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Charlotte M. Yonge >> Little Lucy's Wonderful Globe
Produced by Doug Levy
LITTLE LUCY'S WONDERFUL GLOBE
by Charlotte M. Yonge
"Young fingers idly roll
The mimic earth or trace
In picture bright of blue and gold
Each other circling chase"--KEBLE
CONTENTS.
Chapter I. Mother Bunch.
Chapter II. Visitors from the South Seas.
Chapter III. Italy.
Chapter IV. Greenland.
Chapter V. Tyrol.
Chapter VI. Africa.
Chapter VII. Laplanders.
Chapter VIII. China.
Chapter IX. Kamschatka.
Chapter X. The Turk.
Chapter XI. Switzerland.
Chapter XII. The Cossack.
Chapter XIII. Spain.
Chapter XIV. Germany.
Chapter XV. Paris in the Siege.
Chapter XVI. The American Guest.
Chapter XVII. The Dream of all Nations.
LITTLE LUCY'S WONDERFUL GLOBE
CHAPTER I. MOTHER BUNCH.
There was once a wonderful fortnight in little Lucy's life. One
evening she went to bed very tired and cross and hot, and in the
morning when she looked at her arms and legs they were all covered
with red spots, rather pretty to look at, only they were dry and
prickly.
Nurse was frightened when she looked at them. She turned all the
little sisters out of the night nursery, covered Lucy up close, and
ordered her not to stir, certainly not to go into her bath. Then
there was a whispering and a running about, and Lucy was half
alarmed, but more pleased at being so important, for she did not
feel at all ill, and quite enjoyed the tea and toast that Nurse
brought up to her. Just as she was beginning to think it rather
tiresome to lie there with nothing to do, except to watch the flies
buzzing about, there was a step on the stairs and up came the
doctor. He was an old friend, very good-natured, and he made fun
with Lucy about having turned into a spotted leopard, just like
the cowry shell on Mrs. Bunker's mantel-piece. Indeed, he said
he thought she was such a curiosity that Mrs. Bunker would come
for her and set her up in the museum, and then he went away.
Suppose, oh, suppose she did!
Mrs. Bunker, or Mother Bunch, as Lucy and her brothers and sisters
called her, was housekeeper to their Uncle Joseph. He was really
their great uncle, and they thought him any age you can imagine.
They would not have been much surprised to hear that he sailed with
Christopher Columbus, though he was a strong, hale, active man, much
less easily tired than their own papa. He had been a ship's surgeon
in his younger days, and had sailed all over the world, and
collected all sorts of curious things, besides which he was a very
wise and learned man, and had made some great discovery. It was
_not_ America. Lucy knew that her elderly brother understood what
it was, but it was not worth troubling her head about, only somehow
it made ships go safer, and so he had had a pension given him as a
reward. He had come home and bought a house about a mile out of
town, and built up a high room from which to look at the stars with
his telescope, and to try his experiments in, and a long one besides
for his museum; yet, after all, he was not much there, for whenever
there was anything wonderful to be seen, he always went off to look
at it, and, whenever there was a meeting of learned men--scientific
men was the right word--they always wanted him to help them make
speeches and show wonders. He was away now. He had gone away to
wear a red cross on his arm, and help to take care of the wounded
in the sad war between the French and the Germans.
But he had left Mother Bunch behind him. Nobody knew exactly what
was Mrs. Bunker's nation; indeed she could hardly be said to have
any, for she had been born at sea, and had been a sailor's wife;
but whether she was mostly English, Dutch or Spanish, nobody knew
and nobody cared. Her husband had been lost at sea, and Uncle
Joseph had taken her to look after his house, and always said she
was the only woman who had sense and discretion enough ever to go
into his laboratory or dust his museum.
She was very kind and good natured, and there was nothing that the
children liked better than a walk to Uncle Joseph's, and, after a
play in the garden, tea with her. And such quantities of sugar
there were in her room! such curious cakes made in the fashion of
different countries! such funny preserves from all parts of the
world! And still more delightful, such cupboards and drawers full
of wonderful things, and such stories about them! The younger ones
liked Mrs. Bunker's room better than Uncle Joseph's museum, where
there were some big stuffed beasts with glaring eyes that frightened
them; and they had to walk round with hands behind, that they might
not touch anything, or else their uncle's voice was sure to call out
gruffly, "Paws off!"
