My Young Days

My Young Days

The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Young Days, by Anonymous
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Title: My Young Days
Author: Anonymous
Illustrator: Paul Konewka
Release Date: April 22, 2006 [EBook #18226]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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YOUNG DAYS ***

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[Illustration: TAKE MINE!]
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MY YOUNG DAYS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "EVENING AMUSEMENT," "LETTERS
EVERYWHERE," ETC., ETC.
WITH TWENTY ILLUSTRATIONS BY PAUL KONEWKA.
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO., 713, BROADWAY. LONDON:
SEELEY, JACKSON, & HALLIDAY. 1872.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE MITTENS.]
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CONTENTS.
PAGE
I.--HOME SICKNESS 1
II.--UNCLE HUGH'S STORY 10
III.--THE LITTLE STOWAWAY 21
IV.--MY HOME, AND WHAT IT IS LIKE 33
V.--LITTLE COUSINS 46
VI.--WHAT ABOUT LESSONS 59
VII.--HURRAH FOR THE HOLIDAYS! 76
VIII.--THE COTTAGE ON THE CLIFF 90
IX.--SUSETTE AND HER TROUBLES 108
X.--AUTUMN DAYS 123

XI.--GOOD-BYE TO BEECHAM 137
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MY YOUNG DAYS.

I.
HOME SICKNESS.
"I want to go home!"
How many times in my life, I wonder, have these words come rushing
up from the very bottom of my heart, tumbling everything out of the
way, never listening to reason, never stopping for thought? How many
times since that dreary afternoon in the great, big drawing-room at
grandmamma's? And, oh dear me! what miserable heartache comes
before that fearful want! Oh, grown-up people, don't you know how
sour everything tastes, and how yellow everything looks, and how sick
everything makes one, when one wants to go home?
So it was that one wretched day. How well I remember it all! The large,
large drawing-room so full of cushions, couches, easy-chairs, little
tables covered with funny knick-knacks, marble-slabs and more
knick-knacks, beautiful fire-screens, large mirrors, soft fur lying about
on the floor, and many-coloured antimacassars on the chairs. By and by,
all these wonders had happy memories pinned on to them, of
uproarious games with merry little play-fellows. Now, I was all alone,
and very lonely, in it all. True, there was grandmamma nodding in her
easy-chair, in the firelight, on one side, and there was Uncle Hugh
reading the "Times" by the same light on the other. But what were
either of them to the little tired stranger on the low stool between them?
Once grandmamma's eyes had opened just to look at me, and say,
"Making pretty pictures of the red coals, my dearie?"
And Uncle Hugh had answered, "Yes, to be sure; dreaming of the King
of Salamanders!"

And they went to sleep again or went on reading, and the little
company smile faded away from my face, and I went back to those
very real dreams of the nursery at home, and baby there, and little
brother, and papa and mamma, and the long time ago, hours and hours
ago! when I said good-bye, and Bobbie kissed his hand out of window,
and the carriage took me off--a happy little woman, really going in the
puff-puff! Oh, how could I ever have felt so happy then and be so
miserable now? Had I ever thought that I was coming away from them
all, with nobody at all but Jane, the new nursemaid, to take care of me?
Had I ever thought how quite alone I should be, never able to find my
way in this great, big house, sure to get lost in some of the passages?
And how could I ever go to sleep without Bobbie close by, and
wouldn't Bobbie cry for me at home? And oh, nurse wouldn't be there
to tuck me up, and perhaps grandmamma wouldn't like the candle left!
And who would give me my good-night kiss like,--like,--oh, oh,
like----But it would come, that great big sob, it wasn't any use to choke
it back! And, when it had come, of course, it was all over with me, and
there was nothing for it but to cry out just as if I was not in that grand
drawing-room--
"I want to go home! I want, oh, I do want mamma!"
What a disturbance that cry of mine did make, to be sure!
Grandmamma was wide-awake in a moment, looking very much
distressed, and laying her hand on the bell. This troubled me very much;
for hadn't Jane told me when she brushed my hair and made me tidy,
that I was to go down and be a good girl, "and do things pretty" in the