Nellie's Housekeeping Little Sunbeams Series

"Be good, sweet child, and let who will be clever: Do noble things, not dream them, all day long; So shalt thou make life, death, and that vast for ever. One grand, sweet song."--KINGSLEY.

BY JOANNA H. MATHEWS, AUTHOR OF THE "BESSIE BOOKS" AND THE "FLOWERETS."

NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 530 BROADWAY. 1882.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

CONTENTS.

PAGE I. HARD AT WORK 7 II. A TALK WITH PAPA 25 III. NELLIE A HOUSEKEEPER 50 IV. A COURTSHIP 70 V. WHITE MICE 94 VI. THE GRAY MICE 113 VII. THE BLACK CAT 136 VIII. DAISY'S SACRIFICE 157 IX. MAKING GINGER-CAKES 181 X. FRESH TROUBLES 204 XI. A NIGHT OF IT 224 XII. AN ALARM 236 XIII. LAST OF THE SUNBEAMS 245

NELLIE'S HOUSEKEEPING.

I.

HARD AT WORK.

"NELLIE, will you come down to the beach now?"

"No!" with as much shortness and sharpness as the little word of two letters could well convey.

"Why not?"

"Oh! because I can't. Don't bother me."

And, laying down the pencil with which she had been writing, Nellie Ransom pushed back the hair from her flushed, heated face, drew a long, weary sigh, took up the Bible which lay at her elbow, and, turning over the leaf, ran her finger slowly and carefully down the page before her.

Carrie stood with one elbow upon the corner of the table at which her sister sat, her chin resting in her palm as she discontentedly watched Nellie, while with the other hand she swung back and forth by one string the broad straw hat she was accustomed to wear when playing out of doors.

"I think you might," she said presently. "Mamma says I can't go if you don't, and I want to go so."

"I can't help it," said Nellie, still without taking her eyes from her Bible. "I wish you'd stop shaking the table so."

"How soon will you come?" persisted Carrie, taking her elbow from the table.

"When I'm ready, and not before," snapped Nellie. "I wish you'd let me alone."

Carrie began to cry.

"It's too bad," she whimpered. "Mamma says, if I go at all, I must go early, so as to be back before sundown, 'cause my cold is so bad. There won't be any time for me to play."

Nellie made no answer, but, having found what she wanted in her Bible, began to write again, copying from the page of the Holy Book before her.

Presently Carrie, forgetting her caution, tossed down her hat, and pettishly plumped both elbows upon the table, muttering,--

"I think you're real mean."

"Stop shaking the table, or I won't go at all," said Nellie, in a loud, irritable tone. "Ask mamma to let Ruth take you."

"She can't spare Ruth, she says. The baby is fretful, and she don't feel well enough to take care of it herself; and I think you might go with me. I haven't been to the beach for four days, because I was sick," pleaded Carrie, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"Well, I'm too busy to go now. You'll have to wait until I'm ready," said Nellie. "I'll come by and by."

"By and by will leave hardly any time," said Carrie, with a wistful glance out upon the lawn, where the shadows were already growing long.

No answer; only the rustle of Nellie's sheet of paper as she turned it over.

Carrie wandered restlessly about the room for a moment or two; then, coming back to the table, began idly to turn over some loose papers which lay at Nellie's right hand.

Nellie snatched them from her.

"Now, look here," she said, "if you don't go away and let me and my things alone, I won't go to the beach at all. You hinder me all the time, and I won't be so bothered."

"Cross, hateful thing!" said Carrie, passionately. "I don't b'lieve you mean to go at all. I wish I had a better sister than you."

Nellie turned once more to the Bible, but deigned no answer to this outburst.

Carrie looked back from the door, which she had reached on her way from the room, and said in a tone one shade less furious than her last,--

"You're always poking over your Bible now, but it don't seem to teach you to be kind. You grow crosser and crosser every day; and you're not one bit like you used to be."

"Carrie!" called Mrs. Ransom's gentle voice from the next room; and Carrie vanished, leaving Nellie, as she had said she wished to be, alone.

Did her work go smoothly after that?

Not very, at least for a few moments. Perhaps mamma had heard all that had passed, and Nellie did not feel quite satisfied that she should have done so. What had she said to Carrie? She could hardly recollect herself, so divided had been her attention between her little sister and the task before her; but she was quite certain that she had been "cross," and spoken to Carrie in an unkind manner, apart from her refusal to accompany the child, who, she well knew, had been confined to the house for the last few days, and deprived of her usual play and exercise in the open air.

But then Carrie might just as well have waited patiently a few moments till she was ready to go, and not bothered her so. She would go presently when she had looked out three--well, no--five--six more verses, and written them out; and once more she took up the Bible.