Mrs. Bunker was not a bit like the smart house-keepers at other
houses. To be sure, on Sundays she came out in a black silk gown
with a little flounce at the bottom, a scarlet crape shawl with a
blue dragon on it--his wings over her back, and a claw over each
shoulder, so that whoever sat behind her in church was terribly
distracted by trying to see the rest of him--and a very big yellow
Tuscan bonnet, trimmed with sailor's blue ribbon.
But during the week and about the house she wore a green gown, with
a brown holland apron and bib over it, quite straight all the way
down, for she had no particular waist, and her hair, which was of
a funny kind of flaxen grey, she bundled up and tied round, without
any cap or anything else on her head. One of the little boys had
once called her Mother Bunch, because of her stories; and the name
fitted her so well that the whole family, and even Uncle Joseph,
took it up.
Lucy was very fond of her; but when about an hour after the doctor's
visit she was waked by a rustling and a lumbering on the stairs, and
presently the door opened, and the second best big bonnet--the go-
to-market bonnet with the turned ribbons--came into the room with
Mother Bunch's face under it, and the good-natured voice told her
she was to be carried to Uncle Joseph's and have oranges and
tamarinds, she did begin to feel like the spotted cowry-shell to
think about being set on the chimney-piece, to cry, and say she
wanted Mamma.
The Nurse and Mother Bunch began to comfort her, and explain that
the doctor thought she had the scarlatina; not at all badly; but
that if any of the others caught it, nobody could guess how bad they
would be; especially Mamma, who had just been ill; and so she was
to be rolled up in her blankets, and put into a carriage, and taken
to her uncle's; and there she would stay till she was not only well,
but could safely come home without carrying infection about with her.
Lucy was a good little girl, and knew that she must bear it; so,
though she could not help crying a little when she found she must
not kiss any one, nay not even see them, and that nobody might go
with her but Lonicera, her own china doll, she made up her mind
bravely; and she was a good deal cheered when Clare, the biggest
and best of all the dolls, was sent into her, with all her clothes,
by Maude, her eldest sister, to be her companion,--it was such an
honor and so very kind of Maude that it quite warmed the sad little
heart.
So Lucy had her little scarlet flannel dressing gown on, and her
shoes and stockings, and a wonderful old knitted hood with a tippet
to it, and then she was rolled round and round in all her bed-
clothes, and Mrs. Bunker took her up like a very big baby, not
letting any one else touch her. How Mrs. Bunker got safe down all
the stairs no one can tell, but she did, and into the carriage,
and there poor Lucy looked back and saw at the windows Mamma's face,
and Papa's, and Maude's and all the rest, all nodding and smiling
to her, but Maude was crying all the time, and perhaps Mamma was too.
The journey seemed very long; and Lucy was really tired when she
was put down at last in a big bed, nicely warmed for her, and with
a bright fire in the room. As soon as she had had some beef-tea,
she went off soundly to sleep and only woke to drink tea, give the
dolls their supper, and put them to sleep.
The next evening she was sitting up by the fire, and the fourth day
she was running about the house as if nothing had ever been the
matter with her, but she was not to go home for a fortnight; and
being wet, cold, dull weather, it was not always easy to amuse
herself. She had her dolls, to be sure, and the little dog Don,
to play with, and sometimes Mr. Bunker would let her make funny
things with the dough, or stone the raisins, or even help make a
pudding; but still there was a good deal of time on her hands.
She had only two books with her, and the rash had made her eyes
weak, so that she did not much like reading them. The notes that
every one wrote from home were quite enough for her. What she
liked best--that is, when Mrs. Bunker could not attend to her--was
to wander about the museum, explaining the things to the dolls:
"That is a crocodile, Lonicera; it eats people up, and has a little
bird to pick its teeth. Look, Clare, that bony thing is a skeleton
--the skeleton of a lizard. Paws off, my dear; mustn't touch.
That's amber, just like barley sugar, only not so nice; people
make necklaces of it. There's a poor little dead fly inside.
Those are the dear delightful humming-birds; look at their crests,
just like Mamma's jewels. See the shells; aren't they beauties?
People get pearls out of those great flat ones, and dive all down
to the bottom of the sea after them; mustn't touch, my dear, only
look; paws off."
One would think that Lonicera's curved fingers, all in one piece,
and Clare's blue leather hands had been very moveable and mischievous,
judging by the number of times this warning came; but of course it
was Lucy herself who wanted it most, for her own little plump, pinky
hands did almost tingle to handle and turn round those pretty shells.
She wanted to know whether the amber tasted like barley-sugar, as it
looked; and there was a little musk deer, no bigger than Don, whom
she longed to stroke, or still better to let Lonicera ride; but she
was a good little girl, and had real sense of honor, which never
betrays a trust; so she never laid a finger on anything but what
Uncle Joe had once given them leave to move.
