliest hall of their palace,
full five feet high, and behold their nobles feasting
adown the long perspective of the table. Betwixt the
fairy of them all. Here stands a turbaned Turk,
threatening us with his sabre, like an ugly heathen as
he is. And next a Chinese mandarine, who nods his
head at Annie and myself. Here we may review a
whole army of horse and foot, in red and blue uniforms,
with drums, fifes, trumpets and all kinds of noiseless
music; they have halted on the shelf of this window,
after their weary march from Lilliput. But what cares
Annie for soldiers? No conquering queen is she,
neither a Semiramis nor a Catharine; her whole heart
is set upon that doll, who gazes at us with such a
fashionable stare. This is the little girl's true play-thing.
Though made of wood, a doll is a visionary
and ethereal personage, endowed by childish fancy
with a peculiar life; the mimic lady is a heroine of
romance, an actor and a sufferer in a thousand
shadowy scenes, the chief inhabitant of that wild world
with which children ape the real one. Little Annie
does not understand what I am saying, but looks wishfully
at the proud lady in the window. We will invite
her home with us as we return. Meantime, good-by,
Dame Doll! A toy yourself, you look forth from your
window upon many ladies that are also toys, though
they walk and speak, and upon a crowd in pursuit of
toys, though they wear grave visages. Oh, with your
never-closing eyes, had you but an intellect to moralize
on all that flits before them, what a wise doll would
you be! Come, little Annie, we shall find toys enough,
go where we may.
Now we elbow our way among the throng again.
It is curious, in the most crowded part of a town, to
meet with living creatures that had their birth-place in
some far solitude, but have acquired a second nature
in the wilderness of men. Look up, Annie, at that
canary bird, hanging out of the window in his cage.
Poor little fellow! His golden feathers are all tarnished
in this smoky sunshine; he would have glistened
twice as brightly among the summer islands; but still
he has become a citizen in all his tastes and habits,
and would not sing half so well without the uproar
that drowns his music. What a pity that he does not
know how miserable he is! There is a parrot, too,
calling out, `Pretty Poll! Pretty Poll!' as we pass
by. Foolish bird, to be talking about her prettiness
to strangers; especially as she is not a pretty Poll,
though gaudily dressed in green and yellow. If she
had said `pretty Annie,' there would have been some
sense in it. See that gray squirrel, at the door of the
fruit-shop, whirling round and round so merrily within
his wire wheel! Being condemned to the treadmill,
he makes it an amusement. Admirable philosophy!
Here comes a big, rough dog, a countryman's dog
in search of his master; smelling at every body's heels,
and touching little Annie's hand with his cold nose,
but hurrying away, though she would fain have patted
him. Success to your search, Fidelity! And there
sits a great yellow cat upon a window-sill, a very corpulent
and comfortable cat, gazing at this transitory
doubtless, or what appear such, to the silly beast. Oh,
sage puss, make room for me beside you, and we will
be a pair of philosophers!
Here we see something to remind us of the town-crier,
and his ding-dong-bell! Look! look at that great
cloth spread out in the air, pictured all over with wild
beasts, as if they had met together to choose a king,
according to their custom in the days of Æsop. But
they are choosing neither a king nor a President; else
we should hear a most horrible snarling! They have
come from the deep woods, and the wild mountains,
and the desert sands, and the polar snows, only to do
homage to my little Annie. As we enter among them,
the great elephant makes us a bow, in the best style of
elephantine courtesy, bending lowly down his mountain
bulk, with trunk abased and leg thrust out behind.
Annie returns the salute, much to the gratification of
the elephant, who is certainly the best bred monster
in the caravan. The lion and the lioness are busy
with two beef bones. The royal tiger, the beautiful,
the untamable, keeps pacing his narrow cage with a
haughty step, unmindful of the spectators, or recalling
the fierce deeds of his former life, when he was wont
to leap forth upon such inferior animals, from the
jungles of Bengal.
Here we see the very same wolf—do not go near
him, Annie!—the self-same wolf that devoured little
Red Riding Hood and her grandmother. In the next
around the pyramids, and a black bear from our own
forests, are fellow prisoners, and most excellent friends.
