“A NEW game for a rainy day!” cried Clara, clapping her hands to com-mand silence amongst the merry little group of children who, tired of active romps, now clustered around her.
“It must be a quiet one, for the little ones are out of breath with Blind-man’s Buff, and Sophy, I see, is fanning herself on the sofa. Here, Tom and Felix, draw in chairs to form a circle; the two footstools will do ni-cely for Jessie and Minnie—little seats will suit little people. Tall Phil, you may perch on the music-stool, and look down on us all, if you like it.”
The circle of children was soon formed, all waiting till Clara should tell them how to begin their new game.
Clara took a rich red rose from a vase which stood near. “I am going to ask a question,” said she, “and to the one who shall offer the best rea-son for his or her answer, the rose shall be given as a prize.”
Tom, a merry rosy-cheeked boy, laughed as he stooped and whispered to his next neighbour, Annie. “If the rose were to be won by giving a long jump, or a hard pull, or a good knockdown blow, I’d have a chan-ce,” said he; “but you could wring out butter from a broom-stick soo-ner than a rhyme or a reason from me.”
“Let’s hear the question,” cried Phil.
“If you were to be changed into a bird, what bird would you choose to become?” asked Clara.
“An eagle,” shouted out Master Tom.
“Your reason?” inquired the young lady.
“Well,” drawled out the boy, “suppose because he is the biggest and strongest of birds, and able to whack all the rest.”
“The eagle is neither the biggest nor the strongest of birds,” cried Phil. “The ostrich, condor, and albatross are all larger, and some more powerful than the eagle.”
Tom shrugged his shoulders and shook his head; had he not been fon-der of boxing than of books, he might have said that the huge condor, being a vulture, is of the same order, and therefore may be called first cousin to the eagle.
“Jessie, dear, what would you be?” asked Clara of the smallest child in the room.
“I’d be a hummingbird,” lisped Jessie, “’cause it’s the prettiest of all ‘itt-le birds.”
“Pretty, yes,” observed Annie, her sister; “but I think that its prettiness is rather an evil to it than a good. If you were a hummingbird, Jessie, you would very likely be caught, killed, and stuffed for the sake of your beauty.”
“And what says our little Minnie?” inquired Clara of a plump, fair, flaxen-haired child who sat on a footstool next to Jessie, with her arm round her young companion.
“I’d be a beauty swan, swimming about amongst the lilies, under the shady trees,” said the child, who had admired the swan and his mate, with their little cygnets, floating on the lake, as she had seen them that morning.
“Give us your reason,” said Clara.
“I like paddling about in the water, it’s so nice,” was the simple reply.
“Ay, you would like it in summer,” cried Phil, “when the lilies are in flower, and the trees in leaf. But I know a little lady who in winter does not care to stir off the hearth-rug, and is ready to cry if sent out into the cold. She would not then care to be a swan, and paddle about on the ice.”
“I’d rather be a swallow,” cried Felix, “and escape altogether from win-ter with its frosts and its snows. A life of active pleasure, not of lazy en-joyment, for me! I like to travel and see distant lands and what fun it would be just to spread one’s wings and be off for France, Italy, or Al-giers, without any trouble of packing a trunk, with nothing heavier to carry than feathers, and no railway tickets to pay for, or bills at hotels on the way!”
“Were you a swallow, you’d have a bill wherever you flew,” laughed Phil.
“Oh! A precious light one,” said Felix gaily.
“As for me, I’d prefer the life of a lark,” cried Phil. “I’d sooner mount high than fly far; and I’d like to whistle my song from the clouds. To my mind, the little sky-lark is the merriest bird under the sun.”
“If you were to be changed into a bird, Sophy, what bird would you be?” asked Clara of a rather affected little girl, who sat twirling the bead bra-celet which she wore on her arm.
Sophy drooped her head a little on one side, as if it rather troubled her to give an opinion,—and she thought herself too much of a fine lady to join in so childish a game. She glanced up, however, at the splendid ro-se which Clara held in her hand, and thinking that it would look very pretty in her own hair, prepared to answer the question.
“What bird would you be?” repeated the boys, who were growing a little impatient.
“The nightingale,” said Sophy in an affected tone, again looking down, and twirling her beads.
“You must give your reason for your choice,” observed Clara.
“Every one admires the nightingale’s sweet notes,” said Sophy, glan-cing up at the rose.
“Oh, ho! There’s a fine reason!” laughed Phil. “I’d sing like the lark in the joy of my heart, with the sunshine about me; but Sophy would sing for other folk to admire her trills and her shakes, and cry out, ‘I never he-ard anything so fine!’”
Sophy looked vexed at the remark, for Phil had hit on her weakness; the vanity which is always seeking for praise. Clara, who liked all to be peace and good-humour, turned at once the attention of the little party in another direction, by addressing Annie, the only one of the circle who had not yet been questioned.
“What bird would you be, dear?” asked she.
“I think, an eider-duck,” replied Annie.
Her answer was received with a burst of laughter.
“A duck—to dabble in mud, and gobble up snails and frogs!” cried Phil.
“Or be gobbled up itself, with green pease, and admired as a very nice bird!” exclaimed Felix.
“Ducks are very pretty—almost as pretty as swans,” lisped little Jessie, who did not like her sister to be laughed at.
“I do not think that eider-ducks are pretty,” said Annie; “I did not choo-se the bird for its beauty.”
“You have not given us a reason for your choice yet,” observed Clara.
“I think the eider-ducks useful,” said Annie; “the delightful quilt, so light yet so warm, which has been such a comfort to mamma in her illness, was made from their down. But my chief reason for liking the bird is its unselfishness. You remember, Jessie,” added Annie, addressing her sister, “what mamma told us about the eider-ducks that are found in Scotland, Norway, and Iceland?”
“Oh yes; I know all about them!” cried Jessie. “The good mother duck pulls off the down from her own breast to line her nest, and make it soft and warm for her baby ducklings; and when people steal away the down, she pulls more and more, till she leaves herself bare,—and then her husband, the drake, gives his nice down to help her.”
“When mamma told me all this,” said Annie, “it reminded me of the beautiful story of the Highland mother who was overtaken by a terrible snowstorm, as she travelled with her babe in her arms. The mother stripped off her shawl, as the duck does her down, and wrapped it clo-se—oh, so close!—round her child, and hid him in a cleft in a rock. The baby, wrapped in his mother’s shawl, was found alive where she had left him; but the poor woman—the loving woman—” Annie’s voice failed her, and she did not finish the touching tale of the mother who peris-hed in the cold from which she had guarded her child.
“Now let us compare the various reasons which have been given for choosing different birds,” said Clara, “that we may decide upon which is the best one. The eagle was chosen for size and strength, the little hummingbird for beauty; one liked the swan’s life of easy enjoyment, another the swallow’s of active amusement. The lark was chosen for cheerfulness, the nightingale for the admiration which he gains, the ei-der-duck for the unselfishness which she shows. Now which of our little party has given the best reason for a choice?”
“Annie! Annie!” cried most of the children—though Sophy murmured something about “an ugly waddling creature that can say nothing but ‘quack!’”
“Then I think that we agree that Annie has won the rose,” said Clara.
And if, before the day was over, that sweet rose found its way to a chamber of sickness, and was laid on an eider-down quilt within reach of a lady’s thin hand, the reader will easily guess how it came there. Annie was one not only to admire but to imitate the unselfishness of the bird that finds its pleasure in caring for the comfort of others, ins-tead of seeking its own.