This was a very big pair of globes--bigger than globes commonly are
now, and with more frames round them--one great flat one, with odd
names painted on it, and another brass one, nearly upright, going
half-way round from top to bottom, and with the globe hung upon it
by two pins, which Lucy's elder sisters called the poles, or the ends
of the axis. The huge round balls went very easily with a slight
touch, and there was something very charming in making them go whisk,
whisk, whisk; now faster, now slower, now spinning so quickly that
nothing on them could be seen, now turning slowly and gradually over
and showing all that was on them.
The mere twirling was quite enough for Lucy at first, but soon she
liked to look at what was on them. One she thought more entertaining
than the other. It was covered with wonderful creatures: one bear
was fastened by his long tail to the pole; another bigger one was
trotting round; a snake was coiling about anywhere; a lady stood
disconsolate against a rock; another sat in a chair; a giant sprawled
with a club in one hand and a lion's skin in the other; a big dog
and a little dog stood on their hind legs; a lion seemed* just about
to spring on a young maiden's head; and all were thickly spotted
over, just as if they had Lucy's rash, with stars big and little:
and still more strange, her brothers declared these were the stars
in the sky, and this was the way people found their road at sea;
but if Lucy asked how, they always said she was not big enough to
understand, and it had occurred to Lucy to ask whether the truth
was not that they were not big enough to explain.
The other globe was all in pale green, with pink and yellow outlines
on it, and quantities of names. Lucy had had to learn some of these
names for her geography, and she rather kept out of the way of
looking at it first, till she had really grown tired of all the odd
men and women and creatures upon the celestial sphere; but by and
by she began to roll the other by way of variety.
CHAPTER II. VISITORS FROM THE SOUTH SEAS.
"Miss Lucy, you're as quiet as a mouse. Not in any mischief?"
said Mrs. Bunker, looking into the museum; "why, what are you
doing there?"
"I'm looking at the great big globe, that Uncle Joe said I might
touch," said Lucy. "Here are all the names just like my lesson-book
at home: Europe, Africa, and America."
"Why, bless the child! where else should they be? There are all them
oceans and seas besides that I've crossed over, many's the time, with
poor Ben Bunker, who was last seen off Cape Hatteras."
"What, all these great green places, with Atlantic and Pacific on
them; you don't really mean that you've sailed over them! I should
like to make an ant do it on a sunflower seed! How could you,
Mother Bunch? You are not small enough."
"Ho! ho!" said the housekeeper, laughing; "does the child think I
sailed on that very globe there?"
"I know one learns names," said Lucy; "but is it real?"
"Real! Why, Missie, don't you see it's a sort of a picture? There's
your photograph now, it's not as big as you, but it shows you; and
so a chart, or a map, or a globe, is just a picture of the shapes
of the coast-line of the land and the sea, and the rivers in them,
and mountains, and the like. Look here!" And she made Lucy stand
on a chair and look at a map of her own town that was hanging against
the wall, showing her all the chief buildings, the churches, streets,
the town hall, and at last helping her find her own Papa's house.
When Lucy had traced all the corners she had to turn in going from
home to Uncle Joe's, and had even found little frizzles for the five
maple trees before the Parsonage, she understood that the map was
a small picture of the situation of the buildings in the town, and
thought she could find her way to some new place if she studied it
well.
Then Mrs. Bunker showed her a big map of the whole country, and there
Lucy found the river, and the roads, and the names of the villages
near, as she had seen or heard of them; and she began to understand
that a map or globe really brought distant places into an exceedingly
small picture, and that where she saw a name and a spot she was to
think of houses and churches; that a branching black line was a
flowing river full of water; a curve in, a pretty bay shut in with
rocks and hills; a point jutting out, generally a steep rock with a
lighthouse on it.
"And all these places are countries, Bunchey, are they, with fields
and houses like ours?"
"Houses, yes, and fields, but not always like ours, Miss Lucy."
"And are there little children, boys and girls, in them all?"
"To be sure there are, else how would the world go on? Why, I've
seen them by swarms, white or brown or black, running down to the
shore as soon as the vessel cast anchor; and whatever color they
were, you might be sure of two things, Miss Lucy, in which they
were all alike."
"Oh, what, Mrs. Bunker?"