Are there any two living creatures, who have so few
sympathies that they cannot possibly be friends? Here
sits a great white bear, whom common observers would
call a very stupid beast, though I perceive him to be
only absorbed in contemplation; he is thinking of his
voyages on an iceberg, and of his comfortable home
in the vicinity of the north pole, and of the little cubs
whom he left rolling in the eternal snows. In fact, he
is a bear of sentiment. But, oh, those unsentimental
monkeys! the ugly, grinning, aping, chattering, illnatured,
mischievous and queer little brutes. Annie
does not love the monkeys. Their ugliness shocks
her pure, instinctive delicacy of taste, and makes her
mind unquiet, because it bears a wild and dark resemblance
to humanity. But here is a little pony, just big
enough for Annie to ride, and round and round he
gallops in a circle, keeping time with his trampling
hoofs to a band of music. And here—with a laced
coat and a cocked hat, and a riding whip in his hand,
here comes a little gentleman, small enough to be
king of the fairies, and ugly enough to be king of the
gnomes, and takes a flying leap into the saddle. Merrily,
merrily, plays the music, and merrily gallops the
pony, and merrily rides the little old gentleman. Come,
Annie, into the street again; perchance we may see
monkeys on horseback there!
Mercy on us, what a noisy world we quiet people
live in! Did Annie ever read the cries of London
city? With what lusty lungs doth yonder man proclaim
that his wheelbarrow is full of lobsters! Here
comes another mounted on a cart, and blowing a
hoarse and dreadful blast from a tin horn, as much as
to say `fresh fish!' And hark! a voice on high, like
that of a muezzin from the summit of a mosque, announcing
that some chimney sweeper has emerged
from smoke and soot, and darksome caverns, into the
upper air. What cares the world for that? But,
well-a-day, we hear a shrill voice of affliction, the
scream of a little child, rising louder with every repetition
of that smart, sharp, slapping sound, produced
by an open hand on tender flesh. Annie sympathizes,
though without experience of such direful woe. Lo!
the town-crier again, with some new secret for the
public ear. Will he tell us of an auction, or of a lost
pocketbook, or a show of beautiful wax figures, or of
some monstrous beast more horrible than any in the
caravan? I guess the latter. See how he uplifts the
bell in his right hand, and shakes it slowly at first,
then with a hurried motion, till the clapper seems to
strike both sides at once, and the sounds are scattered
forth in quick succession, far and near.
Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
Now he raises his clear, loud voice, above all the
din of the town; it drowns the buzzing talk of many
tongues, and draws each man's mind from his own
ascends to the hushed chamber of the sick, and penetrates
downward to the cellar kitchen, where the hot
cook turns from the fire to listen. Who, of all that
address the public ear, whether in church, or court-house,
or hall of state, has such an attentive audience
as the town-crier! What saith the people's orator?
`Strayed from her home, a LITTLE GIRL, of five
years old, in a blue silk frock and white pantalets,
with brown curling hair and hazel eyes. Whoever
will bring her back to her afflicted mother—'
Stop, stop, town-crier! The lost is found. Oh,
my pretty Annie, we forgot to tell your mother of our
ramble, and she is in despair, and has sent the town-crier
to bellow up and down the streets, affrighting
old and young, for the loss of a little girl who has not
once let go my hand? Well, let us hasten homeward;
and as we go, forget not to thank heaven, my Annie,
that after wandering a little way into the world, you
may return at the first summons, with an untainted
and unwearied heart, and be a happy child again. But
I have gone too far astray for the town-crier to call
me back!
Sweet has been the charm of childhood on my
spirit, throughout my ramble with little Annie! Say
not that it has been a waste of precious moments, an
idle matter, a babble of childish talk, and a reverie of
childish imaginations, about topics unworthy of a
grown man's notice. Has it been merely this? Not
it. As the pure breath of children revives the life of
aged men, so is our moral nature revived by their free
and simple thoughts, their native feeling, their airy
mirth, for little cause or none, their grief, soon roused
and soon allayed. Their influence on us is at least
reciprocal with ours on them. When our infancy is
almost forgotten, and our boyhood long departed,
though it seems but as yesterday; when life settles
darkly down upon us, and we doubt whether to call
ourselves young any more; then it is good to steal
away from the society of bearded men, and even of
gentler woman, and spend an hour or two with children.
After drinking from those fountains of still
fresh existence, we shall return into the crowd, as I do
now, to struggle onward and do our part in life, perhaps
as fervently as ever, but, for a time, with a kinder
and purer heart, and a spirit more lightly wise. All
this by thy sweet magic, dear little Annie!
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