Another year with Denise and Ned Toodles

Then she listened for the answer. It came, and so did the bird, peering cautiously from a leafy covert, flying nearer and nearer the still figures at the roadside, hopping questioningly from bough to bough, as though asking, “Where is she?”

Denise smiled, but made no sound, and the little bird, deciding that those odd-looking creatures so near by were harmless, opened his tiny beak, and clear and sweet at her very side gave his entrancing call again.

The moment it ceased Denise repeated hers, and for a few moments a very bewildered little bird flitted about the phaeton, calling and hearing the answering call without seeing the lady bird whom he felt sure must be near at hand. It was altogether too tantalizing, and the mystery must be solved if possible, so, gathering courage from his intense curiosity, down he flew from his leafy branch and alighted upon the wheel of the phaeton, to give a still louder and more peremptory call. It was of no use, for even though his lady-love politely answered from between Denise’s lips, she refused to appear, and with an indignant flourish of his brown tail, off flew her suitor to seek a lady-love less disdainful.

As he disappeared into the wood a merry laugh rippled after him, which must have caused a surprised flutter from his wings, and, giving one bound, Denise sprang over the wheels and landed upon the grass beside Ned. The move was a sudden one, but Ned was used to moves of all sorts, so, giving a soft little whinny of welcome, he aroused himself from his dreams, took a step or two nearer, and poked his head under Denise’s arm. She dropped upon the soft grass, saying:--

“Ned Toodles, it’s springtime, springtime, springtime! I am so glad, aren’t you?” And cuddling both arms about the warm head which was thrust into her lap as she sat there, she buried her face in the silky forelock and “snuggled” as hard as she could. Ned responded by a succession of subdued whinnies, as though saying, “More delighted than I can express, for spring means green grass, long walks with you, and no bother with blankets!”

“Now, Ned, listen,” continued Denise, for these conversations were by no means uncommon; they were held daily. “Spring means warm weather, warm weather means vacation, vacation means Pokey! What do you think of that? Vacation doesn’t mean much to us, does it? It’s a sort of vacation all the time with Miss Meredith, for she seems to know just when I have done enough, and doing any more would make my brain all sort of muddled up, and it’s just fun to study with some one who makes you see every solitary thing you learn, till you couldn’t help knowing it unless you were as stupid as--as, well that funny person who called upon mamma the other day and who said to me, ‘So this is the examplry child I have heard so much about. Dear me, I think I shall have to ask your mamma to let you come and visit my children for a while; they are simply irrepressible, and perhaps your shining example will serve as a beacon to their benighted minds.’”

“Ned, it was just awful! Really, it was! That funny woman was so very much dressed up, and was so very, very polite, but she used such queer words. I did not dare look at mamma for fear I should laugh, and then what would she have thought of this ‘examplry’ child I am sure I don’t know. Mamma said, ‘We do not consider Denise a model child by any means, Mrs. Smithers; she is no more than any child may be if the parents will take the trouble to study their children’s characters and learn the wisest manner of government. “One man’s meat is another man’s poison,” you know, and I think the rule will apply to children pretty well, too, don’t you?’ And then mamma smiled that odd little smile of hers that just means so much. You sort of feel its meaning way down inside you, and even if you could not tell in words just what she means you know it all the same. Then she said to me, ‘Mrs. Smithers will excuse you now, Sweetheart,’ and gave me the little love-nod which means, ‘I see you don’t understand what it is all about, but we will talk it over together when twilight comes and we have our cuddle in the big armchair in the library.’ Ned Toodles, that armchair is just the very nicest place in the whole wide world, do you know that?”

Ned evidently agreed perfectly, for he answered, “Hoo-hoo-hoo!” and Denise continued:--

“But, oh, dear, I’m just miles away from where I started! What was I telling you? Oh, yes, I remember. Vacation and Pokey. You see, Ned Toodles, Pokey is smart, very smart, indeed, and some day she is going to be famous, because she told me so. She is going to study hard and get to be a teacher, and buy a dear little house and furnish it all just as pretty as can be, and have her mother live with her and never wish for a single thing that she cannot give to her right off! Isn’t that just splendid? But to do that she must study hard while she is a little girl, and that is what she is doing now, oh, so hard! And she gets all tired out and fidgety, and sort of criss-cross, because she doesn’t know what ails her, but mamma says it is because the brain is trying to grow too fast for the body, and Pokey can’t keep up to it, so just as soon as vacation comes Pokey will come out here, and--_then_!”

This thought was too tremendous to be dealt with in a sitting position, and, springing up, Denise cried:--

“Let’s go home just as fast as ever we can, Ned, for I’ve a sort of feeling that something fine is going to happen,” and she scrambled into the phaeton, and was soon spinning down the road toward home--the very road down which she and her beloved Pokey had scurried the previous summer in their vain attempt to escape from Colonel Franklin when their taffy candy had led them into disgrace. Her thoughts were still busy with her little friend as she hurried along, but she could not look into the future to see that friend’s dream a reality beyond her most sanguine hopes nor behold her grown to dignified womanhood and presiding as superintendent of one of the largest schools in the city which had always been her home.

Ned Toodles trotted along the road that beautiful afternoon, and Denise’s joyous mood found a vent in a charming little song which kept time with Ned’s footfalls and to which he occasionally gave a sort of staccato accent, by breaking into a frisky jump. “Sing-Song Polly” rang out over the fields, the song growing gayer and wilder at every bar, till suddenly a second voice took up the theme in a long-drawn, doleful wail, that brought Denise’s warble to an abrupt ending. Ned heard it, too, and gave a little start to one side, for the wail seemed to proceed from the very ground beneath them, and was decidedly uncanny. Denise drew rein quickly, and stopped to listen for further signs of distress. They came very promptly, and a second later she was stooping over a forlorn figure which the low bushes at the roadside nearly concealed.

A little ditch divided the adjacent fields from the road, and at this season of the year the ditch was very apt to be filled with water and inhabited by a flourishing family of tadpoles. Seated upon the ground at the further side of the ditch, her feet firmly embedded in its mud, from which she was vainly striving to withdraw them, was a small child, probably six years of age. She wore a little pink and white checked gingham, which was splashed with mud from top to bottom; her hands were the color of a little darky’s, and her hair, which perhaps had not been in perfect order upon setting out, was now a hopeless snarl and firmly caught in the overhanging branches of the bushes at her back.

Altogether she was in a sorry plight, for she was held fast by head and feet, and, unless some good Samaritan appeared upon the scene to release her, in a fair way to remain a prisoner for some time to come. But she certainly had no intention of submitting meekly to the predicament in which she found herself, if lusty shouts and yells could compass her release.

“My good gracious!” exclaimed Denise, “how in this world did you ever get in there, and stuck tight fast in the mud?”

“I wanted the littule fat fises! I wanted the littule fat fises! I want to get out! I want to get out!” screamed the child, tugging with might and main to free her feet, and thereby only adding to the trouble above.

“Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” cried Denise. “I must get your hair free before you can move.” But the youngster was beyond all reasoning with, and, turning to Denise, shrieked at the top of her lungs: “Take that old tree away! Take it away, I say!”