"Why, in making plenty of noise, and in wanting all they could get
to eat. But they were little darlings, some of them, if I only
could have got at them to make them a bit cleaner. Some of them
looked for all the world like the little bronze images your Uncle
has got in the museum, which he brought from Italy, and they hadn't
a rag more clothing on either. They were in India. Dear, dear, to
see them tumble about in the surf!"
"Oh, what fun! what fun! I wish I could see them."
"You would be right glad, Missie, I can tell you, if you had been
three or four months aboard a vessel with nothing but dry biscuits
and salt junk, and may be a tin of preserved vegetables just to keep
it wholesome, to see the black fellows come grinning alongside with
their boats and canoes all full of oranges and limes and grape-fruit
and cocoanuts. Doesn't one's mouth fairly water for them?"
"Do please sit down, there's a good Mother Bunch, and tell me all
about them. Come, please do."
"Suppose I did, Miss Lucy, where would your poor uncle's preserved
ginger be, that no one knows from real West Indian ginger?"
"Oh, let me come into your room, and you can tell me all the time
you are doing the ginger.
"It is very hot there, Missie."
"That will be more like some of the places. I'll suppose I'm there!
Look, Mrs. Bunker! here's a whole green sea; the tiniest little dots
all over it."
"Dots? You'd hardly see all over one of those dots if you were in
one. That's the South Sea, Miss Lucy, and those are the loveliest
isles, except, may be, the West Indies, that ever I saw."
"Tell me about them, please," entreated Lucy. "Here's one; it's
name is--is Isabel--such a little wee one."
"I can't tell you much of those South Sea Isles, Missie, as I made
only one voyage among them, when Bunker chartered the _Penguin_ for
the sandalwood trade; and we did not touch at many, for the natives
were fierce and savage, and thought nothing of coming down with
arrows and spears at a boat's crew. So we only went to such islands
as the missionaries had been to, and had made the people more gentle
and civil."
"Tell me all about it," said Lucy, following the old woman hither
and thither as she bustled about, talking all the time, and stirring
her pan of ginger over the hot plate.
How it happened, it is not easy to say. The room was very warm, and
Mother Bunch went on talking as she stirred, and a steam rose up,
and by and by it seemed to Lucy that she had a great sneezing fit;
and when she looked again into the smoke, what did she see but two
little black figures, faces, heads, and feet all black, but with an
odd sort of white garment round their waists, and some fine red and
green feathers sticking out of their wooly heads.
"Mrs. Bunker, Mrs. Bunker!" she cried; "what's this? Who are these
ugly figures?"
"Ugly!" said the foremost; and though it must have been some strange
language, it sounded like English to Lucy. "Is that the way little
white girl speaks to boy and girl that have come all the way from
Isabel to see her?"
"Oh, indeed! little Isabel boy, I beg your pardon. I didn't know
you were real, nor that you could understand me! I am so glad to
see you. Hush, Don! don't bark so!"
"Pig, pig; I never heard a pig squeak like that," said the black
stranger.
"Pig! It is a little dog. Have you no dogs in your country?"
"Pigs go on four legs. That must be pig."
"What, you have nothing that goes on four legs but a pig! What do
you eat, then, besides pig?"
"Yams, cocoa-nut, fish--oh, so good, and put pig into hole among hot
stones, make a fire over, bake so nice!"
"You shall have some of my tea and see if that is as nice," said
Lucy. "What a funny dress you have; what is it made of?"
"Tapa cloth," said the little girl. "We get the bark off the tree,
and then we go hammer, hammer, thump, thump, till all the hard thick
stuff comes off;" and Lucy, looking near, saw that the substance was
really all a lacework of fibre, about as close as the net of Nurse'sb
caps.
"Is that all your clothes?" she asked.
"Yes, till I am a warrior," said the boy; "then they will tattoo my
forehead, and arms, and breast, and legs."
"Tattoo? what's that!"
"Make little holes, and lines all over the skin with a sharp shell,
and rub in juice that turns it all to blue and purple lines."
"But doesn't it hurt dreadfully?" asked Lucy.
"Hurt! to be sure it does, but that will show that I am brave. When
father comes home from the war he paints himself white."
"White?"
"With lime made by burning coral, and he jumps and dances and shouts.
I shall go to the war one of these days."
"Oh no, don't!" said Lucy, "it is horrid."
The boy laughed, but the little girl whispered, "Good white men say
so. Some day Lavo will go and learn, and leave off fighting."
Lavo shook his head. "No, not yet; I will be brave chief and warrior
first,--bring home many heads of enemies."
"I--I think it nice to be quiet," said Lucy; "and--and--won't you
have some dinner?"
