You are here
قراءة كتاب Mary
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
saying anything that she liked was “a good plan.” She stood staring with all her eyes as the nurse cleverly lifted baby out of the cot and laid her on her knee in a comfortable way, so that she left off crying. But her eyes were still open, and Mary came close to look at them.
“Is her going to stay awake now?” she said. “Perhaps she will, for a little while,” said the nurse. “But such very tiny babies like to sleep a great deal.”
Mary stood quite still. She felt as if she could stay there all day just looking at the baby—every moment she found out some new wonder about her.
“Her’s got ears,” she said at last.
“Of course she has,” said the strange nurse. “You wouldn’t like her to be deaf?”
“Baby,” said Mary, but baby took no notice.
“Her it deaf,” she went on, looking very disappointed. “Her doesn’t look at me when I call her.”
“No, my dear,” said the nurse. “She hasn’t learnt yet to understand. It will take a good while. You will have to be very patient. Little babies have a great, great deal to learn when they first come into this world. Just think what a great many things you have learnt yourself since you were a baby, Miss Mary.”
Mary looked at her. She had never thought of this.
“I wasn’t never so little, was I?” she said.
“Yes, quite as little. And you couldn’t speak, or stand, or walk, or do anything except what this little baby does.”
This was very strange to think of. Mary thought about it for a moment or two without speaking. Then she was just going to ask some more questions, when she heard her father’s voice.
“Mary,” he said, “mamma is awake and you may come in and get a birthday kiss. Leigh and Artie are waiting for you to have the first kiss as you’re the queen of the day.”
“I’d like there to be two queens,” said Mary, as she trotted across to her father. “’Cos of baby coming on my birfday. When will her have a birfday of hers own?” she went on, stopping short on her way when this thought came into her head.
Her father laughed as he picked her up.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a whole year for that,” he said. “Next year, if all’s well, your birthday and baby’s will come together.”
“Oh, that will be nice,” said Mary, but then for a minute or two she forgot all about baby, as her father lifted her on to her mother’s bed to get the birthday kiss waiting for her.
“My pet,” said her mother, “are you pleased with your presents, and are you having a happy day?” Mary put up her little hand and stroked her mother’s forehead, on which some little curls of pretty brown were falling.
“Mamma dear,” she said, “your hair isn’t very tidy. Shall I call Larkin to brush it smoove?” and she began to scramble off the bed to go to fetch the maid.
“What a little fidget you are,” said her mother. “Never mind about my hair. I want you to tell me what you think of your little sister.”
“I think her sweet,” said Mary. “And her curls is somefin like yours, mamma. But Leigh says hers like little ducks, and Artie says hers like a pink monkey.”
Mamma began to laugh at this, quite loud. But just then the nurse put her head in at the door.
“Baby’s opening her eyes so wide, Miss Mary,” she said. “Do come and look at her, and you, Master Leigh and Master Artie too. You shall come and see your mamma again in the afternoon.”
So they all three went back into the other room to have another look at baby.
“I say, children,” called their father after them. “We’ve got to fix what baby’s to be called. It’ll take a lot of thinking about, so you must set your wits to work, and tell me to-morrow what name you like best.”
Chapter Four.
Babies.
There was plenty to think of all that day. Mary’s little head had never been so full, and before bedtime came she began to feel quite sleepy.
It had been a very happy day, even though everything seemed rather strange. Their father would have liked to stay with them, but he was obliged to go away. Nurse—I mean Artie’s and Mary’s own nurse—was very good to them, and so were cook and all the other servants. The birthday dinner was just what Mary liked—roast chicken and bread-sauce and little squirly rolls of bacon, and a sponge-cake pudding with strawberry jam. And there was a very nice tea, too; the only pity was that baby could not have any of the good things, because, as nurse explained, she had no teeth.
“She’ll have some by next birthday, won’t she?” asked Leigh.
“I hope so, poor dear,” said nurse, “though she’ll scarcely be able to eat roast chicken by then.”
“Why do you say ‘poor dear’?” asked Leigh.
“Because their teeth coming often hurts babies a good deal,” said nurse.
“It would be much better if they were all ready,” said Leigh. “I don’t see why they shouldn’t be. Baby’s got hands and eyes and everything else—why shouldn’t she have teeth?”
“I’m sure I can’t say, Master Leigh,” nurse answered. “There’s many things we can’t explain.”
Mary opened her mouth wide and began tugging at her own little white teeth.
“Them doesn’t hurt me,” she said.
“Ah but they did, Miss Mary,” said nurse. “Many a night you couldn’t sleep for crying with the pain of them, but you can’t remember it.”
“It’s very funny,” said Mary.
“What’s funny?” asked Leigh.
“About ’amembering,” answered Mary, and a puzzled look came into her face. “Can you ’amember when you was a tiny baby, nurse?”
“No, my dear, nobody can,” said nurse. “But don’t worry yourself about understanding things of that kind.”
“There’s somefin in my head now that I can’t ’amember,” said Mary, “somefin papa said. It’s that that’s teasing me, nurse. I don’t like to not ’amember what papa said.”
“You must ask him to-morrow, dearie,” nurse answered. “You’ll give yourself a headache if you go on trying too hard to remember.”
“Isn’t it funny how things go out of our minds like that?” said Leigh. “I’ll tell you what I think it is. I think our minds are like cupboards or chests of drawers, and some of the things get poked very far back so that we can’t get at them when we want them. You see the newest things are at the front, that’s how we can remember things that have just happened and not things long ago.”
“No,” said Artie, “’tisn’t quite like that, Leigh. For I can remember what we had for dinner on my birthday, and that was very long ago, before last winter, much better than what we had for dinner one day last week.”
“I can tell you how that is,” said nurse, “what you had for dinner on your birthday made a mark on your mind because it was your birthday. Everything makes marks on our minds, I suppose, but some go deeper than others. That’s