"Have you baked a pig?" asked Lavo.
"I think this is mutton," said Lucy, when the dish came up,--"It is
sheep's flesh."
Lavo and his sister had no notion what sheep were. They wanted to
sit cross-legged on the floor, but Lucy made each of them sit in a
chair properly; but then they shocked her by picking up the mutton-
chops and stuffing them into their mouths with their fingers.
"Look here!" and she showed the knives and forks.
"Oh!" cried Lavo, "what good spikes to catch fish with! and knife--
knife--I'll kill foes! much better than shell knife."
"And I'll dig yams," said the sister.
"Oh, no!" entreated Lucy, "we have spades to dig with, soldiers have
swords to fight with; these are to eat with."
"I can eat much better without," said Lavo; but to please Lucy his
sister did try; slashing hard away with her knife, and digging her
fork straight into a bit of meat. Then she very nearly ran it into
her eye, and Lucy, who knew it was not good manners to laugh, was
very near choking herself. And at last saying the knife and fork
were "Great good--great good; but none for eating," they stuck them
through the great tortoise shell rings they had in their ears and
noses. Lucy was distressed about Uncle Joseph's knives and forks,
which she knew she ought not to give away; but while she was looking
about for Mrs. Bunker to interfere, Don seemed to think it his
business and began to growl and fly at the little black legs.
"A tree, a tree!" cried the Isabelites, "where's a tree?" And while
they spoke, Lavo had climbed up the side of the door, and was sitting
astride on the top of it, grinning down at the dog; and his sister
had her feet on the lock, going up after him.
"Tree houses," they cried; "there we are safe from our enemies."
And Lucy found rising before her, instead of her own nursery, a huge
tree, on the top of a mound. Basket-work had been woven between the
branches to make floors, and on these were huts of bamboo cane; there
were ladders hanging down made of strong creepers twisted together,
and above and around, the cries of cockatoos and parrots and the
chirp of grasshoppers rang in her ears. She laid hold of the ladder
of creeping plants and began to climb, but soon her head swam, she
grew giddy, and called out to Lavo to help her. Then suddenly she
found herself curled up in Mrs. Bunker's big beehive chair, and she
wondered whether she had been asleep.
CHAPTER III. ITALY.
"If I could have such another funny dream!" said Lucy. "Mother
Bunch, have you ever been to Italy?" and she put her finger on the
long leg and foot, kicking at three-cornered Sicily.
"Yes, Missie, that I have; come out of this cold room and I'll
tell you."
Lucy was soon curled in her chair; but no, she wasn't! She was
under a blue, blue sky, as she had never dreamt of; clear, sharp,
purple hills rose up against it. There was a rippling little
fountain, bursting out of a rock, carved with old, old carvings,
broken now and defaced, but shadowed over by lovely maidenhair fern
and trailing bindweed; and in a niche above a little roof, a figure
of the Blessed Virgin. Some way off stood a long, low house propped
up against the rich yellow stone walls and pillars of another old,
old building, and with a great chestnut-tree shadowing it. It had
a balcony, and the gable end was open, and full of big yellow
pumpkins and clusters of grapes hung up to dry; and some goats
were feeding round.
Then came a merry, merry voice singing something about _la vendemmia_;
and though Lucy had never learnt Italian, her wonderful dream
knowledge made her sure that this meant the vintage, the grape-
gathering. Presently there came along a youth playing a violin and
a little girl singing. And a whole party of other children, all
loaded with as many grapes as they could carry, came leaping and
singing after them; their black hair loose, or sometimes twisted
with vine-leaves; their big black eyes dancing with merriment, and
their bare, brown legs with glee.
"Ah! Cecco, Cecco! cried the little girl, pausing as she beat her
tambourine, "here's a stranger who has no grapes; bring them here!"
"But," said Lucy, "aren't they your mamma's grapes; may you give
them away?"
"Ah, ah! 'tis the _vendemmia!_ all may eat grapes; as much as they
will. See, there's the vineyard."
Lucy saw on the slope of the hill above the cottage long poles such
as hops grow upon, and clusters hanging down. Men in shady, battered
hats, bright sashes and braces, and white shirt sleeves, and women
with handkerchiefs folded square over their heads, were cutting the
grapes down, and piling them up in baskets; and a low cart drawn by
two mouse-colored oxen, with enormous wide horns and gentle-looking
eyes, was waiting to be loaded with baskets.
"To the wine-press! to the press!" shouted the children, who were
politeness itself and wanted to show her everything.